Brookside Analysts & Researchers have helped many executives make decisions that are grounded
sound, high-caliber market research. Here’s a handful of success stories:
A Leading Cell Phone Manufacturer—Integrated Online Survey, On-on-one Interviews and peer site review
With cell phone manufacturers competing on not only device features, but the tasks devices can do, this cell phone
manufacturer realized it needed to understand what applications would truly help sell their devices.
We conducted a global multi-part study to help them understand their current strengths and weaknesses, what their target
audience most wants, and how to best measure how they stack up against their competitors.
The findings were stunning, and as a result, upper-management committed to significantly increase budget towards application
development.
High-End Household Appliances—Online Segmentation Study & Ethnography
A high-end household appliances company was getting ready to launch a new product line, and they wanted to enhance
its understanding of the marketplace, its segments, and their motivations and behaviors in order to come out running in this
very style-conscious market.
As a first phase of research, we conducted an extensive online segmentation study, which helped to profile, and better
understand, their consumers. As a second phase, we helped to dig beyond this
cursory understanding of their target audience – getting to know them better—knowing their faces, expressions,
voice, and finding out how they actually used their appliances in their own home. Ethnography
was used to better understand what their daily lives were and how people really conducted household chores at their home.
Having a deeper understanding of their target audience helped the client to create compelling marketing campaigns—communicating
effectively with this audience and meet their needs—and assisted in training of sales associates as they launch their
product line.
A Major Web Search Site—Online Usability Research
A Web search leader wanted to ensure their potential advertisers receive enough information during their site visits
to make their advertising decisions as quickly and easily as possible. The company
also needed to explore the satisfaction level among potential advertisers while they surfed the Web, so the company could
make its sites more appealing and informational for customers.
To support this effort, we conducted an online exploratory research study. We
found out where their potential advertisers went while they surfed the Web, and followed-up with specific questions about
their experience on those sites. We also integrated clickstream analysis with
the attitudinal and satisfaction aspect of site visits.
Based on our recommendations, this Web search site honed-in specific sites and made more user friendly—contributing
to Number?% year-over-year increase in search revenue.
A Major Department Store —Panel Based Web Analytics
& eCommerce Benchmarking
During the emergence of online commerce, a major player in the department store and catalog world realized that providing
the same level of service and convenience online as in their offline channels would be critical to their company’s overall
success. They sought us out to understand the factors that lead to high Web Sales
Conversion Rates while benchmarking their own performance versus their competitors, and over time.
Our team developed a model for analyzing a) factors that lead to a successful eCommerce site, and b) how this retail
company stacked up against its competitors. We defined metrics that would help
this retail company trend these factors over long periods of time.
Being a player in this quickly-evolving environment, this retailer has held its standing as one of the top 10 online
retailers in the US, was able to navigate
and grow throughout the dot-com boom and bust. It was among the first to truly
understand the impact of non-traditional competitors, such as eBay and Blue Fly, within their space.
A Gift and Greeting Card Leader—Retail Ethnography
A major gift and greeting card company saw declining sales due to increased competitions in the market place and felt
stagnant with their learning. In order to turn these sales around, they wanted
to better understand the connection and disconnection between what people want, versus what they were providing.
We helped to introduce them to the idea of ethnography as a marketing research tool, and they turned to us to help
them explore what people were looking for when they shop for Mother’s Day cards.
They specifically wanted to explore how people felt about the text of the card, the poetry or the written message about
Mother’s Day. We were to find out what might be unmet needs of card shoppers. We conducted retail ethnography and talked with people while they shopped for their
Mother’s Day cards.
Based on our recommendations, the greeting card company launched an entirely new line of Mother’s Day cards the
following year, and also adopted the line to another holiday cards—which led to increased venues for the years to come.
Educational Grant—Ethnography/Focus Group
The overall goal was to better assist Southeastern Asian refuge community to transition into the US. They needed
to better understand environmental issues for this particular group. The hypothesis
was that they were exposed to contaminated food because fist was consumed more frequently compared to average Americans. As a result, they might have higher probability of contracting mercury poisoning or
similar to that.
We used various methods in different contexts—impromptu in-context focus group, participant observation and in-depth
interviews at their home, and a series of observations through training sessions. Cultural
identity is deeply integrated with what types of food they consume and who they consume with when.
The data rejected the hypothesis and the team was able to move to investigate next environmental
issue facing the community.
