New Firm Nonfiction to Seek 'Self-Censored Truths'

In the US, former Gartner and Vice Media execs Ben Zeidler and Gunny Scarfo have launched an agency called Nonfiction Research, which will measure the 'intimate details' of consumers' lives and buying decisions.

Zeidler worked as Global Head of CPG Research at Gartner-owned benchmarking specialist L2, and before this as VP Customer Intelligence at Accenture; Director, Research & Analytics at Tenthwave Digital (acquired by Accenture); and eBusiness Researcher at Forrester. Scarfo was previously Head of Strategy for VICE Media's digital agency Carrot, and spent six years at Tenthwave Digital where he worked with Zeidler and latterly served as VP, Head of Strategy.

Their new Brooklyn-based firm Nonfiction Research will aim to 'break the norms' of traditional research to understand the 'informal, unfiltered lives' of customers. In pursuit of this the pair say they have already ventured unchaperoned into a prison, surveyed rap lyrics to chart personal finance trends, and run quantitative studies on the secret sex lives of Americans - all with the goal of finding truths that customers self-censor rather than reveal to market researchers. In addition to consulting directly with brands, Nonfiction will publish a series of publicly available reports - the first of which is titled 'The Secret Financial Lives of Americans and the Future of Financial Services'. The research process for the report included locating and interviewing convicted bank robbers, talking with individuals struggling with shopping addiction, and hearing thousands of Americans share their most private money moments.

Zeidler comments: 'Companies are thirsty for research that goes beyond focus groups and formally-worded surveys. They want to go deeper. Otherwise, how can they empathize with what their customers really want? How can they improve the product or marketing if their customer research is still at arm's length?'

Web site: www.thisisnonfiction.com .