An excellent view on consumer category behaviour

While companies invest generously in generating general consumer insights, they often still have limited knowledge on how their products are actually used by consumers. Traditional research on usage and attitude is either tedious for consumers or lacks quantification when conducted through traditional qualitative research. So how can you build relevant, meaningful and validated category consumer behaviour knowledge? MetrixLab presents you with SCOUT©, our advanced online usage and attitude research method.

Outline

SCOUT© by MetrixLab is ideal when you wish to quantify and validate consumer category behaviour. As an inspiring two-step method, it invites and inspires consumers to share their views on and experience with product usage. The typical questions answered through SCOUT© are

• Do consumers use the products the way we intended?
• In which context do consumers use our products, and which other options in the category are used?
• What issues do they run into when using the product?
• What are potential areas for improvement?
• Which unmet needs can be identified?

The results not only provide the necessary insights, but also create the starting point for innovations and better brand communication with consumers.

Methodology and setup

After determining your specific objectives and research questions, we invite a selection of respondents from our online consumer panel OpinionBar matching your target consumer or specific consumer segment. These consumers are invited to participate in the first "inspirational" stage of the research. Depending on the product at hand, we use several interactive, fun and highly visual techniques to bring new inspiration and gather the insights we need. These approaches range from the use of moodboards that allow consumers to express their emotions around a category and photo assignments to give us a peek into their lives and product usage, to journal keeping, all leading to solicited as well as spontaneous feedback toward the use of your products.

The outcomes of this first online qualitative phase are presented and discussed in detail in an inspiring workshop with the client. Output of this workshop is a clear overview of key insights and learnings that are used as a starting point for the next phase.

The second stage of SCOUT© consists of the quantification and validation of the results of the first stage. To this end, we sample a larger number of consumers online, again from our global consumer panel and meeting the client's target consumer or specific consumer segments. Respondents are asked to engage in an online questionnaire based on the research objectives and establishing the validity of the results of the first stage.

Where traditional U&A (Usage & Attitude) questionnaires are long and tedious for consumers to complete, SCOUT© uses many interactive and visual research tools (e.g., card test, image pickers, natural grouping, etc.) that make participation in the study fun and engaging for consumers, resulting in higher data quality.

All findings are collected in a clear-cut yet extensive, highly visual report with actionable recommendations.

Your benefits

SCOUT© will give you a profound sense of category behaviour to optimize existing products and the inspiration you need for new product development. MetrixLab offers you

• the combination of online quantitative and qualitative research for inspiration as well as validation of consumer usage and attitudes.
• engaging and inspiring interactive tools and techniques.
• visual reports with complete and actionable insights into consumer behaviour and recommendations on how to move forward.

Top of page