ILLUMINATE YOUR UNIVERSE
We are an independent market research agency with over a decade's experience of delivering qualitative, quantitative and ethnographic research projects for leading brands across the globe. Our extensive list of public and private sector clients reflects the rich diversity of our research abilities: ranging from FMCG, medical, fashion, sports and technology to gaming, luxury goods and food and drink. We live and breathe our research and work with a clarity of purpose that is underpinned by outstanding project teams and a clear set of values.
We are a vital and dynamic company with a particular focus on tailored and targeted research – something that we have been doing successfully for the past decade. Our research, like our name, is designed to illuminate.
We are not a faceless organisation, but a streamlined company with a sophisticated global research network that pursues attention to detail and quality control above all else. We always go the extra mile to provide a personal service. Whilst we encourage each of our clients to participate in all stages of the research process and are sensitive to stakeholder needs; we are also more than happy to take all elements of a research project ‘off your hands’ – from inception, to completion, to delivery.
Insights are the lifeblood of every successful research project and organisation. An outstanding research project provides the client with valuable insights that significantly enhance their power to discern and understand. Since our foundation, we have provided leading edge insights to some of the world’s brightest brands.
Our offices are in London, but the stretch of our reach is pan-global. With 65 per cent of our work taking place outside of the UK, we like to think internationally. At the flick of a switch, we can draw from an extensive network of researchers to put together a team of local professionals in any city or region. Each project, whether local or global, is run by an experienced project manager in the UK. Whatever the research, successful projects are defined by our ability to combine local knowledge with an international perspective – this is only ever achieved through complete local immersion in different cities across the globe.
This is key to our ethos, our values and our continuing success.
Our global network of research specialists operate in most of the world’s major cities.
Our extensive global network consists of highly experienced market research professionals and trend experts who are leaders in their field. They are co-ordinated by a local city or country research manager who reports to a project manager at our London office. This balanced approach ensures that each project is managed horizontally, enabling us to produce exceptional research results every time. Once the fieldwork has been carried out, our post-research teams can provide the analysis for each project – whether market research analysts, translators, video editors or designers are required.
We are a one stop shop for market research.
We draw on a diverse range of research methodologies to achieve your objectives.
We employ an eclectic range of research methodologies to help you to gain a greater understanding of your market. This immersive, broad ranging, approach provides each of our clients with a comprehensive and flexible armoury of research methods. This will not only enable you to obtain a real picture of your markets’ attitudes and behaviours, but will also allow you to identify and isolate the true dynamics at work in relation to your research question.
Quantitative research delivers statistical insights through large-scale research surveys. In this way, it provides valuable insights into how consumers behave.
We think that it’s a fantastic way to obtain a statistical snapshot of your market. However, like all snapshots, it’s not just the quality of the shot that matters, but the interpretation of the shot that is key.
We use quantitative research as a starting point, a framework, and in this way it is a vital tool to provide definition at the start of many research projects. We don’t just use this methodology to produce the data but also to field test the research questions.
Once we’ve collected the research, it’s all about interpretation. We won’t simply supply you with a series of unedifying data-centric reports, but will illuminate the research in a concise and meaningful way that provides real insights into the key questions.
Each project is different and, as such, quantitative research is used in a variety of ways. However, the following three project scenarios are those that we encounter most often.
Some of our large scale national and international research projects are purely quantitative. As such, they are rolled out to a large number of respondents and provide rigorous insights that are statistically driven.
Large scale projects can use a variety of research methods. We employ quantitative methods at the outset in order to gain initial insights. Once established, qualitative research enables us to put ‘the flesh on the bones’ of our quantitative analysis. It’s a comprehensive 360 degree research process that helps our clients to really understand ‘the why’.
We sometimes use quantitative methodologies to test the conclusions of our qualitative research insights. This is a type of post-project litmus test and enables you to cross reference our insights against a wider target population
Qualitative research is concerned with exploring attitudes, behaviour and experiences through methods that rely on interviews or observations. It seeks to ask why individuals/consumers behave in a certain way. It lays bare the motivations of the consumer and establishes patterns of behaviour that are critical to the marketing, development and positioning of a product.
We know that this type of research is crucial to any organisation that wishes to probe consumer issues, understand phenomena, and ultimately answer key research questions. We enable our clients to do this through the provision of a comprehensive set of qualitative-based research tools that are tailored to each project.
Over the past ten years, we have put together and run countless focus groups and carried out numerous ethnographic research projects across the globe.
