Empathic Immersion

Empathic Immersion is a qualitative methodology custom designed to uncover deeper, richer and more relevant consumer insights than other research techniques.

Traditional qualitative research is often an exercise in mere opinion gathering. These opinions, however, come with little to no real understanding of their relationship with the brands, categories in question or even why they hold the opinions that they do. Consumer opinions are only true insights within the context of empathically understanding the consumer and their life.

Empathic Immersion is composed of three primary components designed for maximum insight generation: PEOPLE, PLAN and GEMBA...

Enroll powerful PEOPLE, those who are innately predisposed to empathic interactions

Through a customized screening process participants are recruited based on psychographic, rather than demographic, attributes. Focus is on their relationship to brand (connection or disconnection), immersion in category, and empathic potential. Empathic Immersions seeks a fresh and not-obvious understanding of customers that form the basis of insights that inform a better understanding of the category and competitive landscape. This recruitment process focuses on consumers’ truths and uncovers tensions that reveal needs, goals, thoughts, feelings, opinions, expectations, and pain points.

Form a PLAN focused on these consumers, living their truth, understanding their lives

An Empathic Immersion PLAN is more than just a discussion guide or set of research objectives. It is a conversation designed to understand the consumer in the context of how their lives are impacted by brands, products, and categories. A well-crafted plan incorporates ethnographic exercises, category immersions and parallel questioning. These are lines of questioning that do not intersect directly with the primary goals of the research but rather run parallel to them in order to fill out the subject’s environment, attitudes, beliefs or position. Only through deep, open conversation can true human-level insights be uncovered.

Identify the right GEMBA for the research, one that directly impacts learnings

GEMBA /’ɡem.bə/ is a Japanese term (現場) that translates to “actual place”, the location where things happen. Traditionally, market research tends to not put enough emphasis on the environment in which the research is conducted. Focus group facilities are cold, sterile, and off-putting to participants. In-environment interview locations are typically selected for convenience of the participants and/or the researchers rather than for qualities that can directly impact the research itself. By conducting interviews in locations where consumers work, play, and live, personal observation and active listening can uncover entirely new vistas of insights. Gemba reminds us that research is not an event but rather an ongoing relationship with consumers.