Our Strengths
Specializing in Qualitative Research
What Fem Marketing House is good at is qualitative research. Or rather, we are a research agency dedicated to this particular field. Therefore, we can deal with every type of qualitative researches, providing comprehensive services from panel recruiting, research execution, analysis to strategy proposal.
Female Marketing
The main target that Fem Marketing House is good at recruiting is women. Our focus is on women because they are the main players of our daily life and they lead consumption. They are housewives, working females, and female students. The number of female panel registered with us is 35,000.
Also, at Fem Marketing House, a series of research work is all completed by female staff.
Direct Recruiting
What determines the quality of qualitative research is the quality of the test target.
Fem Marketing House takes pride in its recruiting practice where Fem employees themselves directly recruit respondents in order to find high-quality respondents.
Female employees highly skilled in recruiting directly contact our panel to screen them twice or even three times, and select respondents that meet the criteria 100%.
This is of course possible with highly difficult respondent criteria.
We persistently provide self-contained service without outsourcing recruiting, in order to realize even higher quality research execution.
State-of-the-art Interview Facility and Equipments
Fem Marketing House has a variety of research facilities/equipments.
They are equipped with video conferencing system and video streaming system which make remote observation of researches possible, not to mention recording device. In addition to regular interview facility, shopping simulation facility with eye tracking equipment is also available.
Research Service Area From Japan to Asia
We have been conducting qualitative researches mainly in Osaka, Tokyo and other urban areas within Japan.
Starting 2016, based on request from clients, we set up an overseas office in Singapore and started researches in fast-growing Southeast Asian countries.
Service Area
- Tokyo
- Osaka
- Other urban areas in Japan
- Southeast Asia : Indonesia, China, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, etc.
Field of Research
Probing deep into consumer's mind/attitude/behavior, we conduct researches in new product development and related areas.
We help clients develop products that "sells" or "wins" in the market.
Research theme varies from new product idea creation to concept development, design/package/pricing/advertising assessment, etc. We help clients solve issues necessary for decision making of new product development.
Field of Research Subjects
- Research on consumer's mind/attitude
- New product idea creation
- New product concept development
- Product design assessment
- Advertising message/appeal point optimization
- Renewal/issue-finding research for existing products
- Other researches related to product strategy
Research Methods
Qualitative research methods varies and continues to develop.
Focus group interview, which once took the research industry by storm as semi-structured interview method, has lost its place, and now depth interview (1on1 interview) is a mainstream research method instead.
Adding to or replacing interview research, observational research is now emerging. This is a method to gain valid information by closely observing consumer's life and behaviors. For example, "ethnography," "shop along," and "eye tracking research" are now catching attention. These are so called unstructured research.
Fem Marketing House is set up to both of these newly emerging and conventional research methods.
Available Research Methods
- Depth interview (1on1 interview)
- Focus group interview
- In-home visit (observational) research
- Home use test
- Shop along (Tracking/observing shopping behavior)
- Eye tracking
- Ethnography (Behavior observation research)
(Reference) Classification of Qualitative Research Methods
| Type |
Semi-structured / Interview Research |
Unstructured / Behavior Observation Research |
| Attributes |
Determine items of information to be collected and research flow based on preset hypothesis. Conduct interview according to the flow and gain verbal reaction from respondents. Interview progresses spontaneously by adding or changing interview questions depending on their reaction, for probing purposes. |
Hypothesis is unnecessary. Spend time with test target (consumers) as they go by their daily life and closely observe their life/behavior, which makes it possible to find needs/desires or issues that consumers themselves are not aware of. Execution of this type of research is not difficult but requires observational and analytical skills on the part of researchers.
Combining with semi-structured interviews, ethnography is effective in stirring up imagination for a new product and getting to the heart of it. |
Main objectives
of research |
・Verification of hypothesis on issues or strategy
・No fruitful result is expected without hypothesis or with ambiguous hypothesis |
・Hypothesis formulation for new product development
・Hypothesis formulation for marketing strategy |
| Research Methods | ・In-depth interview (1on1 interview)
・Focus group interview
・ Home use test |
・In-home visit research
・Shop along research
・Eye tracking research
・Ethnography research |
| Related Facilities |
・Interview room
・Visual/audio recoding device
・ Video-streaming system |
・Audio/visual recording device
・Eye tracker
・Paper for respondents, other tools |
Research Method Details
- Interview
- Interview is a research where a pre-generated hypothesis on issues or strategy is tested if it is right or not. A professional interviewer, through verbal interaction with respondents, reveals their reason-oriented psychological structure such as "Why you think so / don't think so" "Why you do so / don't do so." Focus group interview and in-depth interview are included in this research method.
