Our Unique Process
As our name implies, our driving focus is to bring the word on street to client decision-makers where target audience needs, aspirations and perceptions can become part of brand building efforts. The key to our success is our unique process, which has proven effective through over 30 years of brand research work in countless industries and categories across North America.
Digging deeper.
People are complicated. Decision-making isn’t always black and white and can often involve a number of rational and emotional discriminators. Traditional question and answer research methods often fall short when it comes to discovering inner motives or more emotionally charged discriminators such as trust, pride, acceptance, independence, or the desire for specific experiences.
Focus groups and in-depth interviews allow us to drill deeper and garner more difficult to access insights through intimate discussions. We utilize creative exercises such as image association, mental mapping, and third party thought bubbles that enable our research participants to discover, and then articulate, their true feelings and attitudes. These tools are remarkably successful in peeling back the protective layers of logic and reason getting to the heart of the consumer.
Identifying patterns.
We take a very rigorous approach to the analysis of the audience feedback we gather. First, every comment from the focus groups or in-depth interviews we conduct is recorded on audio and video, and then transcribed, word for word, into our proprietary database system. Our analysts then apply clustering and segmenting techniques within this database to discover common and related patterns of thought and opinion among all of the qualitative sessions we run.
As a result, our reports reflect what your target audience actually said, and how much emphasis was placed on various issues across the entire research sample. This serves as the backbone of the research methodology and ensures confidence in the results.
Seeing is believing.
Developing an accurate, in-depth understanding of the target audience is only half the job. The other half is demonstrating key findings and implications in a way that is engaging, credible and inspiring.
Gone are the days of putting together hundreds of pages of market research data using complicated charts and graphs and expecting clients to ‘find’ what matters most in the hopes that they can then act on it. We utilize rich multi-media and extensive participant video so that you can hear directly from your target audience. Every member of your team will be able to appreciate the true voice of the customer - the raw and uncut inflection, emotion, and passion people use to express their needs, as well as their perceptions of your brand and competing brands.
Our approach to reporting brings the market research to life in ways traditional market research reporting simply cannot match.
Strategy vs. Data Only
We believe research is most valuable and effective when it becomes actionable. It’s not about simply having more information, it’s about translating that information into tangible business decisions.
Having completed over 1,000 studies during our company history, we’ve seen just about every type of marketing challenge out there. Launching new products, sales channel issues, company mergers, expanding into new markets, facing increased competition…the list goes on and on. Whatever marketing challenges your organization faces, there is a good chance we’ve seen something similar before.
We offer clients objective, practical, third-party marketing advice that is tailored to your organization based on what we heard from your target audience and your unique circumstances. We help clients focus on the issues that matter most to their customers so they can prioritize actions that will have the most positive impact on their success moving forward.
Confidence & Internal Alignment
In our experience, one of the greatest challenges in business today is organizational alignment.
Not every department, leader, or stakeholder is on the same page when it comes to priorities or strategy.
We believe our unique approach to market research has the power to unify organizations and align internal priorities. We gather meaningful customer sentiment and then package and share it in a way that instills confidence and aligns organizations regarding what next steps are required next. Conviction in the marketing strategy is the catalyst that drives focused and impactful execution.
