MOTIVATION RESEARCH TECHNIQUE

Introduction:
Interest in consumer attitude measurement now seems to be at an all- time peak. A
knowledge of attitudes helps the marketer predict consumer reactions to products
and to advertising messages.

Motivation Research “is a term used to describe the application

of psychiatric and psychological techniques to obtain a better understanding of
why people respond as they do with products, advertisements and various other
marketing situations.”

Motivation Research attempts to gather information

buried in the unconscious mind of the consumer.

Nature Of Motivation Research

The biggest problem in Motivation Research is that direct approaches generally do
no work. The researcher cannot simply go up to a consumer and ask him why he
prefers one product brand over another and expect to get a correct answer. It may
be due to three reasons:

1)The consumer does not know the “why” of purchase: Consumers are
generally unaware of there own “true” reasons for specific brands and product
selections. We can conclude that people have brand loyal not to a specific taste but
to specific image of its manufacturer.

2)The consumer will not tell about their purchase: It can be assumed that a
significant amount of deliberate misrepresentation will occur at any time the
subject area is either morally sensitive or status related.
3)The consumers may put forward illogical reasons for their purchase: The
reason for consumer preferences are seldom logical. The researcher who
approaches the respondent in a direct logical and straight forward manner will
often obtain very misleading answers.

Elements of motivation research:

1)Attitude research:- Attitudes are assumed as the predictors of human behavior.
Consumers are believed to have stable sets of attitudes. The stable set of attitude
towards a product brand may be favourable or unfavourable. The set of attitudes
can be changed by forming advertising appeals carefully aimed at a particular
market segment. Repeated soundings through advertising appeals are required to
maintain a favourableness in the consumers attitudes. They buy the high priced
product on the assumption that high price is evidence of high quality.

2)Assumptions:- Consumers have “frames of reference” formed out of the

information gathered form their experience. They try to fit things in the frame of
reference. If they do not fit they reject the things. Many of these reference points
are subconscious mind.

3)Sensations:- Sensations may be defined as the reaction of mind to either a

mental or physical stimulus. Technically a sensation has to do with a bodily
response to a stimulus, while an emotion (such as love, hate and fear) is the
reaction of the mind resulting from the bodily response. The word feeling describes
what is felt by both body and mind.

4)Images:- Images are defined as the mental pictures that are formed as aresult of
stimuli. They are strictly tied to stimuli. Consumers develop some imges about the
product . The brand image can be changed over aperiod of time by the
advertisements and other sales efforts for the brand.
5)Motives:- Motive is one of the more impelling determinants of a persons action.
Motive is , in other words , a need, want, drive or urge in the mind of an individual.

Number of Motivation research techniques

There are four techniques of conducting motivation research as given
below:-
Motivation research techniques

 Non-disguised-structured techniques

 Non-disguised non-structured techniques

 Disguised-non-structured techniques

 Disguised structured techniques

Non-disguised structured techniques:-

This approach employs a standardized questionnaire to collect data on
beliefs, feelings, and

Non-disguised structured Technique

This approach employs a standardized questionnaire to collect data on
belief, feelings, and attitudes from the respondent.
Nothing about the purpose of the study is concealed from the respondent
Different methods under this are:
Single question method
Multiple-question method
Physiological tests
Non-disguised structured Technique
Single question method
The respondent is required to give one answer selected from various choices
given to them.
Ex. Which one of the following responses best describe your feelings about
X brand of product?
I think it is an excellent product
I think it is a very good product
I think it is a good product
I think it is a poor product
I think it is a very poor product

Non-disguised structured Technique

Demerits of single-question method Subject-matter being specific it is
difficult to construct meaningful categories Specified alternative answer may
force the respondents to express an attitude which he does not hold Semantic
difficulties are likely to be accentuated because answers are limited to fixed
alternatives which may not exhibit a clear meaning of the respondent There
is no way to determine how much one person differs in terms of
“favourableness” or “unfavourableness”

Non-disguised structured Technique

1)Multiple question method

In this method a number of questions are asked about the attitudes and total
score from all the questions responses give the score or total attitude of the
respondent
2)Physiological tests
Various laboratory tests such as galvanic skin response, eye movement, and
pupil dilation are used to measure one’s attitude
Non-disguised non-structured techniques

1)In this technique questions are not predetermined and the purpose of the
study is revealed fully to the respondent.

2)The techniques are also called depth interviews, clinical interviews,

unstructured interviews and soon.

