Editor’s note: Opinium is the winner of the 2022 Qualitative Research Project Award, which is a category in the Marketing Research and Insight Excellence Awards. This award is for a team or individual that has made an outstanding contribution to business objectives using qualitative research. To find out more about the awards click here.

Opinium conducted research for a subscription fitness platform launching a new product. In addition to using mixed methodology research technology, the smartphone-based interactive ethnographic approach allowed the research to naturally fit into participants’ lives and drove exceptional response rates. The insights empowered Opinium’s client to adapt to the demands of its target market quickly and efficiently, making updates to the product iteratively while the research was still in field. This NPD research was core in shaping the positioning of the new product for a successful launch. 

Research is only effective in so far as it allows clients to make smarter, more informed business decisions and that’s where this qualitative approach really comes into its own. The smartphone-based approach enabled in-home ethnographic video and photo outputs that were able to bring the findings to life for senior stakeholders, ensuring that the findings lived on well beyond the initial report.

The longitudinal nature of the study allowed us to follow and measure changes in participants’ self-reported health and fitness levels over time – identifying the impact of the supplement and fitness regime over time as it took effect.

Most importantly, the client had real-time access to the diaries and feedback from respondents as they came in, allowing them to make decisions based on the feedback as the research took place. As a direct result of the study, the client was able to make real-time changes to the product and program pre-launch based on direct insights from its target audie...