Whether shopping in Milan, training with Barcelona FC, or speaking to schools in Essex, we know the true value of fully immersive ethnographic research. Our focus groups – with their exceptional recruitment standards and their creative approach to discussion guide activities (that inspire participants and produce outstanding research results in the process) – stand alone. This approach guarantees rigorous and incisive insight.
Our qualitative toolbox doesn’t end there. Product development, branding and audience engagement can also be leant a helping hand. Our Co-Creation research tool offers a facilitative approach to product development; our City Tours take you on a journey across your brand’s universe; whilst our inimitable Electric: Vision provides a direct top-line to dynamically illustrate our findings at your conference or meeting.
You might want your research project to be carried out online, by telephone, face to face, via post, or a combination of the above. Whatever your needs, we have a robust integrated methodology to match.
Our online teams have access to a global research network that relies upon a comprehensive online infrastructure. This enables us to meet complicated research needs while utilising the full potential of the Internet. We carry out online studies worldwide where Internet penetration is strong enough to enable us to undertake our research appropriately and effectively.
Our experienced telephone research teams are used to delivering bespoke consumer and business studies to an excellent standard. Survey teams are supported by senior management, who advise on the survey’s design and its implementation. Our researchers have worked with a broad range of stakeholders from across the public and private sectors both nationally and internationally.
We carry out fieldwork for qualitative and quantitative research across the globe, drawing from our international network of interviewers who can engage with and relate to each demographic to deliver the most challenging of projects.
Ethnographic research takes qualitative research one step further. It is a pure, holistic approach that is founded on the idea that consumer behaviour can be better understood through an appreciation of the consumer and their habitat. In this way, ethnography allows us a unique insight into each consumer: where they live, how they live, what they do, who they are?
We utilise methodologies such as: home visits, shadow shopping or activity shadowing (nights out, sports and leisure activities, etc.). These vital experiences offer a rich understanding of a consumer’s day to day that cannot be gleaned in any other way. It takes time, but provides a level of behavioural insight and participant rapport that a two hour interview or a focus group cannot match.
Our researchers enjoy their work immensely but they’re also highly qualified and experienced. Postgraduate backgrounds in psychology and anthropology are ‘par for the course’ and are vital to ensuring the successful completion of what is a sophisticated research method. It takes time and skill to conduct this type of observation and to provide the best analysis.
A focus group is a particularly useful research device that involves a select group of participants in in-depth group discussion.
A focus group can only truly succeed if each and every participant is fully engaged in the process. This is why our belief in the importance of engagement means that we ensure that each research group, discussion guide, participants and their environment are calibrated to our exacting standards. This is key to ensuring that all participants are involved, stimulated, relaxed and, ultimately, engaged.
Recruitment is the cornerstone upon which successful focus groups are built. As with all of our research methodologies, one size does not fit all. We take advantage of the extensive reach of our global network to seek out the right people in the most appropriate environments. We might catch them participating in the target activity, or approach them as they make a project specific purchase decision. After all, it’s not about ticking boxes, it’s about engagement.
We apply the same approach to choosing our moderators and (if required) simultaneous translators. We take every care to ensure that the person that we place on the project has particular experience of the topic and sector. This is because the project will only be a success if they can create a real rapport with the participants. In all cases, we make sure to match the participants to the moderators, so that gender and/or age gaps do not create a distance that affects the end result.
The location of a focus group is critical to engagement. We tailor our approach to the client and the project. If, for example, the project demands a more traditional method that requires state-of-the-art research rooms, we regularly access some of the world’s finest viewing facilities. If, on the other hand, it might be better placed to carry out this research ‘on the ground’ to add context and to aid engagement, then we have considerable experience of this type of focus group too.
For example, in recent projects we conducted focus groups in:
The best focus groups leave inspired participants energetically discussing the research topic in the wake of the project. Such a response is always a good sign and excites us as we know that similarly exceptional insights will follow. We like to leave participants feeling that they have a real stake in the final result, which keeps them absolutely focused throughout the process. This is achieved through the use of bespoke stimulus materials and creative activities that truly engage.
Co-creation is an exciting new research tool that enables the user of a product to be directly and actively involved in the research and design of that product or service from start to finish.
We know exactly what is required to ensure that co-creative collaboration produces results that have a real impact on the entire narrative of development of any product or service. We believe that co-creation provides a real evolution in research methods, as it places the external resources of a product’s/brand’s culture and customers at the centre of its thinking.
In essence, it involves a shift away from a static product design model to a development process that integrates customer input at every stage of that product’s cycle. Involving customer input in product design in this way creates an ongoing feedback cycle that engenders a developmental synergy between the product and the consumer. This is key to the product’s long term success. This not only improves the product at every stage of development, but also provides unique intelligence to enable that product to capture the imagination of the market while reflecting genuine demand.
