Audience exploration

Diversity and inclusion sit at the heart of many of our clients' businesses. Inclusive audience understanding allows us to look beyond standard demographic and behavioural profiling to ensure that we understand our audiences in the most comprehensive way possible. Using our internal Inclusive Planning Tool we can measure the profile of our audiences in terms of their religion, sexuality etc so that we can identify and address segments of the population who many engage with our brand more or less than average.

For example, focussing on a Christmas campaign may mean that we are lacking in relevance to many people. The Inclusive Planning Tools helps to work out how many of our potential audience will we not be engaging and what would be the value to us in creating a campaign to resonate with those of Jewish or Hindu faith.​

Following on from the audience understanding provided in the Inclusive Planning Tool, we also use bespoke qualitative and quantitative research to understand why gaps in engagement exist for certain audiences and how they can be overcome.​

This type of research gives clients a clear view of their brand from a consumer's perspective. It facilitates an understanding of how the brand is used, by whom and how it is perceived vs competitors in the market. As well as providing clarity on brand positioning and potential future direction it also informs ad content and messaging. ​

We usually used a mix of different methodologies to fulfil this research. Qualitative research allows exploration of the market and generates hypotheses which can be tested in quant research. Quant research gives substantiation, and clear direction to our findings. ​

As well as influencing comms planning, brand development research often influences other factors in the marketing mix e.g. new product development. ​

We work with clients to test creative at all or any stage of its journey from initial concept development to final placement of the finished creative.​

Early-stage concept testing is usually done through focus groups on an online research community where we can tease out detail of how the ads are working to engage with customers, and whether the proposed imagery and text are doing enough to communicate the right message and elicit the desired response​.

Later down the line we use techniques like heat mapping, and emotion measurement to ensure that customers are engaging visually with the near-finished creative and that it is prompting the right emotional reaction​.

Creative diagnostic questions, included within tracking studies, give statistical proof of whether the ad is successful on key metrics like memorability, stand out, delivery of key messages. They are also able to measure ad wear out.​

We offer a full audience segmentation service for clients. Segmentations divide potential consumers into groups that are broadly homogenous, in ways that are important for a particular category or universe. Segmentations can be driven by a range of factors including demographics, behaviours, needs and attitudes.​

The outputs identify, size and profile different audience segments and understand the needs/motivations and brand performance of each. These insights help to uncover new audience groups and identify the optimum source of growth/headroom audiences for your brand.​

Our segmentations are designed with media planning and activation in mind. We ensure the resulting segments can be re-created in key media planning tools such as TGI (to inform media targeting and a broader understanding of their lifestyles) and can be digitally activated against.​

Audience development research guides the optimal use of comms channels and informs the context and messaging of ads.​

This type of research defines the size of the overall market in terms of available audience. It then looks at a brand's position in the market in terms of core and potential users and where we can look to grow. We identify future audiences from easy to more difficult to convert, and take a view of the merits of targeting brand switchers vs those who are new to the market. The research would also be used to understand how to engage with new audiences to best effect in terms of channel, context and messaging.​

By combining industry standard sources and first party data we are able to get a clear view of current audiences and who we should look to target moving forwards. This work is often combined with an audience segmentation approach and can be used in offline planning and buying or as a start point for online audience activation.​

Our customer journey research provides you with a detailed understanding of the purchase journey for your category. It maps out the different stages of the journey, including the triggers and barriers to purchase. It determines how well your brand performs at each stage of the journey vs key competitors and explores the role and influence of comms and touchpoints at different stages of the journey. The insights from the research inform how to improve your brand’s performance in the purchase journey, from getting into the consideration set to better conversion.​

We use a combination of research approaches to fully understand the customer journey. Qualitative research helps us get an in-depth picture of the journey and explore the reasons behind behaviours. Quantitative research provides robust measurement of the journey. For customer journeys conducted online we also use online behavioural data to enhance our understanding of the online journey.​