Consumer Insight

Consumer insight is about in-depth understanding of what consumers want, how they behave and what they like in order to create products, services and market strategies that are both relevant and appealing.

Consumer insight research focuses on understanding perspectives, motivations and decision-making processes. It is a methodical and well-structured approach to studying and understanding consumers, that replaces your hunches and educated guesses with accurate and reliable insights.

Conducting consumer insight research will help you:

• gain a deeper understanding of your target audience
• identify new market opportunities/gaps in the market
• stay ahead of the competition
• improve your marketing strategy
• improve your product development
• make business decisions that are grounded in insight and data.

Areas of focus could include:

• Consumer attitudes and behaviours towards products and services, e.g. the advent of e-hailing ride services has made it quick and easy to get a ride through a smartphone, which has impacted on consumer behaviour in relation to traditional taxi services.
• Consumer preferences for specific features or product attributes, e.g. taste preference has been a central issue in the Coke and Pepsi war, a product attribute that each brand has focused on in marketing.
• Consumer decision-making processes and criteria. For example in e-commerce the decision-making criteria may be more complex than in a store context, with consumers now taking into consideration shipping times, delivery charges, online consumer reviews, etc.
• The impact of branding and marketing on consumer behaviour. To illustrate, Dove built an emotional connection with consumers during the COVID pandemic and lockdown through its “courage is beautiful” campaign focusing on the courage of healthcare workers.
• The influence of culture, lifestyle and values on consumer behaviour, e.g. think of how Nando’s has used an understanding of current events and cultural trends in South African to provide humorous advertising messages that resonate.

We create a tailored research approach that considers your specific needs, goals and budget. We don’t believe in a one-size fits all approach, but work with you to design a customised research approach that best fits your requirements.

We may use one or several of the following:

• Focus Groups – these are sit-down discussions with pre-recruited groups of your consumers
• Digital Depth Interviews – these are one on one qualitative interviews conducted via WhatsApp with a small sample of consumers over the course of 3 days. They are a cost effective way to gain access to consumers over a wider geographical area.
• Immersions/Ethnography – this involves observing and speaking to your consumers in their natural environment (e.g. home, work, shopping, socialising) to gain first-hand experience of their world.
• Digital Diaries – here individual consumers or a group of consumers share photos, videos, text and voice notes in relation to their product usage, usage occasions, etc.
• Quantitative Surveys – this is a quantitative approach that can be conducted online, telephonically or face to face with a large sample of consumers in order to gather data on their attitudes, behaviours and preferences.