Online Insight Communities have evolved hugely over the past 15 years.

When we first launched our online insights webportal, first@thepool™,  in 2007, projects were often about online ethnographic observations, using online diaires.

It’s steadily grown into a powerful digital all-rounder. This dynamic has increased noticeably over the past 2 years.

With a huge and ever-expanding range of functionalities – quick polls, automatic transcripts in many languages, picture sorts, brand mapping, ranking and lots more, it’s increasingly popular and versatile. The tool has become much more flexible and powerful.

It’s great for going both “broad” and “deep”.

Clients can gain a broad category understanding – including brand preferences, IHUTs, shopping habits, experiential aspects for example. This is often achieved by using a generous qualitative sample size.

They can also execute deep-dives. Using storytelling techniques and projective methods, in-depth insights can be surfaced quickly.

This is something we’ve observed increasingly over the past 2 years in many categories across the globe. COVID has probably played a role, people are reflecting differently about lots of things.

Accessing depth in this way requires a skilled moderating approach: including adopting a less-is-more approach, for example. Asking fewer but more important questions. We have an interesting case study that we can share on this.

If you’d like to explore how our first@thepool™ Insight Community platform could work for your challenge, please get in touch: contact@happythinkingpeople.com