Engel Research Partners

Company Description

Our perspective

We view the relationships with our clients as partnerships. We align with your interests to help you achieve your goals, beginning with an understanding of the marketing and business objectives underlying the research. We see research in its strategic role, even when we’re exploring tactics.

We work directly with marketers of the world’s leading brands, products and services – and prospective newcomers; the creative, marketing, branding, design and digital agencies that serve these marketers and fellow researchers from around the world.

We help our clients create more distinctive brands, remarkable products, compelling communications, attractive packaging, engaged customers or employees, responsible business practices and a more human face.

We view our engagement with research participants as a partnership, too. We value their role in the research and strive to empower them to open up and share their candid perspectives. We recognize that they are more than just consumers, shoppers or employees – they are human beings shaped by their identity (or identities), myriad roles they play in life, the culture and multiple sub-cultures in which they grew up and live now. We know that people are driven by a range of hopes, wants, needs and fears and that they can be complicated and inconsistent, often unaware of the deeper reasons they want what they want or do what they do, especially in times of uncertainty.

We strive to maintain the highest degree of integrity for everyone involved, and to be conscientious about the social and environmental impact of the work we do.

Our experience

Founded by Marc Engel over 13 years ago, Engel Research Partners has conducted over 2,000 focus groups, interviews, ethnographies, shop-alongs, coffee-klatches, quantitative and ideation/innovation work – in-person and online – speaking with thousands of people of all ages and walks of life.

Marc developed Out of Focus Groups®, a proprietary approach to insight-generation, co-creation and ideation, based on applied improvisation that empowers you and your team to address your marketing challenges in novel ways.

Marc began his research career on the quant side from 1988-1991, earned his law degree and pursued a comedy writing and performing (stand-up, improv and sketch) career in L.A. in the 90s and returned to research in 1999, migrating to qualitative in 2002.

Marc worked for Harris Interactive and Alexa Internet as an e-commerce and was a partner with B/R/S Group, a boutique research agency, before starting Engel Research Partners.

Our expertise

We work a wide range of verticals, including food and beverage, health and wellness, consumer packaged goods, beauty, technology, sports and entertainment, retail, hospitality, automotive, professional services, consumer electronics, financial services, politics and nonprofit on:
• Brand image/positioning/expansion
• New product development/enhancement
• Concept testing
• Packaging design/redesign
• Advertising, PR, marketing campaigns
• Category/white-space exploration
• Corporate reputation/social responsibility/crisis management
• Naming/taglines/logos
• Use of retail space

Our expertise is in our ability to enable participants to share their opinions; conducting conversations whether they be straightforward, sensitive or complex; and making such of the barrage of information presented. We extract insights, develop our own perspectives, distill our findings and share them with our clients to help them make better, more informed decisions for their products and brands.