Using ethnographic-style conversations online followed by in-home friend triads, we uncovered a range of factors explaining our collective indifference to hunger here in the U.S. for a nationwide non-profit. Above all, we learned that our concern for people struggling with hunger is often conditional. This transformational insight was the basis of an ARF Ogilvy award-winning campaign that successfully triggered empathy and action among our client partner’s designated audiences.

Tasked with understanding how consumers shop for- and purchase water filters, we launched social listening efforts and tapped a mobile moments panel to better understand buying drivers and barriers. Those findings helped us develop three behavioral-based shopper archetypes with detailed descriptions of how, when, and why each persona navigates a path-to-purchase map we designed. More importantly, this research revealed an unmet category opportunity that shaped future messaging and packaging.

A ready-to-eat breakfast food client team and agency wanted to better understand what young adults and teens find funny — in general and with branded content. We designed the research so that young people curated individual Pinterest boards showing us their humor sources and sensibilities. They also gave us examples of ads that got humor “right” and “wrong” with explanations for what makes something shareable. Our analysis provided detailed guidance on how branded humor can be both persuasive and entertaining so young people are laughing with marketers, not at them.

For the launch of a new greener household cleaner we were asked to help understand and bring to life a new target identified in a segmentation study. We conducted three iterative and complementary qualitative phases including mobile chats, video discussions, and in-person friend triads to explore her take on “greener” and “cleaner” in household care to develop a strategy for prompting trial. Our work helped uncover inroads with this audience along with other tactics to ensure an effective launch strategy.

We were commissioned to explore newly developed creative assets meant to build on the huge success of the of a PSA campaign aimed towards dads. Through a series of nationwide video chats among full-time and part-time dads across America, we discovered that the new campaign was also poised to deliver on key objectives, and with a few minor adjustments the work would consistently show fathers how small, everyday moments can have a big and lasting impact with their kids.