By Ruth Stanat, President SIS International Market Research

When dealing with perception, it is often helpful for clients of research firms to understand not only what the perceptions are, but what are they based on.  Building on this idea, it is further helpful to understand how perceptions are diffused within a group of stakeholders.  Depending on the culture, perceptions are derived from the following forms of knowledge:

• Influence from respected source
• Personal Experience
• Intuition
• Empirical Evidence

Whereas for example Germans and US Americans culturally regard empirical knowledge as the most important form of insight, Brazilians will likely attribute more credibility to a “referential leader” such as a respected person.  Applying this insight to a market research study, it could mean crafting a flexible research design that can elicit core insights on how perceptions are diffused within each country.  Thus for example in Mexico, a market research firm can focus on how stakeholders build perceptions, be it through intuition, personal experience, influencers or empirical information.  Research firms can incorporate into their data gathering approach how the 4 forms of knowledge contribute to the diffusion of perceptions.   

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