Market Research in Asia using the Disposable Camera Technique

Disposable Cameras provide a versatile and cheap tool to generate rich snapshots of consumer behaviour in Asian consumer markets

The ubiquitous disposable camera, purchasable from thousands of convenience, departmental, and speciality stores throughout Asia, can be a key tool in your consumer research arsenal.

As we have argued elsewhere, structured observational research is a key option for research in Asia, as it focuses on directly observing the behaviour of consumers, rather than relying on second hand, or recalled events, which are subject to biases and random error due to memory effects, personal interpretation and other problems associated with self-report measures.

Providing a disposable camera either to field research staff or directly to subjects or respondants to "capture" pictures of others behaving naturally on their environment can provide advertisers, brand managers, market researchers, and product developers with clues on consumer behaviour they may not be able to pick up using other methods.

The technique has many uses, some of which include:

• While many departmental or supermarkets disallow it, photographing retail displays and shoppers interacting with them can provide clues on the appeal and comparative attraction of a display or related deplays.
• Focus group participants can be asked to take snapshots of their friends enjoying drinks at their favourite bar before turning up to the interview, providing in-situe depictions of natural behaviour. This can provide clues to advertisers on depicting "real" and natural settings and behaviour in their advertising, especially when they are targeting a new market and culture. A picture is worth a thousand words, so it can also impart the "feel" of a situation.
• Product-in-use: Disposable camera pictures of consumers handling products can provide clues on how a product is being used differently among different consumer groups.
• Pictures can also provide direct portrayals of product use among those who would have more difficulty in providing verbal descriptions of their behaviour, such as children, the sick or aged, or those speaking a different primary language.

The Disposable Camera technique can best be used in situations where product usability of product-in-use is of major interest, to provide depictions of natural behaviour to creative artists at advertising agencies, and to stimulate discussion in focus groups on product use and relevance of settings. It is a key qualitative research technique, providing rich in-depth data usually untapped by other verbal or quantitative research techniques.