Immersive Insight Studies

Immersive Insight Studies

To engage, involve and inspire consumers, brands need to have a deep understanding of what it is their consumers want and need.

Samsung insight study Immersive insight studies offer a way for brands to get under the skin of their target audience by observing their lives for several weeks or months, without having to leave the office, without physically intruding in their daily routine and without taking them out of their environments. A virtual community of target consumers are selected to become the ‘social researcher’ amongst their existing networks. They passively observe as well as actively interact with their networks (online and offline), recording everything through video, images and text. This immersive technique enables a far deeper knowledge and understanding than can be afforded through 2 hour focus groups or a 10 minute questionnaire.

The researchers receive full briefings to ensure they remain passive in their observations without exerting any influence. Those being observed are in turn made aware of the activity, with permission gained. Whereas the target audience might be naturally cynical and suspicious of a brand, they are relaxed and trusting of their friends and peers. By working with a member of their social network, a brand can therefore gain access and cross boundaries that would never otherwise be possible.

Particular aspects of their lives to be observed and key questions can be seeded at any time, and over the course of the immersion a rich picture is painted depicting the consumers’ pursuits, passions, brand interactions and perceptions, influences, social network structure, communication preferences, media and information consumption and more. All of this enables us to determine how the brand can best add value to or aid their pursuits, passions and lives, what an influencer programme might look like, how best to communicate with them and drive WOM, how best to position a retail programme, what a media strategy could and should include and so on.

In short, from a detailed analysis of the consumers’ lives we can develop an engaging, motivating and inspiring communication strategy.

The target audience will determine the methodology through which the content is collated. Usually, a bespoke online social network is created where the researchers can get involved in moderated and unmoderated chats, adding another dimension to and perspective on the content captured.

This immersive insight methodology has been developed, tried and tested by The Lounge on behalf of clients such as Lynx, Sure Girl, EA, Samsung mobile and Alliance & Leicester. It has enabled us to gain powerful insights, which have formed the corner stones of communication strategies which have gone on to engage and inspire.

But we don’t stop our interaction with the target audience there. Once we’ve pulled out the key insights, we work with the target audience to co-create and/or validate the ‘creative concept’. And, where relevant, we work with different groups of consumers to bring it to market through peer to peer and influencer programmes as an integral part of the communication strategy.


In summary, the advantages of an immersive insight study, where a consumer community becomes the ‘social researchers’ are:

* We can get first hand experience of their lives in situ rather than lifting them out of their environments to participate in focus groups.

* We are passively observing the interactions of existing social groups instead of bringing individuals who have never met together in a situation where they might feel the need to impress one another and/or the moderator.

* The researched do not have to think about answers to a list of questions. Instead, the ‘answers’ come through simply being observed doing what they ordinarily do.

* The researchers and the researched relax into the process of observation over a period of weeks or months, overcoming any initial ‘performances to camera’ enabling a true immersion into the real day to day lives of the consumers.

* Consumers trust their friends, where they might not trust brands and corporates. By working with the target consumer to research their friends, brands are given access they wouldn’t otherwise be afforded.