Running head: IN-DEPTH INTERVIEWS
Based on the research onion, a strategy had to be identified which effectively matches with the study objectives under this. Therefore, an in-depth interview approach was adopted as the means of data collection (Gill,2014). The study was meant to show the relationship between advertisement timing and its effectiveness regarding the marketing objectives. The study sought to achieve variability in the responses gathered, and for this reason, therefore, a suitable sample population was identified as respondents for the study.
Each contribution to the study was paramount which justifies the selection of in-depth interview approach. The use of in-depth interview approach will enable the researcher to acquire more insightful information from the respondents who may not be possible to incorporate in other means such as questionnaires. The respondents were strategically selected to ensure that the ones engaged in the interview had the information needed by the researcher. Due to this, therefore, the sample selected was of high quality and were useful based on the research objectives and assumptions.
The approach enabled the researcher to avoid biased data which may be collected especially due to peer pressure as it may be the case when using focus groups. The approach, therefore, sought to receive information based on different perspectives of the respondents. The perception of every respondent, therefore, was recorded for further analyses to understand how the timing affect consumer behaviour (Ralph, Birks and Chapman,2014). Engaging in this approach enabled the researcher to rectify on their interview question through the follow-up questions which were easily modified during the interactions.
The in-depth approach, in this case, used face- face where the meetings were organised with the respondents and the researcher and research assistants. The researcher then interviewed the respondents based on the research objectives. Through the approach, the researcher was able to get more detailed information; this is because the follow-up questions asked offered an opportunity for more insights. The study data was collected through video recording as the interactive sessions were going on. Another set of data was handwritten to ensure comparison between these two sets of data (Mannay,2010). The approach was adopted since it allowed much useful information to be acquired from a small sample used. The challenge for the adoption of this study was on getting the respondents who were willing to engage in the study. The interviews are time-consuming, and therefore the respondents termed it a waste of time.
The researcher was forced in some instances use financial incentives in enticing the respondents to engage in the study. The approach of using financial incentives could have compromised the result gathered, to ensure that the information gathered were credible the financial incentives were offered after the interviews. The approach consumed so much time and almost affected the timescale set for the entire study. Another challenge witnessed was acquiring qualified research assistant to help in the study (Bjørnholt and Farstad, 2012). Qualified research personnel were required for the study to ensure that the interviews were well coordinated and the rights insights gathered from the respondents.
The selection of respondents was more time consuming since the researcher had to ensure that the selected respondent sample was viable for the study. Factors such as gender rations were also considered to avoid biases in the results collected. Through this approach, the data collection process became costlier both regarding finances and also the time consumed. The researcher thus had to overstretch the research budget to accommodate the new expenses such as the training of the research assistants. Secondary sources of data were also considered in this study, where previous advertisement reports from different companies were considered. The considered reports had mainly been used during the month of Ramadan. The results from the secondary sources were analysed, verified, and then adopted for the study (Babbie and Earl 2014)
References
Babbie, Earl (2014). The Basics of Social Research (Sixth Ed.). Belmont, California: Wadsworth Cengage. pp. 303–04
Bjørnholt, M; Farstad, G.R. (2012). Am I rambling on the advantages of interviewing couples together? Qualitative Research. 14 (1): 3–19
Gill, M. J. (2014). The Possibilities of Phenomenology for Organizational Research. Organizational Research Methods, 17:2, 118-137.
Mannay, D. (2010). “Making the familiar strange: Can visual research methods render the familiar setting more perceptible? Qualitative Research. 10 (1): 91–111
Ralph, N.; Birks, M.; Chapman, Y. (2014). Contextual Positioning: Using Documents as Extant Data in Grounded Theory Research. SAGE Open. 4 (3).