The crested Bellbird is our symbol. It is a native Australian bird with a beautiful and distinctive song that can be heard across long distances. Similarly you can be assured that our excellently-crafted research will have long-lasting impact for your organisation or brand.

Forget focus groups for testing written communications. Here's what to do instead

It has never been so important for brands to write clearly and effectively to their customers, yet the techniques most research agencies use to test written communications have not kept up with the times.

Many clients still use focus groups, because that is how they have always tested advertising.

I love focus groups, but here are three reasons why we need to test written communications such as brochures, websites and correspondence individually, not in groups.

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Three tips for testing disclosure, labels and claims

One of the things we like to do most is to help organisations communicate clearly. So we do a lot of testing of organisational communications of various kinds such as disclosure documents, fact sheets, labels and the like. We always advise our clients that 'understanding' involves more than just understanding the words. This paper on nutrition claims supports our view. Based on our insights and supported by the evidence in the study described in the paper, here are three tips for testing labels, fact sheets and claims.

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What cookbooks and magazines can tell us about Christmas in Australia

I have been looking at cookbooks and magazines which feature Christmas recipes. All were published in 2018. I have come to the conclusion that Christmas as a cultural (rather than religious) festival in Australia has become very muddled. In research terms, I could say that the ‘narrative is incoherent’, but I think I will stick with muddled.

How can cookbooks and magazines tell us anything about Christmas?

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The 10 Best Reasons for Conducting Qualitative Research

What would marketers and other decision-makers miss if they no longer had access to qualitative research? Here are the ten best reasons.

This is a summary of a post by Kevin Gray, who was in turn summarising a piece by John Creswell. I agree with all of it, but have changed the wording a little.

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Exploring the symbolism of the failed co-branding between Sydney Opera House & Racing NSW

Advertising the Racing NSW brand on the Sydney Opera House is a failed co-branding attempt. It failed because of the clashing symbolism of the two parties involved.

Is this a billboard or is it co-branding?

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Get insight into how your customers make decisions with sense-making research

What is your view on how people make decisions? In this blog post I describe why we at Susan Bell Research think sense-making is such a useful way to think about how consumers, citizens and business people make decisions. For us, it is better than the alternatives, so let's start there.

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The crested Bellbird is our symbol. It is a native Australian bird with a beautiful and distinctive song that can be heard across long distances. Similarly you can be assured that our excellently-crafted research will have long-lasting impact for your organisation or brand.

Forget focus groups for testing written communications. Here's what to do instead

Three tips for testing disclosure, labels and claims

What cookbooks and magazines can tell us about Christmas in Australia

How can cookbooks and magazines tell us anything about Christmas?

The 10 Best Reasons for Conducting Qualitative Research

Exploring the symbolism of the failed co-branding between Sydney Opera House & Racing NSW

Is this a billboard or is it co-branding?

Get insight into how your customers make decisions with sense-making research

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