mindswarms insights blog
There’s a lot of planning that goes into traveling. And people increasingly turn to devices for help. Here, Think with Google (powered by mindswarms) reveals the consumer trends shaping these travel micro-moments, how they affect the travel customer journey, and why they matter for travel brands. Check out the study here.
What happens when you need consumer insights within a matter of days? Check out how mindswarms helped a leading holding-company-owned N.Y. advertising agency new business group craft mobile video surveys that delivered compelling results.They won the new business. And they’re now big fans of mobile video ethnography.
A leading holding-company-owned N.Y. advertising agency new business group received a call most agencies dream about: a major national FMCG food brand was interested in having a conversation in a few days time. This potential brand currently had an ad agency. Reading the tea leaves, the agency knew the brand would be in play, and wanted to seal the deal before word on the street created a situation where a furious pitch process would be ignited, bringing dozens of other agency contenders into the mix.
A 15-person mindswarms survey. Bingo. 7 questions per person gives you over 90 minutes of video responses (respondents each have Although the conversation was positioned as a preliminary chemistry check, the agency brought its “A” game, aiming to close the deal in the first meeting. The agency reached out to mindswarms to craft a consumer research strategy that would deliver compelling insights in a matter of days. Using mobile video surveys with a national sample of respondents, several methodologies were employed. (1) Missions: qualified consumers were sent to a grocery store where they recorded their impressions of the frozen foods section, as well as specific brands within it. (2) Prompt & React: respondents were prompted (with a link to video and PDFs) to the character-based advertising campaigns the client had created over the years, and asked to respond to the perceived relevance. (3) Show & Tell: consumers were asked to show the contents of their freezer to get a glimpse inside a typical respondent’s frozen food choices, thereby revealing the actual truth of what their freezers contained (vs. what people might report in a focus group, or quant study). Plus it allowed the client and agency to see the cluster of brands their core consumers actually bought. Those insights were packaged into a curated, edited short video, along with some informed points of view meant to generate health strategic conversation.1 minute to respond to each question). You have a national or global sample of people answering very specific questions about the client’s brand or product that you can bake into a presentation or even edit into a quick video. Heck, create a pitch manifesto for your approach based on the insights gathered, and leapfrog those other agencies. Responses “ship as they fill” so you and everyone on the pitch team reviewing responses as they come in. You can start to inform your internal teams about the consumer POV and use it to influence the way they think about creative, media, and every other aspect of the pitch.
By bringing to life key insights about consumers’ relationship with the client’s brand and its advertising in a matter of days, nationally, the agency was able to engage the client in an informed preliminary strategic conversation about how to potentially manage and leverage some of the brand’s historical communications assets and equities. While the client was expecting an informal first meet-and-greet discussion, they were impressed by the agency’s ability and initiative to gather insight rapidly, across a broad geography.
The agency won the business in the first meeting and has continued continued to use mindswarms for other successful pitches. The agency has also introduced mindswarms to its existing client base as a strategic research tool to craft creative briefs and campaigns, to not only help drive agency relationships deeper inside its clients’ organizations, but to create new relationships more broadly within their clients’ companies.
In a pilot study at Carnegie Mellon University, students enrolled in Human Computing Interaction Masters program used mindswarms video mobile surveys to get feedback on their idea storyboards. The responses they received from consumers were illuminating, helping them determine which prototype to develop, and enhancing their learning in a real- world way.
Steven Dow previously of the HCI Institute at Carnegie Mellon University (now at UCSD), decided to engage mindswarms. In this pioneering pilot study, he asked mindswarms to help students develop a mobile video survey, designed to elicit responses from consumers on their early-stage prototypes. This method was coined “using crowds in the classroom” and was implemented during the Testing stage, in which student innovators had developed a concrete idea and were ready for feedback on their storyboards. It was thought that students might benefit from the authentic and rapid responses that mobile video surveys provide, giving them information that would help them shape design solutions.
Under guidance from mindswarms, the students received a series of one-minute video clips from consumers. They then processed the feedback and presented their reactions in class. It was a positive experience. Many students praised the mindswarms methodology, one student saying, “I can’t think of other better ways to get a lot of user input very quickly.” Students also found the diverse points of view useful, as well as the quick turnaround, and one group of students said it helped them “direct and improve” their design prototype.
Carnegie Mellon University distributed this press release citing the benefit of mindswarms partnership on the project.
