Consumer insights consulting is the work of designing research backwards from a decision a company has to make, running it, and handing back evidence that settles the decision rather than describing the market around it. Vivaldi has run research inside brand and growth strategy engagements since 1999, as a strategy firm rather than a fieldwork agency.
- Since 1999research run inside strategy engagements
- 200+published case studies
- 10 officeson four continents
- 5xWirtschaftsWoche Best of Consulting, Strategy and Innovation
When companies bring us in
The trigger is almost never a shortage of data. It is a decision that keeps getting deferred because nobody can agree on what the evidence says.
- A positioning or portfolio decision is on the table and the leadership team is split, with each side citing a different study
- The company has a tracker, a dashboard and a shelf of past research, and still cannot say why customers choose a competitor
- A large study has just landed, it is interesting, and nobody can name a decision it changed
- An acquisition or a new market has put the company in front of customers it has never studied
- The insights function is asked to validate choices after they are made, so research arrives too late to matter
Why research bought as a deliverable does not work
Most research is commissioned as a scope: a method, a sample, a timeline, a report. The method is chosen first and the decision is left implicit. That order is the problem.
When the decision is implicit, the findings are written to be defensible rather than useful. The report covers the category, the competitive set, the attitudes, the segments and the trends, because any of those might turn out to be what the sponsor wanted. It is comprehensive, it is accurate, and it does not close anything. The team reads it, agrees it was a good study, and resumes the argument it was meant to end.
The second failure is quieter. Research designed without a decision cannot be wrong. There is no finding that would have forced a different answer, so there is nothing at stake in the result. A study that could not have changed the outcome did not inform it.
We work the other way round. We start by writing down the decision, the options actually on the table, and what would have to be true about customers for each option to be the right one. Only then do we choose a method, and the method is whatever is cheapest and fastest that can distinguish between those options. Sometimes that is twenty interviews. Sometimes it is a quantitative study across three markets. The scope follows the decision rather than the other way around.
What our consumer insights consulting services include
1. Decision framing
Before any research, we write the decision down in a form that can be settled: the options, who signs off, when, and what each option assumes about customers. Most engagements find that the real disagreement is about one or two of those assumptions, not about the whole market. That narrows the work considerably and is usually the point at which a planned program gets smaller and sharper.
2. Qualitative research with customers and non-customers
In-depth interviews, focus groups and in-market ethnographic work, run to understand how people actually decide rather than how they describe deciding. We put as much weight on non-customers and lapsed customers as on current ones, because the reason someone did not choose you is the finding a loyalty study structurally cannot produce.
3. Quantitative studies, designed and fielded for the question
Where the decision needs sizing or a split settled across markets, we design and field quantitative research, including studies run across several countries and with specialist audiences. We commission fieldwork through partners rather than operating panels ourselves, which means the sample is built for the question rather than drawn from whatever infrastructure a vendor already owns.
4. Brand equity and category analysis
What the brand is actually credited with, where that permission extends, and where the category is moving under it. This is the evidence layer that corporate positioning and brand architecture decisions rest on, and it is the piece most often assumed rather than measured.
5. Synthesis built for the decision meeting
The output is a recommendation with the evidence behind it and the counter-case stated, written for the meeting where the choice is made. Where the evidence is genuinely inconclusive we say so and say what would resolve it, rather than rounding an ambiguous result into a confident slide.
- DecideWhich decision is waitingThe choice on the table, the options, and who signs it offUsually skipped
- DesignWhat would change itThe assumption behind each option, and the cheapest evidence that separates themUsually thin
- FieldCollecting the evidenceQualitative, quantitative, or both, scoped to the assumption rather than to the categoryUsually strong
- SettleThe decision actually madeA recommendation, the counter-case, and a record of what the evidence ruled outUsually absent
Have a decision that research keeps failing to settle?
Bring us the decision, not the brief. In one working session we will write down the options, the assumptions underneath them, and the smallest piece of evidence that would separate them. Often that session alone shortens the study you were about to commission.
How a consumer insights engagement works
- Frame. Interviews with the leadership team and a review of the research the company already holds. The output is the decision written down, the options, and a short list of the assumptions that are actually in dispute. A surprising amount of the time, existing research already answers part of it.
