How we do itResearchCommunities

Communities

Collaboration with consumers is hot

Consumers have conversations about your products. Like it or not, but they want to have an impact on the future of your brand, and social media has given them the power to do so. This is not a threat, it's an opportunity! Our research has shown that companies who listen actively & involve consumers in innovation and decision making, outperform the competition.

Making 'ordinary' consumers create extraordinary value for companies

'Research Communities' (MROCs) enable you to join this conversation and start a real dialogue: give key customers a seat in your board. A research community is a carefully screened group of consumers, gathered on a closed platform, around a common interest, for a longer period of time. The community is professionally and continuously managed by passionate moderators who interact with these consumers in their native language. The longitudinal character of communities offers the benefits of consecutive learning, yields more relevant and deeper feedback, thus giving you access to consumers' complex opinions and enabling co-creation. Having a research community will bring 'the voice of the customer' into the heart of your business. Connect your internal organisation with the real stories and real emotions of consumers and change the hearts, minds and actions of your marketing and innovation teams, transforming your company into a consumer-centric thinking one!

We at InSites Consulting have the ambition to bring 'change' into companies: into their culture, their strategies, their brands. We do so by engaging all stakeholders with the consumer world, confronting them with enlightening consumer insights and letting them take relevant actions.

Flexible solutions & global capabilities

We offer a wide range of MROC solutions, tailored to different business needs (browse through the cases below for a full overview). All of this with flexibility in terms of duration, deliverables and scope. Moreover, InSites Consulting has global capabilities through its trained and certified network of community moderators in 32 countries (for a complete overview of our global capabilities click here).

Ready to bring the consumer into your boardroom? We are!

i-Scream Community

 

What did we do?

Ben & Jerry's, an American ice cream company and a division of the British-Dutch Unilever corporation, wanted to get to know  and activate their Dutch and Flemish Ben & Jerry's fans.

In a 3-month community we discussed the following themes with 225 Dutch and Flemish fans: communication & activation, customer experience & innovation, corporate social responsibility. Together with the brand fans, the full marketing plan of Ben & Jerry's was discussed in the community.

InSites Consulting contact:

Kristof De Wulf, Prof Dr

 

What was the result?

With the help of the community members, Ben & Jerry's evaluated and fine-tuned their 2011-2012 marketing plan. As a result, the planned marketing campaigns really fit the hearts & souls of Ben & Jerry's fans.

Two specific results:
1. the new look & feel of the new Dutch and Belgian Ben & Jerry's Facebook page
2. we developed a brand fan DNA for future briefings of advertising agencies

Martijn van Kesteren (Unilever):

Changing BenJerrys into a consumer connect company

Read more about the methodology and insights in our paper: How fans became future shapers of an ice-cream brand.

Cinderella Community

 

What did we do?

Brantano is one of the main non-food retailers in Belgium. Brantano has an extensive assortment of affordable shoes, bags & accessories  with both A-brands and some private label brands. Brantano is part of the Macintosh Retail Group. Macintosh Retail Group is a large non-food retailer active in the Benelux, France & the United Kingdom. They combine several succesful retail chains in different industries: (Kwantum, Halfords, Belcompany, Scapino…).

The study had two main objectives:

  1. Brantano wanted to understand its customer base in the southern part of Belgium, Wallonia, and wanted to develop a continuous client sounding board, this in order to adapt its generic marketing mix to their specific needs & wants.
  2. The management wanted to assess its online approach and potential (website, e-commerce application, Facebook) and look for the potential of a more integrated on-offline customer approach.

In a 3-month community we discussed the following themes: shopper decision tree, communication & activation, customer experience in the (new) shops, portfolio and customer loyalty.

InSites Consulting contact:

Mieke Van Heddegem

 

What was the result?

Brantano made three very important decisions based on this research:

  1. Intensify the use of social media (Facebook) as enabler and as means to connect online and offline shopping behaviour and experiences.
  2. Adjust and fine-tune floor plans and logic of the new stores, based upon and in line with the different purchase needs of women, children and men.
  3. Challenge the current product portfolio

Furthermore Brantano is inspired by its customers in terms of customer loyalty opportunities, traffic generators, communication.

Our Christmas House

 

What did we do?

C1000 is a Dutch supermarket chain that aims to be the price-quality player in the market. The 'Our Christmas House' community was conducted during the whole Holiday season in order to gain full insight in how customers prepare for and experience Christmas.

In this 6-week community, we discussed several topics with 100 consumers related to consumer preparations, the shopping list and specific items supermarkets offer during the Holiday season. All this by focusing on C1000 Christmas leaflet and the overall Christmas shopping experience at C1000.

InSites Consulting contact:

Ramon Pardo Kruidenier

 

What was the result?