Four days away from a pitch to a major national bank, BBDO wanted to gauge consumer impressions and attitudes about banking, with an emphasis on the client’s brand. They knew that having authentic and timely consumer video insights to share with the client would amplify their pitch’s power. The result: they won.
The call comes in from the pitch consultant with multiple agencies on the long list. Everyone is excited but, at the same time, you realize you’re up against some serious contenders and statistically you have a 1 in X chance of making the final round. You need to get the biz dev wheels turning fast. You’d love some qualitative research to have a POV to start informing the creative brief, but OOP expenses are strictly managed by the CFO and every group is asking for funding. Focus groups are seen to be too traditional or you can’t afford a national sample; plus, time doesn’t permit because you have one week to get the next round of pitch material together.
Perfect occasion for mindswarms; perfect occasion for high quality mobile video surveys.
A 15-person mindswarms survey. Bingo. 7 questions per person gives you over 90 minutes of video responses (respondents each have 1 minute to respond to each question). You have a national or global sample of people answering very specific questions about the client’s brand or product that you can bake into a presentation or even edit into a quick video. Heck, create a pitch manifesto for your approach based on the insights gathered, and leapfrog those other agencies. Responses “ship as they fill” so you and everyone on the pitch team reviewing responses as they come in. You can start to inform your internal teams about the consumer POV and use it to influence the way they think about creative, media, and every other aspect of the pitch.
Working with mindswarms mobile video surveys, BBDO quickly locked down the recruitment specs. They wanted a 20 person survey with an equal spread across gender, race, and geographic location, while also specifying other key needs; brand awareness, and regular use of the brand’s banking services. Mindswarms immediately created a screener to ensure that candidates met all basic demographic, geographic, and psychographic requirements. Recruitment began hours later. Together, BBDO and mindswarms developed the survey questionnaire for participants. Conducted asynchronously over mobile devices (or webcam) via mindswarms, the survey began the same day BBDO reached out to mindswarms. As the survey ran live over the weekend, a mindswarms Project Manager reviewed all responses as they completed, replacing any respondents with bad AV or incomplete answers free of charge. By Monday morning, the participants had completed the survey, netting BBDO one hundred forty minutes of consumer insight to pick and choose from to both inform and complement their pitch.
BBDO was delivered a cloud based study link that allowed for download or online viewing of all video responses. Using that study link in the pitch, BBDO showed a board with twelve choice participants, including their photos and summaries of their responses. To accentuate specific points, BBDO played poignant video responses for the client. Mobile video surveys helped anchor BBDO’s creative strategy in genuine consumer insight (vs agency staff speculation), making the client much more receptive to their ideas. In the end, BBDO won the pitch.
Get raw consumer feedback to product and service use in home to benchmark features and pain points and inform future product and service improvements.
15 participants each answer 10 questions using the video on their smartphone or laptop. That produces 150 x 1 minute video clips and corresponding transcripts (both Google Speech, and a parallel service that includes a human’s eyes to capture important nuances).
All delivered via a cloud-based link that is shareable, and assets that can be downloaded (videos in MP4 format) to be used to bring the insights to life for presentations, and highly engage audiences
Gather visitor reactions to new – or existing – packaging. (This is particularly helpful for products where there is no sales assist on the retail floor).
15 participants each answer 10 questions using the video on their smartphone or laptop. That produces 150 x 1 minute video clips and corresponding transcripts (both Google Speech, and a parallel service that includes a human’s eyes to capture important nuances).
All delivered via a cloud-based link that is shareable, and assets that can be downloaded (videos in MP4 format) to be used to bring the insights to life for presentations, and highly engage audiences
Rather than show up at a respondent’s home with an Excel spreadsheet and fingers crossed the participant is good, mindswarms has been used to recruit in advance for ethnographies. Not only does it help identify cream-of-the-crop candidates, but it also informs the research process early on, and can be used to sharpen discussion guides.
What we have often done is a wave of mindswarms in advance doing any kind of field work (focus groups, IDIs, in-homes). A lot of clients are anxious to get projects moving quickly, and instead of waiting two weeks to begin traditional qual research, mindswarms can gather insight within days from a very broad geography to begin to inform the project.
mindswarms has been used as a way to bounce ideas off consumers after the traditional qualitative field work has been completed. So, for example, on a project with product designers, sketches of ideas inspired on the road were bounced off mindswarms respondents after the initial wave of research had been completed to help validate a direction.
