Research methodology

Qualitative research methods are seen as particularly appropriate for the marketing domain. The fundamental reason is the need to understand phenomena surrounding marketing. In seeking understanding, qualitative research methods based on the ethos of an interpretive philosophy serve marketing management decision making better than many other research methods. Interpretive qualitative research methods are valuable for in-depth understanding of phenomena in the marketing domain and provide flexibility and suitability therein.

To enable in-depth exploration of the dominant issues, in-depth interviews were chosen for the current research. According to Easterby-Smith et al. (1991) the in-depth interview technique is necessary to understand the constructs that the interviewee uses as a basis for his or her own opinions and beliefs about a particular matter or situation. The focus of the in-depth interviews for this research was on understanding informants' views on loyalty in FMCG markets. The researcher followed the advice of Siedman (1991, 45) and continued interviewing until she felt "enough" respondents had been surveyed. This saturation and sufficiency point was reached having interviewed fifteen respondents, at which point no new information was deemed to be forthcoming and the interviewer was at a stage where she could almost predict the respondents' answers.

All interviews were taped and fully transcribed afterwards. Notes were also taken during the interviews to aid in the transcribing and to remind the researcher of any further ideas or inspirational thoughts that were generated during the interviews. All interviews ranged in length from 45 minutes to 1.5 hours. The demographic profiles of interview respondents are presented in Table 1. As can be seen a broad range of respondents were interviewed enabling in-depth exploration of the research topic.

Table 1 Demographic profiles of interview respondents

Respondent Gender Age Social Class
Respondent 1
 Male 27 B
Respondent 2
 Female 28 C1
Respondent 3
 Male 29 C1
Respondent 4
 Female 34 B
Respondent 5
 Male 35 B
Respondent 6
 Female 34 C1
Respondent 7
 Male 34 B
Respondent 8
 Female 30 C1
Respondent 9
 Male 31 B
Respondent 10
 Female 36 C1
Respondent 11
 Female 32 C1
Respondent 12
 Female 40 C2
Respondent 13
 Male 55 B
Respondent 14
 Female 45 C1
Respondent 15
 Female
 60 C2

There are many approaches prescribed for the analysis and interpretation of qualitative data, approaches, which are often difficult to articulate and make explicit. Initial reading of the transcripts focused upon evaluation of the main issues that arose, while subsequent readings focused on making sense of and seeking out points that were relevant and interesting to the debate. Areas where there appeared to be either consensus or divergence of opinion also emerged allowing for comparisons and convergence of ideas and points to surface. Guba (1978) refers to this as convergence and divergence, and Babbie (1998) refers to it as similarities and dissimilarities. All interviews were individually interpreted in order to preserve contextual meaning, while interpretation across interviews was required in order to assess overarching themes.