With this in-depth evaluation of the Christmas period from start to end, C1000 could improve the preparation for next year. They learned how to better match its Christmas theme with the needs and expectations of customers. Besides that, insights were also relevant for the preparation for other themes, such as Easter.

Hendrikje Schoppink (C1000):

C1000s evaluation of the Xmas campaign

Everybody Famous

 

What did we do?

Famous, a Belgian advertising agency, wanted to become the first co-inspiration agency in the world by integrating the voice of the consumer in every stage of the creative process.

We launched an on-going research community of 150 Dutch and 150 French speaking consumers to connect Famous' strategic and creative minds with the day-to-day stories of consumers. With this approach, Famous aims to create more relevant and impact oriented advertising.

InSites Consulting contact:

Anneleen Boullart

 

What was the result?

The Everybody Famous community is giving consumers an active role in advertising. It serves as a 'window' on the target group and provides inspiration in every stage of the campaign development. From emerging trends in the society and the adoption of new media and technologies to campaign specific topics, the stories of consumers are at the core of the Famous creative process.

Everybody Famous Magazine:

Everybody Famous Magazine

Concept Club Community

 

What did we do?

Heineken is a Dutch brewing company ranked as the third largest brewer in the world. The global design project of Heineken, 'Open Design Explorations Edition 1: The Club' invited talented emerging designers from around the world to co-create the club of the future.

A 3-week Insight Shaping Community with 120 design-savvy clubbers resulted in a consumer journey map, visualizing their needs, perception, experience and motivation. This served both as a briefing and a source of inspiration for the designers.

InSites Consulting contact:

Thomas Troch

 

What was the result?

The final Concept Club will be build and showcased at the Salone del Mobile 2012 in this location in Milan:

This interactive infographic is the conclusion of the needs, perception and experience of the clubbers. The insights challenge designers to explore solutions to issues in club design and to delight the crowd by truly understanding their motivations. In keeping the balance between triggering the senses of the individual (insights moving inwards) and encouraging social interaction (insights moving outwards), Heineken is co-creating a nightlife experience to remember.

** Winner in the category 'Crowdsourcing' of the CCA Co-Creation Awards 2011

Food&zo Community

 

What did we do?

The Heinz Company, famous for its ketchup, is an American food company, manufacturing & marketing thousands of food products in more than 200 countries.

In 2008, Heinz The Netherlands was in search of an online qualitative platform to have a quick pulse on tactical, day-to-day marketing decisions. Now, the platform has grown to an Ongoing Research Community with 150 consumers where both researchers and marketers from Heinz discuss various themes and topics with consumers online. The 'Food&zo' Community allows all Dutch marketers at Heinz Netherlands to get in touch with what consumers feel, think and need. Marketers have access to the platform and can ask 'quick' ad hoc questions, supported by a core community team.

InSites Consulting contact:

Anouk Willems

 

What was the result?

The Food&zo Community is successful in the sense that asking consumer feedback has become part of marketer's day-to-day practice. It brought new insights in terms of marketing communication, innovation and general consumer understanding.

Ronald Laan (HJ Heinz):

Student House

 

What did we do?

ING, a global financial institution of Dutch origin, has the ambition to become THE bank for students and wanted to have full understanding of the life of students and the banking needs.

In the 'ING Student House' community we gained insights into the daily life of 150 students by discussing the following themes during 3 months: incomes, expenditures, financial administration, banking and insurance. Especially what ING can offer student clients. Marketing ideas were evaluated and co-created with the students.

InSites Consulting contact:

Delphine Vantomme, Phd

 

What was the result?

This research community provided ING with a rich and detailed view of the life of students nowadays. In a closing workshop with the ING students-Marketing team more than 100 (smaller and bigger) ideas were generated to better match ING to the needs and wishes of their student clients.

Barbera van der Wal (ING):

ING Student House

Crushed Ice Community

 

What did we do?

How Cool Brands Stay Hot, a recent  publication by InSites Consulting and MTV Networks, reveals what drives Generation Y and how you can reach them. Based on five years of intensive InSites youth research the book provides insights into the consumer psychology and behaviour of Millennials.

In our 'Crushed Ice' Community, we gathered 150 youngsters from around the world to bring this Generation Y even more alive. The community brought answers to questions like:

- What is cool in different cities around the world?
- What are current trendws according to urban Gen Y?
- How does GenY define coolness, and what can brands do to be perceived as real, unique, happy and how can they boost self-identification?

InSites Consulting contact:

Elias Veris

 

What was the result?

The community provides both an inspiration and a blueprint of GenY to marketers in the development of their marketing strategy.

We got a crush on you(th)

Test your knowledge of this marketing savvy and advertising critical generation in our Generation Y game.

Visit some of the coolest cities around the world and live a day like Gen Y. Eat, sleep, shop & party like a true youngster.

Just interested in our methodology and the research insights? Read We got a crush on you(th) and Play, interpret together, play again and create a win-win.

