MrWeb 21 YEARS: Unique Research Opportunities

Continuing our month-long focus on online communities Stephen Cribbett, CEO and founder of Further looks at projects where communities excel, offering huge benefits over other formats - with case studies of work for Bupa, VouchForMe, Condé Nast and Keyhouse software.


Digital connectivity now enables every aspect of our lives, including the way we shop, bank, consume, get from point A to B and our health and well-being. Devices, apps and digitally- enabled services are facilitating all that there is. So, it's of no surprise then, that online research methods are now the norm and have fundamentally shifted the way research is conducted, and even who does it.

Research communities, in particular, offer huge benefits in terms of agility, reach and speed for clients, aiding decision-making and rapid concept testing and iteration. But they are also hugely beneficial for researchers and participants who need flexibility and convenience when it comes to fieldwork and analysis.

For researchers, they facilitate new ways to ask questions. You can set creative tasks and exercises that capture moments and surface both implicit and explicit responses. Their asynchronous nature means researchers can carve out more thinking time, leaving room for more in-depth probing, facilitation and analysis that's devoid of the usual time pressures - which in turn delivers better data. Whereas previously, participants had to be located within a certain radius of a focus group facility, now they can take part from the comfort of their home or when they're out and about, via their smartphones, thus removing the potential for participation bias. What's more, research community participants are free to share their own authentic views, experiences and opinions without peer pressures associated with focus groups.

Research communities excel when it comes to capturing natural, everyday behaviours. Through the activation of ethnographic activities via their smartphones, participants can share what they see, hear, think and feel in the same way they do on social media, thus being their true self but providing the researcher a full view of the context of the behaviour. By way of their longitudinal and sequenced nature, researchers can connect, discuss and explore any number of topics and concepts, engaging people at critical moments. All of this results in more value for money, including engagement rates in excess of +90% and happy consumers that openly share how fun and rewarding their experiences have been and how easy it was to take part.

To understand what this means in practical terms, and to give you some inspiration! Here are some examples of how Further's community research team and technology, Together, have achieved a depth and breadth of human insight that's hard to achieve using other tools.


What do Health and Wellbeing Really Mean to People in the UK?

Bupa wanted to understand what their customer needs were in relation to wellbeing, and what role they should play in meeting these needs. They asked us to help them surface the everyday challenges people face in this area, collaborating with them to develop insight they could use to inform the development of tools and strategies that would provide value to customers. Using Together, participants were encouraged to complete early activities using video to ensure that first-hand experiences were captured then, on an ongoing basis, during the diary task later in the study. Mixing the use of 'in-the-moment' video with rationalised accounts and explanations of behaviours, allowed the research team to explore the nuances between what people did on a daily basis and what they thought they did. During our research collaboration, we uncovered a number of ways that Bupa can nurture their customers' needs and aspirations in this area, to support them achieve their health and wellbeing goals. (View More Online)


Using Insight to Develop a Disruptive Insurance Proposition

VouchForMe is a European insuretech start-up. Their innovative blockchain product and novel approach towards trust, and the power of social connections, has the potential to completely disrupt the consumer insurance market. The leadership team at VouchForMe approached Further for help in developing and fine-tuning their proposition for the UK market. With 30 carefully-selected consumers, we designed activities that surfaced people's complex attitudes towards trust, risk, friendship and family - and how these intersect with attitudes to money. We also combined a range of individual and group discussions, surveys, heat mapping exercises, projective techniques and media related tasks including video responses. The leadership team at VouchForMe observed the community in real-time, which in turn enabled our research team to quickly probe and deep-dive interesting topics as they surfaced. (View More Online)


Developing Global Mission and Vision Statements

Reimagining 'mission and vision' statements is a challenge, even for small organisations. If you're one of the world's most successful publishing companies, where do you begin? Condé Nast International commissioned Further's crack online research team to help them develop a new global 'mission and vision' statement for the organisation. We had one week to have conversations with 60 employees, all with different titles and levels of seniority, across six countries in different languages. We designed and moderated a series of online com munities in Brazil, Germany, France, Taiwan, Japan and Mexico, hosted on our advanced Together platform. We used group discussions, surveys, image sourcing, storytelling and projective techniques. Throughout the project we worked together with staff to refine and build on the potential mission and vision statements to ensure they were grounded in the heritage of the business and distinctive for all stakeholders, all whilst turning the gaze toward the future. (View More Online)


Entering a New Market with Confidence

Keyhouse is a market-leading legal software brand in Ireland. They wanted to understand whether there was an opportunity to expand their practice management software and support operations into the English market. They asked Further to generate a deeper understanding of law firms' usage and attitudes towards case management software systems. The main approach involved interactive qualitative research using our online research community platform, Together. This was supplemented with face-to-face interviews with senior partners in English law firms. As well as exploring current behaviours, the 24 carefully selected participants took part in a variety of exercises and tasks tapping into emotions around IT and practice management. We helped Keyhouse to understand the market for their product and services in England. We spoke directly to decision-makers within law firms as well as a host of other key stakeholders to discover what they would look for in a software management partner. Keyhouse can now move forward with confidence in their proposition and develop messaging and a sales approach that should deliver results. (View More Online)


Using Online Research Communities to Capture the Social Lives of Consumers

One of the most creative approaches to an online research community that we've seen involved 120 design-savvy clubbers who were located in some of the coolest cities around the world. The purpose of the community was to unearth insight on the social behaviours and, in particular, their 'club lives' over a three-week period for one of the world's most famous beer brands. Participants were (typically) hyper-connected on social media, so we used these same behaviours to encourage them to share every moment and create a consumer journey map that visualised the needs, wants, hope and desires of clubbers. We were able to highlight clearly their experience and motivating factors. The client - a team of designers and innovation specialists - used the outputs to inspire design and innovation thinking, enabling a more human-centred design methodology and rapid prototyping. What's more, the online research community outputs created an itinerary of places to 'go see' for the design team who embarked on an extensive tour of nightlife hotspots! The overall approach inspired the client's design team to surface new consumer-centric concepts that challenged the current nightlife experience. By providing a 24/7 connection between the client team and clubbers, a fully immersive experience played out and provided a longitudinal view of the lives of the target audience as well as the opportunity to conduct consumer co-creation.

In summary, communities are a great way of exploring research subjects in some depth. They're intuitive and fun for both researcher and participant, as you go forth on a creative and immersive journey that will unearth authentic human insight. Using a platform like Together, communities can be completed anywhere in the world, normally inside a week. Because much of the data and information can be iterated, transcribed and extracted easily, the write-up and final report can be completed in a matter of days. Sound good?


Stephen is founder and CEO of Further, a Human Insight Company. He grew up in the clean air of Warwickshire before moving on to Nottingham and its beer-stained bars and clubs to study an unusual new degree course focussed on design management. It was only in middle-age he realised that running a research technology and insight business could mean fuelling his love for people-watching, making things better and making better things. He's built and grown creative, brand and tech businesses from the ground up, working on proposition development, sales, business development and product development. He's been part of creative strategy teams developing consumer brands and experiences, and finally, he's a consumer insight expert.

stephen@go-further.co

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.