International market research your teams can compare, market by market.
Qualitative and quantitative research in several countries at once, led from New York and London, with each market heard on its own terms and compared on shared ones.
When the work spans markets.
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Central and local teams need the same evidence.
One design runs in every market, so the central team can compare like for like and each local team still sees its own buyers.
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Your team is in one country, and your buyers are in many.
You brief one team, in New York or London, and the fieldwork runs in each market with people who know it.
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An idea has to work in more than one country.
You see where a product, a claim or a story can travel, and where a market needs its own.
More than 20 countries, compared on the same terms.
About half of our work, and often more, runs across more than one market.
- Developing flavor ideas that travel across markets An evaluation of each concept direction, and a shortlist for development. What happened next A refined version of one of the ideas later reached market.
- Mapping where a versatile snack format could stand apart Opportunity areas with first product profiles. What happened next Weeks after the workshop, the innovation group commissioned a second engagement.
- Defining who a snack brand’s protein ideas are for A sized typology of protein snackers in two markets, with an innovation framework. What happened next The brand applied the typology, and commissioned the program’s ideation and consumer clinics.
How one program stays comparable.
A program across markets is only as useful as the comparisons it allows.
Every market answers the same core questions, asked in a way that makes sense there, and a local team can add what it needs. For a spirits company’s ready-to-drink strategy, one survey design ran in the US, the UK, Australia, India, the Netherlands and Germany.
Markets can also be narrowed in stages. A B2B software company compared its candidates first, then surveyed the three taken forward, the US, the UK and Germany, so where to put resources became a choice between markets judged on common measures.
Qualitative work in other markets is run with preferred local moderators we have worked with for many years, chosen to our own standard. In the UK, Germany and Poland, online conflict groups had owners and non-owners of a kitchen appliance argue for and against having one, and the read was compared across all three markets.
Quantitative work is handled in house, from design to analysis. One team designs the questionnaire, works with the data from every market and builds any models, so a difference between markets means the same thing wherever it shows.
When the question is which market to enter first, market entry research sets the candidates side by side, from the size of each opportunity to what buyers there need. The work is led from our offices in New York and London.
Questions teams ask about working across markets.
Which countries have you worked in?
More than 20, across North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Africa. The UK, the US, Germany and France come up most often, and many programs reach well beyond them.
Does every market need the same research?
No. The core questions are shared, so markets can be compared, and a priority market can go deeper. Some programs run one market at a time, so each can build on the last.
When is a multi-country program the wrong choice?
When the markets are so different that no common question makes sense, separate projects will serve you better. And when one market will decide the plan, it’s often worth starting there.
Planning research in more than one market?
Tell us the markets and the decision they feed. We’ll suggest what every market should share, and where each needs its own questions.
A partner or director will reply.