Advanced Research Consulting

If we had to say which areas we specialise in we would say:

New product development, assessing the impact of changes in product design, price and ranging/portfolios. We generally do this using choice modelling. We often conduct choice modelling projects in partnership with other research companies.
Market segmentation, with a particular focus on problems that require coordination of multiple marketing channels and integration with existing company systems (e.g., transaction databases).

However, the reality is that we work on a huge range of projects, reflecting the huge range of issues our clients face. In recent projects, we have helped our clients to:

develop product offers to attract new energy customers
identify the most attractive brand-packaging combinations for a sweet snack food range
maximise the attractiveness of a range of pasta sauces
review the pricing strategy of a range of confectionary
assess the effect on sales of changing the shelf price of a household product
decide whether a price premium could be justified for a snack food product
review the pricing strategy of a complex travel service
rationalize the number of SKUs in a snack food range while minimizing any negative effect on sales and share
choose between options for extending a line of sweet snack foods
configure a range of insurance products to ensure the needs of all market segments could be met
evaluate the benefit of alternative nutritional claims for a household staple
refine and price a range of insurance packages
optimise the pricing strategy for a range of spring water products
reconfigure an FMCG multipack range to increase ROI
assess the potential to increase sales volume of a household product through alternative pricing strategies (including EDLP)
assess the impact of a loyalty program on a range of measures of customer value
assess the effectiveness of different advertising media

Choice modelling

Choice modelling is a sophisticated research approach that helps managers to design successful products by revealing the ways in which customers trade-off product features when they make purchase decisions.

Choice modelling is also widely recognized as the state-of-the-art technique for pricing research.

In a choice modelling survey, we design questions that try to simulate the decisions your customers are faced with when deciding whether or not to purchase your product. Because respondents are asked to consider several features of your product, choice modelling surveys allow you to understand the role the different product features have in consumers decisions.

We are experienced in applying all major types of choice models, including choice-based conjoint, brand-price trade-offs, trade-off matrices, self-explicated models, SIMALTO, hybrid choice models, adaptive choice models and customised choice models.

We have developed our own proprietary software to analyse choice modelling data.

Our consultants have successfully applied choice modelling techniques in such diverse industries as air travel, FMCG, insurance and utilities.

Market segmentation

Dividing a market up into segments and developing different strategies for the segments is at the heart of marketing and market research. We specialise in the trickiest of segmentations: operational segmentations.

Operational segmentations are segmentations which are required to achieve three key outcomes:

provide insight into the mind of the market
provide a map of the market to assist in planning
allocate all customers into segments across multiple channels, including in future research studies, when targeting direct mail and when interacting with customers.

Most good market researchers can do the first two of these. We have unique tools, skills and experience which permit us to integrate our segmentation studies with existing systems and databases. We have done this in consumers, small business and enterprise markets.