You can arrange an in-home visit where you physically go to your consumer's home or accompany them on a shop. But that requires a hefty amount of travel time, cost and (no offence) the awkwardness respondents feel with you being stood there.
So the other option is to ask people to film themselves in the context of the occasion, routine or behaviour you want to understand. For example, using your product, during an occasion you want to expand into, snacking on the go, or shopping online.
With a video ethnography agency like Watch Me Think, you can get 12-16 people (or more, depending on how many segments you have) to record themselves showing their behaviours and answering questions as they go.
All filmed on their phones at the time, in the place and with the people they'd normally be with.
That means Thinkers (our respondents) can interact with products as they normally would, use their own rituals, and articulate things they may otherwise forget if they weren't responding in-the-moment. It also means that people can show the full occasion, multiple times.
There aren't any outside influences from camera crews, moderators, group think, direct questioning or dominant personalities.
And because Watch Me Think is a full-service video ethnography agency, a researcher designs the tasks, analyses all videos, and tells you what it all means.
How does a project work?
Briefing:
We'll have a chat to understand your brief and learn more about your business, your needs and your objectives. What's the mood of the team? How will the outputs be socialised? What hypotheses do you have going into this? Is this at the beginning, middle or end of the project?
Recruitment:
Next, we'll work on the recruitment spec. We can recruit Thinkers in almost any country (69 and counting) based on your criteria. Once you're happy with the details, we'll start finding them. All Thinkers are thoroughly checked and double checked before they can be accepted.
Activity Guides:
At the same time we'll also be working on the video activity guides Thinkers will follow and share this with you for sign off. If you're testing a product or concept, we'll also agree on the best way to ship these. Including blind packing, allergen labelling and GDPR compliancing.
Fieldwork:
After we've recruited and briefed the Thinkers, they'll use their phones to record their videos at the time, in the place and with the people they would normally be with. We'll manage their participation, transcribe their videos and translate them where needed.
Quality checks:
A human researcher quality checks the videos as they arrive. Anything below standard is rejected and replaced at no extra cost. Footage then appears on our platform when it passes muster.
Report & highlight reels:
Our human researchers pore over the videos, tease out the threads and do the strategic thinking. They turn what they see into a report with clear, actionable advice and creative highlight reels to land the findings, win the room and get things moving.
What does a video task look like?
Videos are unmoderated, but they're not unguided. We set up video activity guides so that Thinkers are filming their behaviour and answering questions in the context of the occasion, routine or situation you want to understand. Every activity guide is written by us and 15 years of knowing how to shape them to answer your research questions.
A video task tends to be around 10 minutes long and answer questions such as:
"Film yourself the next time you do a load of laundry, from getting the detergent out to loading the machine. Talk us through what you're doing and why."
"Every evening for five days, film your skincare routine. Before you start, tell us how your skin feels today. After, tell us anything you did differently from last night."
Are videos made during a single moment or over time?
Some questions need one video, such as how people open a pack, how they dose a product, what happens when they first use it.
Others need multiple videos filmed over a period of time, such as did the product work, what happens as it becomes emptier, how do they dispose of it, what changes between week one and week four.
The activity guide is designed around how many occasions and product interactions you need to see. And that in turn dictates the length of the project.
What will I learn from watching people in-the-moment?
That all depends on your objectives :-) For example…
We can help you identify new innovation opportunities for products or services that will solve a genuine problem, by letting people show you what motivates and frustrates them.
We can also help ensure concepts and prototypes are right before scaling up and save time, money and iterations, by refining your concepts and testing your prototypes in-situ.
Once a product or service is in market we can help you to see what's working and what needs to be improved. By testing your product in-context and seeing how people use it, talk about it, discover it and look for it.
We can also help you identify shopper-led growth opportunities, or see the competitive landscape from a shopper perspective, by observing authentic in-store and online behaviour.
How many respondents do I need and how long will it take?
Most of our projects tend to be around 12-16 Thinkers per group or segment, with minimum 6 per group when you want to compare segments.
Projects in the US, UK or Australia, where we have our own panels, tend to take around 5-6 weeks from sign off to debrief with our full analysis, reporting and highlight reels.
If you want highlight reels only, that same project would take around 2-3 weeks, and raw footage only is 1-2 days quicker again.
We run projects all over the world through local partners we've worked with for years. Whichever option you go for, those projects build in around 3 extra days for partner briefing and quality checks, plus around 3 more for translation where footage isn't in English.
More complex recruits and behaviours over time also extend timelines.
What can't video ethnography do?
Video ethnography won't give you a percentage. It's designed to tell you how and why people do something, not how many. If you need a number, run quant first and use video ethnography to explain the 'why' behind those numbers.
What's different about doing this with a research agency vs DIY?
Plenty of tools let people film themselves. The difference is who designs the tasks, who checks the footage, who does the critical thinking and who makes the recommendations. And the quality to which all of that is done.
Research isn't useful if it doesn't get to the truth. So we ensure that every stage and aspect is completed to the highest of quality standards. And our research team, who've come from the likes of Unilever, P&G, PepsiCo and L'Oréal, do all of that for you. (Unless you'd rather do it yourself, in which case that's fine also).
That all means you can get on with the million and one other things needing your attention, maybe even have time for a cup of tea. How lovely!
"My team have been very pleased with the insights this methodology has been able to capture and the 'wow' moments that we as an R&D team wouldn't have known about or seen without seeing our consumers using our products in their own homes. I have always been so pleased with Watch Me Think's attention to detail, timely and informative responses, as well as their continued ability to deliver actionable insights."
Kelly Millen, Hair Care Technical Insight Specialist, Unilever
Watch Me Think is the qual market research agency for when you can't afford to get it wrong. Real consumers film themselves as they use your products, shop, or go about daily life. Human researchers pore over every minute, tease out the threads and do the strategic thinking. They turn what they see into a report with clear, actionable advice and creative highlight reels to land the findings, win the room and get things moving.