RICK PHILLIPS AS THE INTERVIEWER
Street Level Views is the NEW VIDEO MARKETING RESEARCH METHODOLOGY of Rick Phillips. Marketing, meet Street Level Research. Reality TV has come to marketing research and the finding that STREET LEVEL VIEWS may be the most real of all opinions.
What could be more obvious, right?
The spontaneous, real opinions - with very little compensation - that Rick Phillips gathers - offers clients a new, quick, and convenient way of supplimenting their research understanding of the marketplace. Qualitative research, delivered to your desk, with a pause button and replay button - without you having to sit behind a one way mirror and eat more cheese than you wished.
Indeed, the one-on-one qualitative methodology - instead of focus groups - means you will not have to bear with a dominating respondent influencing all the other `qualitative' opinions --`ruining' your research effort and wasting your limited research dollars. Let alone worrying about the quality of the recruiting of your sample. Opinions offered spontaneously, without hearing others speak on the subject, may be the most real of all opinions.
What could be more obvious, right?
But, it could be the intangibles about Rick Phillips and the subject matter that is most important. Simply, Phillips loves talking about and loves listening to people talk about, Radio, Restaurants and Politics. After nearly 32 years of doing marketing research, Phillips' interviewing skills are near flawless and he excels in using all the non-leading probes in the marketing research business to elict for the client untainted, unaided data.
Rick Phillips skills in marketing research began in 1977 at Leonard and Associates; founded by Claire Leonard, the MRA's first president and famous for marketing research at Pillsbury in the earliest days of Marketing Research. Phillips dove in and did interviewing of all types before taking supervisor positions. Eventually, Phillips began doing one-on-ones and small focus groups at the end of LTM's (Limited Test Models -- research with media/imbeded commercials/real store experience - followed by qualitative.)
In the early 80's, Phillips then co-established/managed (along with the late Sue Ross) a large field firm as part of a full house marketing research company - a field company that still exists today - later joining the full service company as an questionnaire designer, analyst, and field project trainer. By the mid-80's, Phillips was in business for himself as Southern Surveys, with a focus group facility in Buckhead (with phone lines) -- quickly, via conducting focus groups at his facility, Phillips formed strong relationships within the Radio industry in particular -- an area of strong interest his entire life. Eventually, Phillips supplied qualitative and quantitative research to several large multistation multimarket radio chains, working with the Rock station in Atlanta for 10 years. Phillips, often as part of his services, would be the MC at large market research auditorium tests. Phillips would also supply `upscale' interviewing services to firms such as Gordon S. Black (known at the time for supplying research to USA Today newspaper) -- where Phillips was flown nationally to interview about complex things and subject matter.
The other area of Phillips research interest was Restaurants -- as early as 1978 Phillips was writing full service tracking reports for a sit-down upscale restaurant chain for Claire Leonard. When in business by the mid 80's, Phillips was the supplier of Trading Area services for one of the countries larger fast food restaurants headquartered then (and now again) in Atlanta.
So, part of the intangible of using Street Level Views in these initial targeted market segments of Radio and Restaurants is knowing that the moderator loves the subject matter and strives to obtain the best information. Because of all this; Phillips has remarkably low refusal rates - resulting, most likely, in a sample that is more representative than the final sample willing to go to a `hard' building facility. Indeed, many many respondents say they have never been interviewed in a qualitative setting and others say how they have `qualified' before but couldn't go or didn't go (being suspicious).
By the late 90's, Phillips was literally interviewing samples in excess of 1,000 himself on certain projects (in the restaurant field) to do his now well known Restaurant MarketView. The insights that Phillips gained from being the actual contact with the data proved valuable well beyond the `hard quantitative crosstabs'. Yes, those services are available too -- coded quantified tables, crosstabs and reports -- if the client wishes (verbatim transcripts too).
But, the final thrust into Street Level Views, was Phillips' recent decision to do door to door interviews for Gallup in 3 southern markets (via another company) the first door to doors in 27 years; that thrust him back into the street and into some political research - which compelled Phillips to begin the Guerrilla Marketing Research Idea.
Give Phillips a call, he'll talk your ear off about the thousands of people that he's interviewed in the last 31 years and the hundreds of projects that he has provided with full marketing research services since going into business for himself in 1985.