Insight
We focus primarily on two types of research to support client decision making at the intersection of business strategy and brand strategy:
Brand Health
Brand health and competitive analysis helps our clients to understand their relative positioning, strengths and weaknesses in the market place, including customers’ brand preferences.
Customer Behavior
Understanding customer needs and behaviors helps our clients identify untapped potential in their markets, and in adjacent markets. A deeper understanding of customers’ behavior patterns, habits and unmet needs can provide the impetus for innovative new ways to engage with customers.
Combining these two types of insights allows our clients to answer important strategic questions:
What do customers really care about? (Going beyond the obvious to tap into latent needs that are below the surface)
Which unmet needs could be tomorrow’s product or service innovation ideas?
How can we stand out from me-too brands in crowded marketplaces?
Our Research Methodology
Everybody knows that customer data is important for developing strategy for your business and for your brands. What’s often missed is the need to select the right methodology for each type of question you are trying to answer. There is a danger that brands can become overly reliant on a few familiar approaches, stretching them beyond their explanatory power. In some cases, data are over-interpreted, creating dangerous false certainties and “sacred cows” that can lead to strategic missteps.
Our value comes in our ability to integrate diverse methods and sources of data to provide a true picture of your customer. Grounded by over 20 years of experience providing hard analytics and qualitative insights to household name brands, we understand the benefits and limitations of the many different approaches to insight development. We also understand the typical methodological pitfalls that can lead well-intentioned research efforts astray.
When turning data into insights, we are always careful not to allow the past to dictate the future. Historical data can help brands understand their current situation, but these data are only a jumping off point for exploration, not destiny. As the saying goes “in order to predict the future, we have to invent it”.
