Conifer Research

Studying how people live, work and buy

Conifer Research calls itself a human-centered research and innovation consultancy. Its team blends ethnographic, quantitative and design research to produce what it calls perspective-shifting insights, and it says the aim is to widen perspectives, explore possible futures and find the needs that can lead to innovation, market differentiation and growth. Its guiding principle, as it puts it, is that if people do it, the firm studies it, and its cross-disciplinary team reports more than twenty years of projects in many industries and many parts of the world.

How the firm describes its approach

Four ideas run through every project. The work is custom and creative, using rigorous methods adapted to consumer and B2B projects. It is human-centered, with a constant pursuit of the question why, so that clients can align decisions with the lives of real people. It is technology-smart, using tools while keeping research grounded in human experience, emotion and cultural nuance. And it is action-oriented, turning insight into steps that internal teams can have confidence in.

Eight kinds of project

The firm supports insights, innovation, design and marketing teams, local and global. Its project types cover:

• foundational insights, a broad view of attitudes and usage that supports later strategic decisions
• innovation pipeline development, which uncovers unmet needs and shapes ideas for products and services
• UX and prototype testing, which tries out concepts and experiences for how appealing, usable and viable they are
• foresight work, which looks ahead by picking up emerging trends and shifts in behavior
• positioning and messaging, using customer stories to build branding and engagement strategies
• organizational insights, studying workplace culture and internal processes
• executive and team immersion, which puts decision makers in real-world context to build empathy
• coaching and upskilling, which trains client teams in research practice

Older pages also describe agile programs, short sprints with focused learning or facilitation goals for teams that need to move fast.

Thinking about audiences and journeys

Its writing on segmentation argues that quantitative-only segmentation often oversimplifies and loses the human element, so it recommends a mixed-method cycle that brings audiences to life for marketing and communications. Other pieces cover how to spot unmet needs and how to organize the many small interactions in a customer journey.

Sectors

Its past clients come from fields such as automotive, finance and insurance, education, hospitality, retail, healthcare, food and beverage, media, technology, consumer goods, lifestyle, workplace and travel, along with B2B projects.