If you are an Insights, Planning or Strategy professional, you’ve come to the right place!

Partnering with Insights, Planning and Strategy professionals to see the world through the eye of the customer.

What We Do

In-Depth Consumer/ Shopper Research

Brand (Re)Positioning Research

Communications Strategy Development Research

Innovation and New Product Development & Testing Research

Packaging Design Development Research

Product Renovation Opportunity Assessment Research

We specialize in strategic qualitative research to deeply understand your target customer and development of strategic branding, communications/packaging, and innovation.

How We Do It

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In-Person Focus Groups & 1-on-1's

Traditionally, in-person focus groups have been our primary approach to eliciting responses from groups of customers. The in-person experience with a group of strangers is hard to replicate. In-person one-on-one interviews may be the most revealing qualitative approach – especially for understanding customers’ journeys, user experience and emotional drivers and barriers to brand choice.

Online Focus Groups & 1-on-1's

In a post-pandemic environment, we believe online focus groups will continue to play a more important role in qualitative research. There are many conveniences associated with online research for customers and clients alike.

Online Bulletin Boards

Multi-day online board discussions, blogging and diaries are often the most efficient way to understand customers’ lives, attitudes and brand perceptions. We use text, image and video exercises to gain deeper insight into customers’ thoughts and feelings.

Ethnographies (in-person and virtual)

When we want to understand home life, actual behavior, compensating activities and workarounds, nothing beats visiting customers in their homes.

On The Road RV Research

Yes, we use RVs when research needs to be in the moment (like a C-store) or you want to reach people who aren’t accessible to traditional focus group facilities or online technology. In these cases, we take it to the road - cue the Willie Nelson song!

Shop-a-longs

When understanding the path to purchase in retail or online, we like to observe shoppers in the moment to reveal many insights that are often instinctual or subconscious and wouldn’t be reported otherwise.

Spanish Language Interviews

Cualquiera de nuestros servicios puede ser ejecutado en español por uno de nuestros moderadores bilingues. Además, podemos ofrecer traducción simultánea con cualquiera de nuestras metodologías.

QualChat

QualChat is our Zoom-based digital interviewing platform. QualChat’s dedicated tech team supports every interview so that moderators can focus on the research. We regularly incorporate the newest technologies into QualChat to provide qual researchers and their clients the most seamless experience possible.

We use a broad toolbox of qualitative approaches to build customized solutions to meet the unique objectives of each initiative.

What We Believe

Consumers are more emotionally invested in brands that share their values.

What’s important to your brand AND your audience?

We use projective techniques, storytelling and benefit laddering to reveal consumer values and their emotional connections to brands.

What Makes Us Different

Our business model provides clients the ‘best of both worlds.’

We’re a small, efficient WFH shop that offers the services and support of larger organizations - we think of it as 'Synergistic Agility'.

Our TEAM

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Carole

Carole’s passion for integrating the “voice-of-your-customer” into brand, messaging, and product development is grounded in her impressive tenure as a modern-day insights explorer, previously at Doyle Research, then Aspen Finn. She fearlessly immerses herself in projects, even developing innovative methods to surface insights. Carole finds her zen in camping/hiking Oregon’s landscape and is slowly teaching herself guitar.

Sarah

Sarah has over 20 years of market research experience, including at ESPN, directing both qualitative and quantitative projects. Sarah coordinates all aspects of field work to delight our clients. Outside of work, you can find Sarah baking for family & friends, planning outdoor activities, and at book club.

Brett

Brett’s qualitative marketing research career spans 23 years, 25 countries, 3 languages, and hundreds of clients. Prior to joining Brand Riffs, Brett was a General Market and Hispanic moderator with Millward Brown / Firefly as with Ipsos UU. Brett is a fitness enthusiast, a devout people watcher, an avid wine collector, and a native Floridian.

Derek

Derek joined Brand Riffs in 2013 & has executed hundreds of projects across many product categories & methodologies. Derek’s passion for technology & insights has dramatically expanded our research capabilities. When not working, you can find Derek exploring; be it in nature, innovative tech or travelling internationally.

Sharon

Sharon jumped into the marketing research world as an intern and stayed on for 17 years as an account director. After taking a break to manage a household of boys, she now uses experience to support the Brand Riffs team. Sharon continues to be “Momager” for her two musically gifted athletes, while also honing her budding mandolin and bird photography skills.

Brad

Brad started his career as a marketing researcher then spent 15 years leading insights for top CPG companies. Having come full circle, he’s been moderating qualitative research with Brand Riffs since 2014. Brad enjoys being active outdoors and rooting for his beloved Chicago sports teams.

Patrick

Patrick has been providing qualitative research and marketing services for over 35 years. He founded Brand Riffs in 2004 with the goal of delivering more innovative research and analysis. Patrick lives on a farm in the Catskill Mountains.

Brand Riffs was founded in 2004 by Patrick Cahill. Pat’s reputation as a creative catalyst, insights pioneer, and skilled moderator trainer laid the foundation for Brand Riffs. We are a closely-knit family of uniquely experienced moderators, operations specialists, and technology gurus that collaborate on every project.