When we set-up co-creation workshops, we bring the client and the customer together to enable both of them to benefit from each other’s creativity. Our innovative workshops help both parties to explore the positive and negative areas in new ideas and brand concepts.
Brands that aren’t in touch with their customers will miss out on critical innovation opportunities. Similarly, brands that seek customer insights solely along the more traditional research lines can easily overlook crucial development opportunities.
We offer the following types of co-creation methods:
Whatever your itinerary, we will enable you to fully explore your brand’s habitat in any city across the globe.
Our City Tours will take you on a unique journey through your brand’s environment. It’s a great way to see how your brand and competitors interface with the consumer experience ‘on the ground’ and introduces brand teams and campaign designers to a real holistic view of the product cycle. It enables our clients to address key questions like:
This process provides invaluable insights for product designers, marketing teams and strategists alike. The gathered research material makes for outstanding product and campaign design, not to mention particularly incisive boardroom presentations.
With each tour, we draw from an extensive knowledge network to create your perfect itinerary. We have designed city tour itineraries for a broad range of international companies across the world.
A brilliantly visualised video can make the difference between engaging or capturing an audience. We use video and visual case studies to add life and context to our qualitative studies. We can embellish each project with perfectly captured poster, photography and video design that not only illuminates our key research findings but also inspires creativity.
Our unique visual aids can also be used to:
Electric: Vision is a quick, cost-effective way of getting the key messages across to all relevant members of staff.
Outstanding research will only follow if the right people are in the room. It is driven and defined by the excellence of its fieldwork and the quality of its recruitment.
We have put in place a series of thorough recruitment checks and balances and called it Electric Fieldwork. We rigorously manage every stage of the recruitment process to ensure that each layer of research is tailored and optimised to match the research project in hand.
Each level of our Fieldwork framework – whether it be fieldworker briefing, progress reports, pre-group reminders or post-group client debriefings – is micro-managed from start to finish. In this way, we guarantee that we will only ever recruit respondents who are exactly suited to the aims of each individual project and meet all of the key screening criteria.
If we need shoppers, we will find shoppers as they shop; if we require footballers, you’ll find us scouring the sports fields of Sunday league; if you need runners, we’ll tackle them while they’re exercising. We care about our research too much to do it any other way.
Our meticulous approach not only produces excellent research results, but also ensures that your respondents are fresh, enthusiastic, expressive, relevant and committed to providing true and honest responses that help to meet the rigorous demands of your research.
A strategy delineates a territory into which a company seeks to be unique.
We believe that research can really help a company to gain a unique understanding of its market. With this in mind, we have created Electric: Strategy. This post-research architecture enables us to apply a series of demanding treatments to our research data and ensures consistency in both the results and the interpretation and presentation of those results.
Once the research data has been collated we undertake a comprehensive analysis that is tailored to your particular needs. To help you to both facilitate development and better understand your territory, we approach this work in a number of distinct ways. Here are just a couple of examples.
Understanding your consumer is only one half of solving a marketing or engagement issue. The other equally critical side of the same coin is to divide consumers into groups based on common characteristics, such as: lifestyle, decision-making methods, demographics and psychographics. Segmenting them in this way sets up a series of crucial ‘touch points’ for future engagement at critical and definable points in their daily lives. We call these structural, detailed archetypes ‘personas’, and they provide tangible and locatable snapshots that help to delineate the territory and bring the consumer and research findings to life.
Like the human body, each brand or organisation has a unique DNA that both drives and defines it. Through Brand DNA analysis we seek to comprehend exactly what makes your organisation tick. This enables us to gain a true, holistic understanding of how you wish to present yourself to your consumer and other stakeholders. Using Brand DNA Analysis, we have improved the internal and external image of a large variety of organisations across the government, media and retail sectors.
Our workshops will give you the tools to help invigorate or re-position your brand. We help brand teams to turn our comprehensive research findings into clear and concise plans of action. Our extensive experience of this type of work enables us to fully integrate our research findings into your business processes. Workshops provide an interactive and engaging way to propel our key research conclusions across your organisation – to expand the internal audience from: the key research stakeholders; to the rest of the team; to the whole company.
We like to guide each participant through a multi-staged process that:
At all times, we employ creative exercises that not only help to promote interaction but also foster inter-departmental cohesion and communication.
Quality guarantees everything and quality is at the heart of everything that we do.
