Do Your Homework: Optimize Prior to Launch
If you’ve been following along this Spring, you may have noticed the increased focus on our qualitative practice, specifically digital ethnography in the form of longitudinal activity-based discussions coupled with live interviews.
We’ve seen the flexibility of digital qualitative tools, combined with AI integration, has significantly boosted its popularity. This powerful combination allows for more efficient data processing, personalized insights, and adaptive solutions, making it an invaluable resource for any marketing research toolbox.
While digital ethnography coupled with live interviews has an abundance of use cases, at W5 we’ve seen it work particularly well for clients seeking to:
Profile: Offering a “Day-in-the-Life” look at key audiences to drive empathic thinking
Evaluate: Inspiring the ideal brand experience across communications, pricing, and UX
Innovate: Unlocking white space opportunities that disrupt the marketplace
So let’s now dive into ‘Evaluate’ and dig deeper into how this approach can support brands needing to capture feedback on messaging, products, services, and features. We’ve seen this approach work well across products, industries, and audiences. A few use cases include:
Product Improvement: Marketing research can identify customer preferences and pain points, enabling companies to refine product features, design, and functionality to better meet market demands.
Service Enhancement: Through feedback analysis, marketing research can uncover areas where customer service can be improved, leading to enhanced customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Messaging Effectiveness: By testing various messages with target audiences, marketing research can determine which resonate most to support more compelling and effective advertising campaigns.
In a recent post Spotlight: Assessing Portfolio Expansion Strategies we explored the quest for toddler-friendly foods and snacks and how this approach gained valuable insights into the most resonant positioning and branding strategies. Unique to this project was the power to update packaging stimuli between the online discussions and live interviews which enable a faster finalized product. Here are sample blinded, scrubbed examples of what W5’s output may look like for such a study:
It’s important to remember to never lead with the tool. At W5, we first listen to the business objectives and required outcomes and then select the right approach. Equally as important as choosing the right methodology is selecting the right research partner.
There are plenty of research companies who conduct digital ethnography. So why work with W5? Here’s some insight on what our clients say keeps W5 among one of the top companies executing this approach:
Diverse Expertise: Our in-house team of researchers trained in anthropology, journalism, and communications offers best-in-class moderation for both participants and clients
Study Design: A seasoned team designs activities and guides that go beyond simple Q&A to uncover cultural nuances influencing behaviors across diverse consumer backgrounds
Deliverables: Reports transform insights into actionable strategies, amplifying the consumer voice through unique, engaging deliverables, and innovative storytelling techniques
Bonus—Stakeholder Engagement: From insights summaries and fieldwork huddles to platform tutorials and backroom engagement, we ensure clients are running parallel with the W5 project team
Interested in more examples of how W5’s research can support evaluation initiatives, check out Ignite Your Campaign: Dynamic Development and Rigorous Testing or reach out to discuss your specific research needs.