In most countries, the tendency is to conduct traditional qualitative research in major markets because that’s where the lion’s share of volume comes from. But mindswarms has been used a remarkably quick way to access consumers in every level of market to help balance out a more urban skew to the recruitment. So, for example, in the US, rather than hit the usual NY/LA/Chicago markets, sprinkling in a nationally representative wave of mindswarms helps provide a more representative picture of consumers nationally.
The following is a short list of ways in which we and/or our clients have employed the platform creatively to extract new and unusual insights.
For a leading brand of baby strollers that was looking into extending their product footprint into the baby washbasin space, we had parents of kids < 1 years old wash their babies on camera (their privates were covered with a washcloth) and talk about the experience. In this instance, the partner held the phone to capture the experience. There is literally no other way to do this: imagine sending a videographer and interviewer into their home and asking them to wash their baby while you film it? Right; we don’t think so either.
For one of the country’s leading packaged food innovation companies, we shipped a potential new product to consumers’ homes, then had them record their out of box experience, the preparation, and finally tasting of the product. Interestingly, while their initial impressions bordered on repulsion (“it looks like rabbit poo!”), the taste of the product was incredibly well received, providing the client with insight on how to tweak the product extrusion.
For one of the world’s biggest furniture brands and retailers, we had loyalists write a love letter to the brand, and read it aloud on camera. It was for an exercise to get at what the core of the brand stood for, so having consumers – in their own words – craft and read a love letter on camera, it helped surface some of the deeper emotional connections they had with the brand.
For a major QSR brand that was looking at re-designing its drive-thru menu board, we had consumers of the brand report on the before, during and after of the drive-thru experience at their stores. Recording video from inside their cars in the moment, the client was able to get a first-hand look at how and where the messaging was connecting and missing.
For a global ad agency pitching a new potential client, we had consumes shop for the client’s product at a chain of major big box stores. Because like many categories, the product and landscape was crowded and competitive, so having consumers report on their thoughts on the buying process as well as packaging and displays helped drive a deeper understanding of how hard it would be for the brand to stand out.
For a project to help re-launch and re-position a line of sports bras for a leading brand of sports footwear and apparel, we had women show us their collection of sports bras and talk about them. Any time people hold something and talk about it, it not only helps validate them as the right consumers, but it also makes them more animated and articulate in their responses.
For a project with truth (anti smoking), we had teens step outside from a party they were attending and record their responses to key questions that would arise for them in a party situation. Although the lighting quality was variable (a number of the responses were quite dark), the insights were powerful because they were so close to the moment (specifically a situation loaded with peer pressure).
To understand how consumers’ relationship with music changed in the home using SONOS, we shipped speakers to people all over the world. And had them record their thoughts over a period of one month.
To understand potential product extension zones of opportunity for a major European appliance brand, we had consumers deconstruct their before, during and after laundry journeys.
Early on in the Trump campaign when the first TV commercial launched, we were curious to understand if/how the messaging was resonating and connecting. While we are politically neutral, we predicted early on that he had tapped into a strong emotional undercurrent in the country, and our founder was quoted as such in Mother Jones magazine.
For a pet food study for one of the country’s biggest and best known brands, we had respondents introduce us to their cats in the first response. The technique helped not only validate that owners did indeed have cats, it made respondents more emotionally engaged, and helped add color/texture to their insights.
Working with one of the world’s largest furniture brands and retailer, we had consumers show us what they deemed to be “the biggest villain in the home” with the goal being to understand how that connected to the American Dream.
We have shipped food products, SONOS speakers, shoe prototypes and make-up to people’s homes and had them record everything from their “out of box” experience to preparation/set up, use and even removal of make-up.
Have consumers show you their journey through a decision, product use or consumption journey.
Example: 20 participants each answer 10 questions using the video on their smartphone or laptop. That produces 200 x 1 minute video clips and corresponding transcripts (both Google Speech, and a parallel service that includes a human’s eyes to capture important nuances).
All delivered via a cloud-based link that is shareable, and assets that can be downloaded (videos in MP4 format) to be used to bring the insights to life for presentations, and highly engage audiences.
Get to know your core target audience, intimately, by delving into their attitudes and lifestyle, brand affinities, product use and more.
15 participants each answer 10 questions using the video on their smartphone or laptop. That produces 150 x 1 minute video clips and corresponding transcripts (both Google Speech, and a parallel service that includes a human’s eyes to capture important nuances).
All delivered via a cloud-based link that is shareable, and assets that can be downloaded (videos in MP4 format) to be used to bring the insights to life for presentations, and highly engage audiences.