The Lifeboat Exercise For Marketing Executives*

The author compares the advantages of the qualitative forensic interview with qualitative market research techniques. Parallels and differences are shown, leading to the conclusion that marketing research has not exploited the power of the one-on-one forensic interview. For example, findings of creative market research techniques are not directly linked to the conclusions drawn from them. Without that direct linkage, the market research team is left to intuition, free association and guesswork about how to connect the findings to the decisions that must be made from them. Language in an interview is a better source for understanding a consumer’s decision making process. This is because projection within the context of the interview language is in context of the interview’s immediate frames of reference. Market researchers can improve effectiveness by learning that effectively formed questions and patterns of questioning reveal enormous amounts of