Qualitative research
Why people choose, use and switch, from what they say and what they do.
Qual, quant and data science, with strategic thinking built in.
We design qualitative research, quantitative research and data science around the question your team brings, whether it’s a choice to make or a market to understand first.
What each discipline answers.
Quantitative research
How many people share a need or a view, and what they choose when the options are compared, under the conditions tested.
EXPLOR Award winner for a segmentation and market model
Data science and analytics
How big an opportunity is, and how your options compare, in models built from survey data, your own data and outside sources.
An illustration, not a client project.
Read together.
Say your team is deciding whether to take its brand into a new category.
- Qualitative research. Why people would welcome the brand there, and what would hold them back.
- Quantitative research. How many would choose it over what they buy now, under the conditions tested.
- Data science. How big the category is, and where the demand is, modeled from market and sales data.
- The next move. Our in-house team reads the three side by side, and says what to do next and what would change the decision.
We tell you what the evidence means for your plans.
The people who design our research are strategy and innovation consultants. They say what the evidence supports, how far to rely on it, and what it means for your next move.
A smart home brand needed to know what its next agency brief should change: new messaging, or a new positioning. We explored with users and prospects what each creative route made them believe, and separated message execution from brand positioning.
The brand changed its plan before briefing any more creative.
“The team is seeing application of the research, company-wide. One CI team member said that this is the most insightful research that he has seen in the 5 years that he’s been at the company… We are making some major strides and I really appreciate the time, effort, and partnership from you and the team.”
Designed together, in one market or many.
Programs may combine these approaches, depending on the question and the evidence already available.
Qual and quant, in the order your question needs
A survey can map a category before qualitative work goes deeper, or qualitative work can shape what the survey measures. One team plans the order and reads both.
Qualitative first
For a home products company, digital and in-home ethnography mapped the buying journey for kitchen and bath fixtures, then a national survey of recent fixture buyers measured each stage.
The brand’s redesign program then asked us to rate eight of its own improvement ideas against the journey.
Choosing where to start a kitchen and bath brand’s experience redesign
Survey first
A segment kept surfacing in a consumer technology company’s data. An attitudinal segmentation with a typing tool came first; in-home interviews in six countries then turned the statistical segments into working personas.
The company widened its innovation investment, and its product, marketing and channel teams worked from the same personas.
Market entry research
Which markets to enter, in what order, and with what.
An outdoor equipment maker had several professional markets it could take a new mowing technology into. Putting a market-size model beside the view of the people who manage and buy the mowing meant leadership could compare very different professional markets on the same terms.
International research
One core design, with local recruitment, language and materials.
We read the markets side by side, and check whether a difference comes from the market or from the sample, the translation or the timing.
A spirits company: one proposition for four markets, shaped in qualitative sessions and a quantitative taste test in each market, and refined before the next market.
The proposition later launched.
A home appliance maker: people in three markets who had recently renovated their kitchen, in the same online research.
Benefits within two of the innovation territories later appeared in the brand’s products.
Choosing what value to build into a future kitchen appliance
B2B research
Research with the businesses and professionals who specify, buy and use what you sell.
Bring us a question your plan depends on.
Tell us what your team needs to know and by when. We’ll suggest the mix of qualitative, quantitative and data science work that would answer it.
A partner or director will reply.