Our Research Philosophy

Our research philosophy combines conventional research with the unconventional.

In surveys, marketers often ask consumers to respond to statements relating to brands or specific issues as they want to know how much consumers agree with these statements; whether their responses vary by market segment; and whether significant changes in their responses have occurred over time. This information can assist marketers in identifying problems or assessing the effects of specific marketing activities. However, when consumers attach ratings of agreement and importance to such statements, their responses reveal only thoughts about what managers deem to be important, but which might not actually be the most relevant drivers of consumer behaviour.

In other words, consumers are responding to ideas imposed on them by marketers, not generated by them. As political psychologist Drew Western commented in his critique of focus groups, "If you ask people conscious questions about unconscious processes, they will be happy to offer you their theories. But most of the time, those theories are wrong".

Moreover, consumers may not really mean what they say!

Focusing only on what consumers say (product attributes and functional benefits) produces surface-level thinking, and fails to ask about the social and psychological consequences of those benefits (deeper thinking), or whether those social or psychological consequences fit into a consumer's values, beliefs, and life goals (still deeper thinking). Brand battles are waged and won or lost at the deepest level and hence the need to address consumer thinking at this level in order to gain insight into the mind of the consumer.

At FutureThink we believe that it is critical to address consumers at the deepest level possible using a multi-disciplinary online research design. Our multi-disciplinary approach combines conventional surveys with other qualitative techniques to produce a cost-effective method that addresses marketers' needs and reaches consumers at the deepest emotional levels possible.

Research Brief

As stated on our home page, at FutureThink the keyword is simplicity. You provide us with the background to your research problem, your specific research brief; we then design an appropriate survey and you send to your database of customers.

We provide all the back-end processing and provide you with an online report.

Click here for a research request.

Guiding Principles

As a member of SAMRA and a SAMRA Accredited Researcher (SAR) we abide by the following principles:

1. Uphold the Aims and Objectives of the Southern African Marketing Research Association, in particular to:

1. Foster the study of, and research in, relevant disciplines and sciences
2. Improve research methods and techniques
3. Uphold a high standard of professional ethics
4. Promote and protect applied and basic research

2. Abide by the Code of Conduct of the Association with special reference to responsibilities:

1. To readers of research reports
2. To sponsor surveys
3. To informants
4. Of research practitioners