- Design. Method, audience and sample chosen against those assumptions, with the decision rule agreed in advance: what result points to which option. Agreeing that before fielding is what stops the findings being renegotiated afterwards.
- Field. Qualitative, quantitative or both, run with fieldwork partners under our design and moderation. We stay close to the work rather than handing over a specification and waiting for tables.
- Settle. Synthesis into a recommendation with the counter-case, taken into the decision meeting itself. We also hand back what the evidence ruled out, so the question does not get reopened in six months.
Why companies choose Vivaldi for consumer insights
We are a brand and growth strategy firm. That is a limit as much as a claim: we do not operate panels, we do not sell data collection by the project, and we are not the right choice if you need a vendor to execute a study you have already specified.
What it buys you is that the people designing the research are the people who will have to live with the decision it informs. Research designed by a team that will never be in the strategy room optimizes for coverage, because coverage is how it is judged. Research designed by the team that has to make a recommendation optimizes for resolution, because an inconclusive study is their problem too.
It also means the research connects to the work downstream of it without a translation step. The evidence on brand permission feeds a positioning decision directly, and the same study is usually doing double duty for architecture and messaging rather than being rerun for each.
How to evaluate a consumer insights consultant
- Ask what decision the research is for, and whether they will write it down before proposing a method. A proposal that opens with methodology has skipped the only step that determines whether the study is useful.
- Ask what finding would change the recommendation. If no result could, the study is a ratification exercise and should be priced as one.
- Ask whether they will commit to a decision rule before fielding. Firms that will not usually intend to interpret the data after seeing which way it leans.
- Ask who is in the room when the findings are presented, and whether those people also hold the strategy work. A handover between the insights team and the strategy team is where most of the value is lost.
- Ask what they do when the evidence is inconclusive. The honest answer is to say so and name what would resolve it, and a firm that has never had to do that has either been lucky or has not been looking.
Strategy firm vs market research agency vs insights platform?
| Criterion | Strategy firm running the research | Market research agency | Insights platform or tool |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you buy | A decision settled, with the research designed to settle it | A study executed to your specification | Capacity to run studies yourself, fast |
| Who writes the question | The firm, with you, before any method is chosen | You, in the brief | You, every time |
| Typical output | A recommendation, the counter-case, and what the evidence ruled out | A report, tables and a debrief | Dashboards and raw results |
| Strength | The evidence connects to the strategy decision without a handover | Methodological depth, scale and fieldwork infrastructure | Speed and cost per study |
| Best when | The decision is contested and the existing research has not closed it | The question is settled and you need it answered rigorously at scale | You have a trained insights team and a steady flow of small questions |
Related work
This is the evidence layer under the rest of our brand strategy practice. Each of these services uses it to settle a different question, and none of them should be bought without it.
- Corporate brand positioning uses the evidence to settle what the brand stands for and what it has permission to claim.
- Brand architecture uses it to settle how the brands in a portfolio relate to one another.
- Brand purpose uses it to settle what the company refuses to do.
- Brand performance measures what happened after the decision was made.
- Brand strategy consulting is the practice these sit inside.
Two neighboring services are research-heavy in their own right and are not duplicated here. Demand landscape finds and sizes the demand spaces a company could play in. Segmentation and targeting builds and sizes the segments themselves. If your question is which spaces exist or how the market divides, start there rather than here.
Consumer insights consulting in the US and worldwide
We work from 10 offices on four continents, which matters for this service in a specific way: a study fielded in one market and generalized to the others is the most common way a global insights program goes wrong. Category meanings, competitive sets and the reasons people buy differ enough between the US, Europe and Asia that a finding can reverse across a border.
In practice that means we design multi-market studies with the comparison built in rather than assembled afterwards, and we are explicit about which findings travel and which are local. For US clients that usually means a lead market plus two validation markets. For European and Asian clients it more often means treating the US as one market among several rather than as the default.
Start with the decision
Tell us the choice your company is trying to make and what is currently stopping it. We will tell you whether research is the constraint, and if it is, the smallest study that would resolve it.