How We Work | Show Me Consulting

How We Work

At the heart of our approach is developing an intimate understanding of consumers’ lives. Since Show Me’s inception, we have conducted research in over 1000 homes in over 30 countries (as well as hundreds of other places where consumers use products and brands). This deep and rich consumer understanding gives us unique insight that informs all our advertising, concept and brand positioning development work.

Some examples of research we’ve conducted include in-depth explorations into how . . .

American couples plan and prepare a typical weekday meal for an international food brand

Americans approach organizing their entire homes for a home solutions brand

Japanese women approach their skincare routines for an international skincare brand

American women use shower implements for an international skincare brand

American women (pre-teens through adults) use hair styling tools and accessories to style their hair for a US haircare brand

Teens in Italy, China and Indonesia feel about love and their relationships for an international Ice Cream brand

Colombian, Mexican and US children use art products at home and at school for a youth art brand

People in rural Nigeria and Tanzania get together to drink home-made alcohol in informal bars for a beer brand

Telling the consumer story – documentary photography

We use professional documentary photography to bring to life consumers and their interactions with products and brands. Telling the consumer story through pictures and analysis brings clients closer to the consumer and leads to engaging reports and presentations in which we can both show and explain consumer behavior and attitudes.

We believe that genuinely insightful qualitative research has to combine an analysis of what is seen and what is heard. Qualitative research that just focuses on what people say leaves out understanding of the context in which they are interacting with products and brand. Richard is a professional documentary photographer as well as a qualitative researcher.

Many of our projects include coffee-table style books, slideshows and videos as part of the project output.

Cultural Understanding

We have developed a number of tools for understanding the cultural context and assumptions of consumers in different markets. In all our projects we carefully consider the key cultural, social, and economic factors that affect consumer behavior and attitudes.

Creative Consumers

We have a panel of Creative Consumers - theater directors, furniture designers, journalists, novelists, actors, painters, sculptors. We use these Creative Consumers in innovation or consumer insight workshops or to add some inspiration to a research project. For example, we may ask an actor to improvise a performance about a particular brand value or play the role of a target consumer in a workshop or get a beauty journalist to write a Vogue style review of a new product concept as if it has just been launched.

Workshop Facilitation

We believe that by using creative facilitation techniques – for workshops and our debrief presentations – we help to extend and embed consumer understanding for our clients. Kate is a professionally trained and experienced workshop facilitator as well as a qualitative researcher.