We are an accredited member of the Market Research Society and are also in the process of receiving our ISO 20252 accreditation. We make sure that we adhere to the rigorous standards demanded by both ISO 9001 and ISO 20252 at all times. The internal processes that we follow ensure peace of mind for all our clients.
In the delivery of our services, we uphold equal opportunity at every level. Our employment procedures ensure a safe and secure working environment for all of our staff. Our commitment to our staff, the lifeblood or our organisation, is beyond doubt and is complemented by thorough HR policies and staff handbooks.
We comply with the statutory obligations enforced through the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 and, accordingly, our practice does not discriminate directly or indirectly on grounds of colour, race, nationality or ethnic or national origin in relation to decisions to recruit, select, remunerate, train, or promote employees.
While our business tends to have a low environmental impact, we are always looking at new ways to produce and deliver our research so that sustainability is at its very core.
We lead by example and apply sustainable practices across our organisation – whether at home or abroad. All of our staff are expected to comply with, enforce and contribute to our environmental policy – which we review annually. The policy acts as a framework for the implementation of our data gathering systems across our business and informs the development of regularly reviewed and relevant internal and external performance standards.
Corporate and Social Responsibility (CSR) is vital to helping you understand exactly how your business impacts on the wider world. In essence, it means taking a responsible attitude (that reaches well beyond the minimum legal requirements that your company is bound by) and following clear, well thought out principles across your organisation in order to achieve this.
Of course, for more and more organisations, it’s perfectly clear that business sustainability is uniquely tied to sustainable human and environmental operations.
Our research teams believe in and understand the innate value of CSR and realise that best practice makes a huge contribution to each and every business’s performance. Our wealth of experience in this area means that we are perfectly positioned to provide consulting services to all organisations that are interested in exploring, adopting and disseminating practices and ideas that are socially and environmentally friendly.
Our extensive academic and governmental research experience enables us to identify innovative efficiency savings through in depth analysis of the life cycle of each product. In so doing, we help each organisation to achieve cost effective sustainability that also improves the bottom line.
Our Corporate and Social Responsibility (CSR) teams possess a wealth of experience from an eclectic set of academic and industrial backgrounds – including social policy, psychology and environmental and business management. This, combined with our broad ranging academic, professional and business leader led research network, furnishes us with a rare ability to holistically review CSR practice and to help implement it across sectors.
On the one hand, we have helped to put in place comprehensive environmental management systems to ensure that businesses that are just beginning to engage with CSR have a tailored roadmap to put into practice. On the other, we have worked on co-creation initiatives to really help companies to create products with a high replacement rate. These initiatives not only help to improve corporate reputation but also create solutions to landfill and waste management that have real impact.
We take corporate responsibility extremely seriously and want to help make your work environment work for you.
"I want to engage with the social responsibility agenda but have no idea where to start?"
Incorporating Corporate and Social Responsibility (CSR) into your organisation can be a daunting prospect. However, with the right guidance, it doesn’t have to be insurmountable.
We employ a step-by-step approach that will not only help you to develop an understanding of your particular aspirations but will also clearly demonstrate how CSR will fit in with the machinations of your organisation. We combine Brand DNA analysis with stakeholder interviews to create a CSR plan that not only meets your key objectives but also creates real added value for your business.
"I have ideas for transforming our brand, but I really need employees to buy in. How can you help me?"
We would tackle this using the following three stage process.
"I want to engage fully with the social responsibility agenda but I am not convinced that the board is going to support me on this. How will I know?"
In order to answer this question, we need to highlight the real and immediate benefits that are associated with such social and environmental initiatives. This is achieved through our expert consultants, who possess the necessary experience and clout to both get the project off the ground while outlining the absolute significance of correctly instituted Corporate and Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives.
"I’ve got everyone on board, now I really need help to get things going. What would you do?"
The interviews and research that have been conducted up until this point will enable us to outline the key internal and external processes that drive the organisation.
"Let's roll!"
At this stage, we’re at the tail-end of the process. We will have rigorously explored, persuasively pursued, compellingly sold and objectively led the research, understanding and implementation of Corporate and Social Responsibility (CSR) across your organisation. Now, we simply need to help you implement our findings.
"We did it! Whatever happens next?"
Now’s the best part, taking credit!
Welcome to our new website which has been redesigned by design agency Apples & Clares.
Each week in this section we'll keep you up to date with the projects we're working on, we'll be introducing people from our network, running opinion polls and reporting on trends we've noticed from the cities we're working in around the world. The site isn't complete yet so expect to see more unveiled in the coming weeks. If you have any comments, requests or enquiries please do get in touch.
A sample of our recent clients