WholeView Research™ - Ethnography 

We have been peeking in kitchen cupboards and hanging out with consumers in their world for years.  With WholeView Research™ we go deep into the lives of the consumer to discover the reality behind one-word answers and polite catch phrases.  WholeView Research™ taps into the subconscious buying and living habits of consumers.  Just like body language, consumers have a “living language” that can often tell us more about them and their buying habits than they know themselves.

 The features of WholeView Research™ include:

• Ongoing Consumer Correspondents

Consumers go through a multi-layer recruitment process before they are invited to be a Correspondent on a client’s qualitative panel.  We manage the communication with consumers via email and phone.  Clients have, in essence, an ongoing “focus group” in these Correspondents.  This is an excellent product and creative development tool.

• WholeView Journal

Journal tasks give consumers time to think and articulate what is important to them.  We are able to peer into Correspondent’s heads and lives via WholeView Journals.  This can involve keeping a product usage journal, creating collages or sending photos of a big event such as a new car purchase.  We have found that journals open up the consumer from another point-of-view. 

• Life Visits

To truly understand their world we spend time with consumers in their real life environment.  Life Visits explore true values, behaviors, beliefs, and attitudes.  Each visit is captured as a video report by videographers with backgrounds in documentary filmmaking.  Consumers may try to tell you in a focus group what’s in their refrigerator, but what will they leave out, forget, emphasize, etc.?  With a Life Visit, nothing is left out.  It’s all in there, even the half-finished open can of cat food.

•    Discovery Groups

After developing a relationship with our Correspondents we can gather them together for an in-depth discussion called Discovery Groups.  These groups can be conducted at a traditional focus group facility or in the home of a Correspondent.  We can even have Correspondents coordinate having their peers over for a chat.  These groups uncover the whys behind common themes captured in Life Visits or WholeView Journals.

The benefits of WholeView Research™ are:

•       The research is conducted in the consumer’s comfort zone
•       It captures and reveals the unspoken
•       An interactive vs. reactive relationship is formed with the consumer
•       A multiple of perspectives can be explored
•       Capturing the extraordinary in the ordinary world
•       Providing real world product usage

As a result, WholeView Research™ is more about the entire story and less about one-word answers.  Let us know how we can customize a WholeView Research™ study for you.