Join the Dots Partners, Hires to Add Social Listening

Manchester, UK-based agency Join the Dots has announced a partnership with software firm Pulsar, adding social media 'listening' services into its portfolio under the direction of newly hired Research Director, Ellie Osborne.

Join the Dots was acquired by its senior management team last year and combines primary research with psychology and behavioural economics. It also sets up and manages online communities, and in the autumn launched a dedicated qualitative research unit under the new brand name of Spirit.

Osborne joins from MMRI where she spent around eighteen months as Qualitative & Digital Research Director, in charge of the agency's Qual team. She previously worked two spells at Chime-owned fieldwork agency Facts International, the first as an Insight Manager and the second as an AD - either side of time as Research, Planning & Insight Manager at Kent County Council. Earlier in her career she worked for Redshift Research, AXA PPP Healthcare and Benchmark Research.

In her new role she will bring together the Pulsar capabilities with Join the Dots' traditional research skills and its two new online community tools, Scout and Project, which were launched four weeks ago. 'Scout' collects photo, video and web content through consumers 'in the moment'; while 'Project' helps create pop-up communities within an existing online community.

The firm's Head of Culture & Trends Kelly McKnight (pictured) says 'social asking' has a big future within market research: 'Social listening is a key addition to our research toolkit and it makes perfect sense for us to offer this service to our clients - we understand their brands and business inside out, we understand people and we have the right tools in our toolkit... On the right research briefs, we can now combine digital listening with our traditional skills of asking questions to give us a better understanding of people, culture and trends across the globe'.

Web site: www.jointhedotsmr.com .