- ① In-depth Interview (1on1 interview)
- What defines this research method is in its structure where an interviewer well-versed in consumer psychology faces off against one respondent (two in some cases) and probes into the respondent's deep psyche. It is possible to grasp deep reality of "why" questions the respondent herself/himself is not aware of, which is oftentimes "all that one could ask" or "unexpected new discovery" for clients.
- ②Focus Group Interview (FGI)
- It is a group interview in the form of round table talk with 5~8 respondents who passed rigorous screening. It explores "reason why" and "deep psyche" of respondents' perception and behavior which can not be obtained in quantitative research.
Examples of Interview Research Application
- Analysis of consumer perception and behavior
- A series of researches for product development
・・・ Target Qualification, Concept Qualification, Naming Evaluation, Design Development, etc.
- Research to revive existing products
- In-home Visit Research
- In-home visit is not a survey research in which a staff visits consumer's home and obtain information via questionnaire. It is actually unstructured observational research. Researchers visit respondent's home and observe when and how the product concerned is actually used through physically being the respondent's life scene related to the research theme. After the observation, an interview is conducted to search into the reason why in the consumer's deep psyche.
Examples of In-home Visit Application
- Exploration of consumer needs, Idea development
- Product concept development
- Identification of reasons why existing products sell(do not sell) and their improvement areas
- Home Use Test
- Home Use Test is used for new products (prototypes) or existing products with sluggish sales. It is a method in which research participants are asked to use the product for a certain period of time and record usage condition, usage feel and whatever they noticed about the product. The test assesses the product's appeal and competitiveness such as whether the product is valuable to consumers and whether it has the power to lead to actual purchase or not, and discovers new themes for development/improvement.
Examples of Home Use Test Application
- Exploration of consumer needs, Idea development
- Product concept development
- Identification of reasons why existing products sell(do not sell) and their improvement areas
- Shop Along Research (In-store Shopping Behavior Observation)
- Track consumers' shopping behavior in actual stores or specially set up shopping simulation facilities and gain information on how to improve the selling area such as display of products or POP. In-store activities of consumers are visually recorded and an interview is conducted after shopping. By combining with eye-tracking, it is possible to gain even more effective marketing information.
In reality, it is difficult to get permission from real stores to conduct this type of research, and now it is more often conducted at shopping simulation facilities close to real stores.
Examples of Shop Along Application
- Verification of Target Qualification
- Evaluation of perfection level/ value(appeal)/ competitiveness/ acceptance of a product
- Product development/Discovery of improvement areas
- Eye Tracking Research
- Eye tracking is a technology to measure a person's eye movements such as where, what exactly she/he is looking at. A test subject wears a special glasses-shaped camera called eye tracker on her/his head and her/his eye ball movements are observed. In this process, data of "gaze" and "eye ball movements" is accumulated, and analysis of this data would provide information effective for product development or shelf creation.
Fem Marketing House is equipped with an eye tracker and utilizing it for research purposes.
Examples of Eye Tracking Application
- Optimization of shelf space/display
- Improvement of package design / revision of brand name, product naming, logo, appeal point, etc.
- Improvement of in-store materials such as POP, etc.
- Advertisement/communication design
- Comparative evaluation vs. competitive products
- Ethnography Research
- Ethnography is a method of analysis originally developed in the fields of cultural anthropology and folklore. It has been applied in the marketing field and is attracting lots of attention. This method, too, observes consumer's actual life scene, grasps consumer's needs manifestation and actual purchase behavior, and probes into the question of "Why so?" It aims to achieve a new discovery of "unexpected" customer desires or usage of products.
Examples of Ethnography Research Application
- Product concept development
- Communication design
- Redevelopment of existing products
