Brand Gumshoe is a tool for gathering anecdotal and behavioural customer data and delivering it ready for analysis or presentation in digital format within a couple of days. It is ideal for pitch situations where an agency needs to gain a detailed understanding of how a product is used and perceived and needs to demonstrate that understanding to a client they are trying to get to know. Or for getting consumer feedback whem what is needed is detailed insight into customer behaviour perhaps after a campaign has finished.

There will be some compression to fit the files onto the CDROM but the originals will be kept in case more detail is required. This means that if necessary interviews can be provided at CD quality, and video supplied at near broadcast quality. In practice this is usually much more bulky than most computers will happily tolerate hence the compression.

Gumshoe is not intended to be a conventional research product. The interview format and the in home and in store format allow a particular focus on how people use a product and talk about it as distinct from the more conventional group discussion. The material gathered is intended to be general so does not require extensive briefing and preparation or debriefing afterwards. These can be added on but for additional cost. The emphasis is on speed and richness of content rather than analysis. Everything that is gathered can be dropped into

 

Powerpoint for use in the final presentation.

A typical Brand Gumshoe might involve the following components:

• 5 depth interviews in a single location covering ad recall, category and brand usage
• an inhome depth interview with photos or video footage of the product being used
• an accompanied shop to look at the product on the facings

Typically 1 week is required for recruitment, fieldwork is designed to take place in 1 working day. In the translation phase the interviews would be compressed to mono MP3 format. Digital photos and video would be transferred to a computer. Photos would be at a resolution comparable to 6x4 prints and video footage would be in mpg2 format. The whole would be burned on a prepared website with a page for each interview. This would be burned to CDROM. The digital format will be familiar to video production and IT staff. However I am willing to provide training for planners to be able to edit and incorporate stills, video and audio material into Powerpoint. Specific provision of quotations or customer clips would be additional to the basic costing.