Qualitative insight that drives audiences to charities and culture

Christmas is a key calendar moment for all charities to raise money. Save the Children wanted to maximise this opportunity by delivering communications and products that were engaging and relevant in the context of a modern Christmas. But what does Christmas mean to children and adults in the 2020s?

Working with Dr Nick Gadsby of The Answer, we delivered integrated audience insight through semiotics and qualitative research. We utilised findings for a creative workshop with a Save the Children team to embed audience insight and stimulate new messaging and product ideas.

The Science Museum are developing a series of exhibitions about climate change. The first focused on the technologies being developed to enable carbon capture. But how to engage and inform Science Museum audiences about quite complex science and technology?

Conducting group discussions, we explored how to make carbon cycle technologies engaging. And we identified knowledge gaps and misunderstandings about climate change. Our fun Carbon Pub Quiz meant there was no shame in having forgotten secondary school science lessons! The Science Museum used our audience insight to develop the exhibition plan and curation.

WaterAid wanted to update their brand drivers. They were particularly interested in exploring their supporters' subconscious motivations.

Collaborating with a team of experts, we used a mixed method of semiotics, ethnography, in-home interviews, discussion boards and online surveys to explore audience motivations from all angles. This led to identifying underlying drivers to support for each of WaterAid’s target audience segments. These drivers are now built into every communications plan and creative brief.

Yotam Ottlolenghi has a passionate and loyal audience who buy his cookery books. But what aspects of the brand are sacred to them? And what could be stretched to engage new audiences? Ottolenghi's publisher, Penguin Random House, asked us to find out.

Through group discussions and fan collages, we identified what’s at the heart of the Ottolenghi brand and therefore which elements must be included in any brand development. From there, we devised a brand key that's now used as a reference tool in the creation of all new Ottolenghi books.