Puffin Research

ABOUT

Creating connections . . . . 

Consumers are drawn to brands they believe hold shared values and perceive to be of genuine benefit to themselves.  Meaningful, lasting relationships are forged when brands are able to use these relationship drivers to build distinctive, purposeful strategies and deliver them in a way that touches real lives.

 

Our passion and purpose is to help our clients untap these core relationship drivers and define strategies that resonate with consumers so they connect more closely . . . and guide how best to deliver these against the commercial realities of business goals so they are best placed to respond to the market challenges of today and maintain a competitive edge . . .  through this, ensuring our clients maintain a competitive edge, being best placed to respond to and meet the marketing challenges of today.

How we do it . . . 

Close working partnerships

 

We believe in close, collaborative relationships – fully immersing ourselves in your business, getting to know and understand your business needs and appreciate those of your different stakeholders . . . in this way we’re always best positioned to respond in a swift, timely and agile manner to your needs.

 

Tailored research solutions

 

We provide tailored research solutions, drawing upon techniques and methodologies designed to get to the nub of the specific issues in question and the heart of what drives how and why people connect with brands . . .

  • Seeing beyond the obvious
  • Uncovering hidden truths
  • Defining deep held beliefs and desires

 

And through our flexible reporting approach, deliver our insights in the form of actionable recommendations that support the achieving of strategic goals

 

SERVICES

We offer:

Conventional Qualitative

Focus Groups and Depth Interviews be it . . . 

  • Face2Face and Online
  • Consumer, B2B, Children / Young Adults or Opinion Formers / Influencers
  • UK and International

Specialist Approaches

  • Co-Creation – harnessing the invigorating, fresh creativity of consumers to identify relevant and distinctive innovation opportunities (be it product, service, brand) to help clients respond to the marketing challenges of today and stay ahead of the competitive curve
  • Brand Health Checks and Positioning – mining and defining where brands are now, their relevance and resonance in today’s challenging market arenas and where they should and could be going to maintain their competitive edge
  • Ethnography – our approach to studying people at the heart of where decisions are influenced and relationships forged is an effective and efficient mix of personal observation, sensitive interrogation and actionable interpretation
  • Usability Testing – to effectively assess online / mobile service platforms (existing and prototypes) and deliver clear optimisation strategies we combine a balanced mix of proven usability assessment techniques such as the ‘think aloud protocol’ (developed by Clayton Lewis) with sensitive engagement experience interrogation
  • Data Fusion – or our seamless fusing of multi-methodology outputs, as we know that the real value, that light-bulb moment of insight can only happen when core learnings are interrogated as one and fused into clear and actionable strategic recommendations.  That’s why we never think Qual vs. Quant, only strategic issue vs. solution.
  • Consumer / Colleague Workshops – We offer a wide range of dynamic Workshops from
    • Ideation Incubators (ideal for stimulating fresh thinking, sparking new ideas and sifting out those with legs)
    • Brand Stretch Sessions (defining a Brand’s DNA and where it can viably stretch to, drawing upon novel projective techniques and sensory stimuli)
    • through to Insight Technique Training (designed to help Insight Teams be better informed when it comes to in-field research practices and their optimal use within studies)

 

EXPERIENCE

Over her 30 years in Qualitative Research, Kate has amassed immeasurable experience across a diverse spectrum of industries and briefs.

 

Two years ago, Kate created Puffin Research to focus on helping brands connect more closely with their consumers, through working with them to identify strategies that touch real lives and how best to implement them against pragmatic business considerations.

 

Tenacious, intuitive and downright nosey! Kate has been instrumental in defining strategies that have had a significant impact on the success and direction of her clients’ business interests – including:

 

Heathrow – unearthing key insights that significantly helped guide the development of the successful Heathrow Expansion Campaign. To quote our client “the research insights totally changed the direction of our ad campaign to deliver something that has been extremely beneficial to Heathrow”

 

VisitBritain – working across 10 markets and delivering seamless Qual – Quant Data Fusion to develop a roadmap for leveraging Britain’s core brand assets across all MARCOMs to drive international in-bound tourism.  Critical recommendations being presented to all key stakeholders and even at Number 10.

 

FA Mash-Up – an innovative Co-Creation research piece to help 14 – 17 year old boys express their inner frustrations and visualise their optimal desires re. playing club football – culminating in the highly successful launch of Mash-Up, the FA’s youth organised club football programme

Sector experience is broad and deep and includes

 

Finance, Travel / Tourism, Retail, FMCG, Automotive, Leisure / Entertainment, Social / Public / Charities

 

Clients worked with range:

  • Santander, Barclays, CapitalOne, SimplyHealth, Irwin Mitchell Private Wealth, Invesco Perpetual
  • Heathrow, VisitBritain, P&O Cruises, BA, Isle of Man Government
  • John Lewis, Mothercare, SPAR, M&S, Westfield, Avon, Homebase, Travis Perkins, TCC (The Continuity Company), Supermarket Own Range
  • Nissan, Renault, Mercedes, Autotrader
  • NSPCC / Childline, Office for Civil Society (Office of the Third Sector)

 

. . . through to the FA, Cineworld, Nottingham Playhouse

. . . to name but a few