Scalable, Projectable Depth Interviews at Lightning Speed
"Check the box if you agree." "What number one to ten represents your view?" These are traditional research questions asked by telephone, mail or an interviewer intercepting mall shoppers. For decades we had to make do. Slow, stiff, expensive. And lacking in insight and nuance. Statistics substituted for subtlety. The Internet? Vendors just moved paper and pencil check-boxes and number scales from a sheet of paper to a computer screen. They still use the word, "surveys."
Now there is something completely new in Marketing Intelligence. Linescale uses the power of the computer to act as your Marketing Intelligence Agent. Linescale gives you speed, insight, nuance and quantitative answers at a level previously unavailable.
Linescale is one of the very few methodologies that fully use the breadth, speed and interactivity of the Internet. Linescale was built to replicate a skilled depth interviewer working one-on-one in costly but probing conversational depth with respondents. Linescale uses the power of the computer to act as your A.I. agent with your customers and prospects. This in-depth conversation gives powerful feedback to the marketer to improve the concept, product, positioning, marketing message or ad. Linescale not only exposes which alternatives fare better but provides detailed verbatims as to why they do score better, affording the marketer the necessary differention points for plans and tactics. The combination of affordability, rapid response (and ability to iterate), and baked in logic of the interview (better words) make the research a lot more actionable and therefore more valuable.
Linescale was developed by sophisticated product developers to build and convert huge consumer enterprises such as Citibank and the United States Post Office. Linescale is very, very affordable, lightning fast and yields the highest levels of insight coupled with projectable statistical validity and reliability.
Here's how it works:
Linescale, like a seasoned depth interviewer, acts as your agent. Your agent listens to the respondent, replays their responses - and meanings, and gets confirmation. Respondents feel listened to, and go on to explain why they rate things as they do, revealing their true feelings and motivations. All this is recorded and reported real-time. Rich verbatim responses are recorded and organized for each respondent. Quantitatively, in addition to paired head to head preferences of all items and numeric ratings, respondents preferences and choices are graphically displayed as they were rated. A picture is worth many words, and Linescale provides both.
Linescale offers improved Reliability and improved Discrimination.
Improved reliability allows valid responses from far fewer respondents than traditional five, seven or ten point scales. While inexpensive and fast enough to acquire as many respondents as desired, Linescale stabilizes at far fewer respondents than typical surveys.
Reliability means "If you ask it again will you get the same answer?" Linescale's reliability comes from two sources:
1. Linescale eliminates much of the "noise" stemming from individual differences. Some people (or cultures) tend to rate items high, others low, others in the middle. This requires larger numbers of respondents to "wash out" those differences. Linescale corrects for this problem by "allowing" each respondent to anchor the scale with his current personal favorites. This gives the scale "personal meaning" for the individual as well as providing valid benchmarks for test items.
2. Linescale uses rank ordering, or ordinal values, to calculate paired relationships as well as for scoring products, brands and concepts. People may disagree on exactly how tall three people are, but they can accurately report who is taller than whom. This rank ordering is another key to Linescale validity. Items are rated in relationship to other items, thus providing far greater reliability than metric ratings alone.
Linescale also provides better discrimination than number scale ratings
Linescale uses a continuous scale which allows reliable yet nuanced responses and accounts for individual differences. Each respondent "anchors" the Linescale by rating their favorite alternatives - whether a brand, product or Presidential candidate, a home remedy, current practice or lack of one. Each respondent creates their own scale.
Three items may all be "a seven" on a ten point scale, but one may still be preferred to another. Linescale measures the rank orders as well as the scale numbers. Thus we can know what the relative preferences are for three, four or a dozen similar items. If most people agree that A is slightly better than B, A is probably going to win over B as time unfolds.
Users of Linescale pre and post-Internet
Aetna Insurance
Airborne Products
Cadbury Schweppes
Chase Manhattan Bank
Citibank
Citicorp
FreshDirect
Jenny Craig
Lenox Hill Hospital
Lincoln Center
Marriott Hotels and Resorts
Maxwell House Coffee
Mid-Ocean Partners
Murray Hill Focus Group Centers
Pitney Bowes
Post Cereal
Priceline.com
Siegel + Gale
Underoos
United States Post Office
Walmart.com