Qualitative Research

Qual is not a test

Too much qual is used as a ‘pass / fail exam’. We hate that word.
You can’t test an ad that hasn’t even been made yet.
What we can do is to explore an idea, see where its potential lies, eliminate the negatives and help our clients and their agencies make the very best of it.

None of us is as creative as all of us

Nothing beats the creativity of people working together – that’s why we use group discussions so much.

We like our participants (we don’t like to call them respondents) to be relaxed and open-minded. So we run our groups as brainstorms. We want participants to respond instinctively, without thinking too hard.

Then we can let the creative sparks fly.

Brutal but honest

Research sessions can easily get bogged down in criticism. It is much easier to kick an idea than identify its potential. We encourage people to be honest, dump the negatives, move on and look for the positives.

Lots of research companies can show you a turkey, but we can point out the ugly duckling - and help turn it into a swan.

We hire drug abusers and bishops

We ensure the very highest quality of recruitment by developing the best relationships with our front line staff, the recruiters. We do this through our own recruitment company, Safari, who can find us everyone from drug abusers to bishops and are always training up new recruiters to ensure we see fresh faces.

Heart not head

Neuroscience is confirming what we researchers suspected all along – that the heart rules their head.

We understand that what makes ideas great is their emotional impact, rather than their carefully worded proposition. We focus on the feelings generated, rather than the words used. ‘That’s rubbish’ said with a grin is a frequent response. It’s usually a positive.

We know that the brand engram in a consumer’s mind is rarely a rational argument, but a bundle of impressions and associations and we need to understand these to make the most of them.

International cultural understanding

When it comes to international projects, we prefer to work with people who share our constructive approach to research. Wherever projects take us we're looking for cultural fluency and an understanding of how brands communicate rather than a track record in general market research.

To see where we've worked click here
To suggest some new destinations give us a call

Global network of trusted researchers

We work with researchers we know and trust around the world. This means we can handle quick turnaround projects by phone and email, but where time allows we can get the extra level of understanding from meeting up and discussing. Just think about the extra detail you get from us in a face to face meeting over a telephone top-line…

To visit some of our favourite colleagues, click here

All media, all channels

We learned our craft in advertising agencies, but our expertise extends to brands however they communicate.

Whether it’s Facebook or the Financial Times we understand that the medium is the message. You can’t understand how an idea is working if you don’t know where it is going to appear.

We are as practiced in offering insights into media choice as we are into creative development and we take the same creative, developmental approach.