We have seen the future: How Heineken is fast-forwarding to more contextual, more agile and smarter qualitative research

Annelies Verhaeghe, Sophie Van Neck, Remus Tomoiaga and Marlon Rinoza Plazo

An experiment for Heineken, the beer brand, found that interacting with consumers using WhatsApp or chatbots provides better discussion than traditional forums and valuable insights for qualitative research.

Introduction

"The only thing that is constant is change".

Wise Greek words and certainly true when looking at the history of qualitative research. Triggered dominantly by new ways humans use to express themselves, qualitative research has gone through a lot of change in the latest decade. From offline focus groups and Freudian in-depth interviews, qualitative research has moved online.

Today, research communities in particular – also called consumer consulting boards – are an established and popular research method (GRIT, 20161)). Through this methodology, we typically engage a group of interesting and interested consumers in a closed, moderated online...

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