The Idea Café

 

What did we do?

Kraft, a food and beverage corporation, that markets brands in more than 170 countries, was in need of a process to optimally benefit from consumer knowledge and conversations in order to feed the innovation funnel within its 3 main categories.

To realize this, 50 Belgian Kraft consumers (a combination of innovative and influential people) joined the 3-week Ideation & Concept Development Community.

Sofie Bruggeman

 

What was the result?

This approach puts consumers central to the ideation process. Especially the contextualization and strong visualization of the ideas, made it very actionable. The community generated 60+ unique ideas, both short term 'quick wins' and long term 'ideas for development'. A thorough process with a clear ROI.

Joint presentation:

Co-creation through Conversations

Marktplaats 'Klankbord'

 

What did we do?

Marktplaats is a Dutch classified advertising site owned by eBay. This community was executed to improve a communication campaign aiming to increase the acceptance of selling new products on Marktplaats (instead of second-handed only).

At the beginning of this 3-week community, we gained insight into triggers and barriers of 25 users and 25 non-users to buy second-handed and/or new products on Marktplaats. With these insights the advertising agency created communication messages which were directly fine-tuned and tested again on the community.

InSites Consulting contact:

Anouk Willems

 

What was the result?

In the first week it became already clear that the chosen communication focus was not the right one to continue with. Involving the advertising agency directly, made that we were able to re-focus instantly. The new communciation approach was then optimized with the help of the community members. The final communication campaign was almost 1 on 1 derived from the research community.

Tijntje Louwers (Marktplaats):

Sleep Well Community

 

What did we do?

Philips is one of the largest multinational electronics companies in the world. The company detected China as a potential new market for their sleeping solutions. Before entering this market, further understanding of the drivers and barriers for those solutions was needed.

A 3-week Insight Shaping Community brought together 50 Chinese participants with sleeping problems. The community provided a rich understanding of sleeping problems in the Chinese culture, combined with the perception of the Philips brand and the adoption of technological solutions.

InSites Consulting contact:

Thomas Troch

 

What was the result?

Check out this guided tour through the community and find out what Philips learned.

Joint presentation:

Exploring business opportunities in China

Yelo Community

 

What did we do?

Telenet is the largest provider of broadband cable services in Belgium. Its business comprises the provision of analog and digital cable television, high speed internet and fixed & mobile telephony services.

From the launch of Yelo, an application bringing digital TV to mobile devices and (portable) computers, users were invited to provide feedback on social media. 100 participants were recruited from the open community to join a 3-week Pre-launch Community to allow collaboration and discuss improvements. Based on the output Telenet's development roadmap was structured and prioritized.

InSites Consulting contact:

Thomas Troch

 

What was the result?

Community members' feedback resulted in a selection of 45 user-generated improvements, of which 30 are added to the roadmap: ranging from bugs and interface changes to content features. The third update of the app included more than 50% user-generated changes. The project approach resulted in highly satisfied users (83%): turning users into real brand ambassadors.

Joint presentation:

The launch of Yelo

** Nominated for the CCA Co-Creation Awards 2011

Inspire Us Community

 

What did we do?

Unilever is a British-Dutch multinational corporation that owns many of the world's consumer product brands. Unilever is working hard on connecting R&D employees to consumers. Short-term aim is to make R&D people aware of the day-to-day consumer reality. Long-term goal is to create structural change in how employees act.

A Consumer Connect Website was launched, in order to change the hearts, minds & actions of 1000 Unilever R&D employees in 6 weeks time. We established a consumer centric thinking company culture by letting employees engage with the consumer world (by playing online 'games' about the consumer-world, during 3 weeks), inspire them (through a news website reporting on a 3 week online research community enlightening the blind spots of R&D people we discovered during the games) and define actions (in workshops within each R&D team).

InSites Consulting contact:

Anouk Willems

 

What was the result?

To get a grip on the impact we created on employees, we conducted a pre- & post-measurement among all employees who participated. Based on the analysis we detected the extent to which we generated a mind shift:

1. We managed to realize a relative increase of 81% in terms of 'knowing how consumers decide which products to buy'

2. Employees also indicated that they started dialogues with friends & family about why they use and like specific products & are paying more attention to other products & consumer behavior while shopping

3. Based on meta-data we know that our research was impactful because it brought the consumer to life (via pictures & stories), was inspirational & made employees talk about consumers.

Read more about the methodology and insights in our paper: Engage, inspire, act

** Finalist for the Research Effectiveness Award 2011
** Nominated for Best Methodological Paper at the ESOMAR General Congress 2011

results
 
 
 
 May 2012 
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More info?

Tom De Ruyck

Head of Research Communities
T +32 9 269 14 07 | M +32 497 885 882 Evergemsesteenweg 195 | 9032 Ghent Belgium