3)Respondent’s response obtained through this technique are spontaneous,

highly specific and concrete and are self revealing. Demerit: data obtined are
qualitative and ambiguous

Disguised non-structured techniques

1.Purpose of the study is not revealed.

2.Main projective techniques are
o Word association test
o Thematic appreciation test
o Sentence completion test

Word association test

There are a number of ways of using word association tests:
A list of words or phrases can be presented in random order to
respondents, who are requested to state or write the word or phrase that pops
into their mind;
Respondents are asked for what word or phrase comes to mind
immediately upon hearing certain brand names;
Similarly, respondents can be asked about slogans and what they suggest;
Respondents are asked to describe an inanimate object or product by
giving it "human characteristics" or associating descriptive adjectives with it
Word association test

Example: a group of tourism professionals working on establishing a

strategic marketing plan for their community were asked to come up with
personality traits or "human characteristics" for the villages as
well as the cities within their area:
Villages Cities
Serene Brash
Conservative Rushed
Quaint Liberal
Friendly Modern
Accessible Cold
Reliable

Most of the tourism industry representatives came from the cities and
had strongly argued that the urban areas had historically been
neglected in promotional campaigns. As a result of this and other
exercises, they came to the realization that the rural areas were a strong
feature of the overall attractiveness of the destination and needed to be
featured as key elements in any marketing campaign.

Thematic Apperception Test

In the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), the respondents are shown one

or more pictures and asked to describe what is happening, what dialogue
might be carried on between characters and/or how the "story might
continue. For this reason, TAT is also known as the picture interpretation
technique.
Although the picture, illustration, drawing or cartoon that is used must be
interesting enough to encourage discussion, it should be vague enough not to
immediately give away what the project is about
Sentence Completion Test
In the sentence completion method, respondents are given incomplete
sentences and asked to complete the thought. These sentences are usually in
the third person and tend to be somewhat ambiguous.

For example, the following sentences would provide striking differences in

how they were completed depending on the personality of the respondent:
"A beach vacation is……………………
"Taking a holiday in the mountains is…."
"Golfing is for…"
"The average person considers skiing….."
"People who visit museums are…………"

Sentence Completion Test

Generally speaking, sentence completion tests are easier to interpret since
the answers provided will be more detailed than in a word association test.
However, their intent is also more obvious to the respondent, and could
possible result in less honest replies.
A variant of this method is the story completion test. A story in words or
pictures is given to the respondent who is then asked to complete it in his/her
own words.

Disguised structured techniques

When we are to measure those attitudes which respondents might not
readily and accurately answer, we can use this technique

Ex. To measure attitude towards management-labour relations questions like

this can be asked “average wage of workers in pre-independence period was:
i) Rs. 2,
ii) Rs. 5.
Here it can be assumed that few people know the answer. The prolabour
respondents would guess the low figure and the pro-management
respondents would guess the high figure.

Uses of Motivation Research

1)Knowledge and measurement of the true attitude of customers help in choosing
the best selling appeal for the product and the best way to represent the product in
the sales talk, and determining the appropriateness and weightage of various
promotional methods.

2)Motivation research leads to useful insights and provide inspiration to creative

person in the advertising and packing world. They will now be able to create more
effective appeals aimed at the private world of customer hopes, dreams and fears
rather than merely economic or rational appeals.

3)This means that the message content and message presentation both should be
based on research

4)Motivation research can help as in measuring changes in attitudes , thus

advertising research.

5)Knowledge and measurement of attitudes provides us with an imaginative

market segmentation tool and also enables estimating market potential of each
additional segment.
Limitations of Motivation Research
1)Cautions are required to be exercised not only in the application of these
techniques but also the resultant data should be analysed and interpreted according
to the psychologial theory.

2)Originally these techniques were developed to collect data from a single

individual over a period of time. It is not free from drawbacks while we apply
these techniques to gather data from a number of individuals.

3)The desigining and administering of these techniques need qualified and

experienced researchers. Such personnel are hardly available.

4)Generally , small samples are taken for conducting motivation research;

Generalizations if drawn on this basis are misleading.

Conclusion:
Despite these limitations, the motivation research has become a very significant
part of marketing research. More and more researchers are making use of
motivation techniques for research. It is expected that motivation research
techniques will be widely used in the coming decades and help to solve the time
old problems of marketers that , why consumers behave as they do. It may be
predicted that motivation research techniques would comparatively used more than
any other research technique.