Our innovative Significant Live Sample (SLS) methodology ensures product quality and marketing effectiveness, guarantees the security of confidential assets, and provides normative benchmarking of product quality.
- Ideal For
- Hands-on Product Testing (video games, mobile applications, websites, consumer electronics, any type of product)
- Media Testing (trailers, promos, pilots, ads, film, any type of media)
- Concept Testing (positioning statements, concept descriptions, feature lists, key art, video, any type of conceptual assets)
- Background
- SLS is the only approach that delivers both quantitative benchmarking and qualitative feedback with the guarantee that confidential assets cannot leak
- We bring up to 300 of your target consumers into a secure facility to evaluate a product or concept, complete a survey, and participate in focus group discussion and/or one-on-one interviews
- Quantitative findings from large samples ensure statistically significant survey results, while qualitative feedback from individual interviews and group discussions support, interpret, and complement the quantitative results
- Objectives
- Quantify key metrics (e.g., overall fun, play interest, intent to recommend, intent to purchase, intent to download, quality of individual features)
- Develop actionable steps to improve key metrics.
- Prioritize improvements in order of those that will produce the greatest marginal returns.
- Identify key strengths and unique selling points.
- Methodology (First-Time User Experience)
- Part 1 – Testing (60 minutes or longer if necessary)
- Product Testing: Consumers use the product either at individual stations or together in groups, as specified by the client. We observe organic usage behavior
- Media Testing: Consumers are seated at individual TV stations with headphones and exposed to the visual stimulus (trailer, promo, pilot, ad, film, any media)
- Concept Testing: Consumers evaluate concept descriptions, positioning statements, feature lists, key art, and video footage
- The client will be able to observe behind a one-way mirror
- We securely record and stream the experience live to accommodate remote clients worldwide
- Part 2 – Survey (30 minutes)
- VGM’s standard key metrics for normative benchmarking
- All customized research objectives at client’s request
- Open-ended feedback
- Part 3: Focus Group (60 minutes or longer if necessary)
- In each testing session, a small portion of the respondents (generally 6-8 people) will participate in a moderated focus group to discuss overall experience, key strengths, and areas of improvement
- Part 1 – Testing (60 minutes or longer if necessary)
- Methodology (Longitudinal/Long-Term Product Usage)
- Part 1 – The first part is exactly the same process as the First-Time User Experience product test described above — respondents use the product on-site (60 minutes or longer if necessary), complete a survey on-site (30 minutes), and participate in focus group discussion (60 minutes or longer if necessary)
- Part 2 – Users then take the product home with them and continue to play for 7-14 days or longer if necessary. Each day users complete a Daily Diary about their experience, which includes a combination of quantitative scores and open-ended feedback.
- Part 3 – On the final day of testing, users return to the facility to uninstall the software/return the product, complete a final survey, and participate in exit focus group discussions.
- Recruiting
- You will have total control over the recruiting criteria of your respondents
- VGM delivers superior quality, higher accuracy, and faster turnaround time on recruiting vs. other full-service vendors because we recruit for qualitative studies using our proprietary respondent database and our internal team of seasoned recruiters
- We are one of the only full-service vendors that handles recruiting internally rather than outsourcing to third-party subcontractors
- Every respondent that attends your groups will undergo a rigorous seven-step screening process:
- Moderation
- The moderator will have experience conducting 500+ qualitative sessions
- Watch and direct the qualitative discussion sessions in real time with VGM’s live video stream and integrated chat, included at no charge
- Conventional Focus Group Option
- For our clients that do not require the quantitative input of SLS methodology, we simply strip out the high sample size component and provide conventional focus groups with 6-8 respondents/group to explore any topic qualitatively in major markets worldwide
- Execution Timing
- 30-99 respondents: 1-2 days in facility
- 100-199 respondents: 2 days in facility
- 200-300 respondents: 3 days in facility
- Analysis and Reporting
- Part 1 – Topline (delivered in 48 hours upon completion of the research, including weekends)
- Outlines the key takeaways of the research and the most critical areas of improvement
- Part 2 – Final report (delivered in 5 to 7 days upon completion of the topline, including weekends)
