Market Research and Fresh Thinking, a Perfect Combination

We are an advertising agency—not a medical lab…why would we conduct research?

A brand is a living thing, an energy composed of thoughts and feelings that are called to mind when you think about a business. At Advertising Savants, our proven process to develop a brand includes defining a core purpose—or the difference a brand is meant to make in the world. How do we go about determining such positioning? We start with market research.

Getting to know you … Getting to know all about you

The first step in our process is immersive in nature. It’s one of my favorite aspects of our business; a real courtship, if you will, where we get to know the nuances of a business. There’s nothing more exciting to me than that time frame between “let’s work together” and “now presenting: your company’s brand strategy.” That period most often contains a deep market research phase.

Case in point, a new client came to us a few years ago from a category we had no prior experience in. We jumped in headfirst in all six of their markets, conducting what turned out to be a two-month whirlwind of interviews—gaining insight through conversations with staff, consumers and the trade alike.

• Internal interviews with the staff gave us a firsthand look into the heart of the company—the people that keep operations running and are at the forefront of interaction with customers.
• Consumer insights garnered an interesting aspect into what makes them tick—why a customer may purchase our client’s product, or what may cause them not to.
• Meetings with the trade gave us an in-depth look at the workings of the industry—the nuts and bolts, trends and new knowledge of industry advancements.

Given the fact that each of these groups lent themselves to a very different set of insights, it was quite necessary to conduct this far-reaching research phase to allow us to develop the most effective positioning possible. And in the end, we created a vision for the company, an image for the public and successfully brought the brand to life.

Types of Market Research

If you’re wondering about how to conduct market research, one of the first things you need to determine is exactly which types are going to be best suited for your brand. Depending upon the objectives we’re trying to accomplish, we typically start with a combination of 4 different types of market research.