Qualitative research before a product launch

By Federico Elgueta, Director of WAV Research · Published October 27, 2026 · Updated October 27, 2026

A qualitative study before a launch tells you why your audience would choose or reject the product, what they understand of the proposition and what holds them back, while the concept, the message or the price can still change. It does not tell you how many will buy; it tells you why they would and why they would not, in the words of the people deciding.

What does a qualitative study answer before a launch?

Before a launch, many bets are placed in a meeting room: who the product is for, what problem it solves, what it gets compared with and what it is worth. A focus group puts those bets in front of the people who would have to buy it. These are the questions it answers best:

• Whether the concept is understood at first sight, and what people actually take from it, which is not always what the brand meant.
• Which need or moment of use they recognize as their own, and which one feels made up.
• What they compare it with: another brand, another category or simply doing nothing.
• Which attribute weighs in the choice and which one they do not care about.
• Which concern or belief stops the purchase, and what would remove it.
• Which name, pack or presentation they find believable.

The value is in the why. When someone says they would not buy it, the conversation lets you keep asking until you reach the reason, and that reason is usually more useful for fixing a launch than any score.

What does it not answer?

A focus group does not estimate how much will sell or what share of the market prefers the product. With small groups you see the direction of the reactions and whether they repeat across groups, not their size in the population. If the decision needs a number, such as a demand forecast or a comparison of three versions with statistical significance, run a survey after the qualitative study, using the language and hypotheses the groups produced. We explain the difference in qualitative vs quantitative research.

Nor does it replace an in-market test: people say what they would do, not what they will do at the shelf or in front of a salesperson. That is why the session asks for reasons, comparisons and reactions to concrete stimuli, not purchase promises.

How does WAV design it?

We start from the decision, not from a questionnaire. In the first conversation we agree on what has to be settled when the study ends, and from there we build the groups, the guide and the stimuli.

• Groups by profile. Each segment the decision needs to compare gets its own group: for example, category users and people who do not use it, or the brand's customers and non-customers. The recruitment screener decides who joins.
• 6 to 8 people per group, sessions of 90 to 120 minutes. Enough for contrast, and enough time for everyone to speak.
• Concrete stimuli. The written concept, a prototype, the pack, a test ad or the product itself. When there are several, rotate the order across groups so the first one does not color the rest.
• In writing first. With the nominal group technique, each person notes their reaction before hearing the others, so you know what they thought before the group had any influence.
• A 360 room in Santiago. A 360 camera records the whole room and each participant wears their own microphone. The brand can follow the session live.

The session follows a guide in blocks, each with its goal and minutes; there is an example in the focus group discussion guide template.

What do you receive?

A report that answers the launch questions: what is understood, what convinces, what holds people back and what to change before going out. Every finding comes with its literal quote, the profile of the person who said it (for example "Woman, 35-44 · Non-customer") and the exact minute of the session. WR3, our software, separates who is speaking with 90.4% agreement with a human review, measured on 141 moments of a real session (how we measure it), and every quote is checked word for word against the transcript, which is produced on our own computers.

The deliverables come in Spanish and English: the 360 video of each session with English subtitles, the report on the web and as a PDF, a deck for the board and an action tracker with the evidence behind each action. You can browse the format in the sample report, built from a fictional study.

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