- Our deliverable provides an overall assessment of quality with competitive benchmarking, outlines the key strengths/unique selling points, and provides actionable steps that the client can take to improve quality
- Part 1 – Topline (delivered in 48 hours upon completion of the research, including weekends)
Fictional dataset for example purposes only
- Services Included:
- Full service test plan creation and execution
- Project management
- Recruiting
- Respondent incentives
- Moderation
- Streaming/recording of group discussion (secure online archive)
- Streaming/recording of product usage (secure online archive)
- Real-time chat feature with moderator during group discussion
- Device rental (iPhone, iPad, Android Tablet, PC, TV)
- On-site logistics
- Facility
- Travel
- Client meals
- Analysis
- Topline report
- Final report
- Follow-up analysis upon request
From questionnaire development, programming, recruiting, and data collection to analysis, reporting, follow-up analysis, and white glove project management throughout, VGM offers full-service custom research with a focus on quality, speed, and actionability. Services include:
Methodological Consultation and Questionnaire Development
VGM will assess your research objectives, recommend the optimal methodology, and develop a customized questionnaire. Research objectives may include but are not limited to:
- Product development and evaluation: Gauge consumer response to existing products in the marketplace and identify opportunities for new product development
- Concept testing: Gauge the appeal of new product and marketing ideas
- Marketing copy tests: Measure consumer response to positioning statements, concept descriptions, key art, trailers, packages, and additional marketing material
- Feature tests: Assess consumer interest in current and potential feature sets
- Market segmentation/sizing: Develop psychographic, demographic, technographic, and media consumption profiles of each distinct consumer group within a particular market and quantify the size of each group
- Brand testing: Quantify and qualify the relative strengths and weaknesses of brands in the marketplace
- Brand tracking: Measure changes in awareness, interest, sentiment, purchase intent, and other variables of interest over time
- Pricing research: Optimize profitability by testing consumer sensitivity to multiple price points
- Post-Launch Assessment: Gain feedback from current users, lapsed users, non-users, and rejectors of a product already in the marketplace and develop actionable steps to increase retention and market share.
- Business-to-business: Understand the state of B2B markets
- And many more: We will create a custom questionnaire to meet the needs of any unique research objective
Survey methodologies may include but are not limited to:
- A/B testing: Test multiple versions of a website, app, or other stimuli and quantify the appeal of each option
- Conjoint analysis: Build the optimal product by understanding how consumers value different attributes (e.g., features, functions, benefits, prices)
- MaxDiff: Understand how consumers make choices to quantify the value of individual features
- Regression (linear / nonlinear / binary / multinormal): Quantify the correlation between two or more variables (e.g., the relationship between price and overall satisfaction)
- Semantic analysis: Understand common themes regarding a particular product or service by analyzing free responses
- Discriminant and classification analysis: Identify the variables that best distinguish unique market segments
- Cluster analysis: Group respondents that exhibit similar behavior patterns to reveal unique market segments
- Principal component and factor analysis: Combine similar variables into groups (factors) that are more useful for characterizing a market segment
- Perceptual mapping and brand mapping: Identify the relative strengths and weaknesses of brands in the marketplace
- TURF (total unduplicated research frequency) analysis: Understand the combination of products and services that will appeal to the greatest number of customers
Survey Programming
- Our team of expert survey programmers is available 7 days/week to program surveys quickly and accurately
Recruiting
- The quality and integrity of data is our biggest priority. The VGM project management team strategically recommends and oversees best practices in identifying fraudulent respondents
- From panel integration to setting up redirection and screening criteria, termination logic, and embedded data and quota management, the project management team keeps track of the technical details
- VGM works with clients in making any adjustments to surveys prior to full survey launch
- VGM also manages respondent incentives, if needed, by delivering online gift card codes or mailing gift cards for optimizing survey fill rate/precise rate
Data Collection
- VGM provides a user-friendly web interface for overall reporting or viewing individual responses
- At any time during data collection, clients are able to view live results through their VGM account
- The VGM project management team can also regularly report and update the status of data collection
Data Analysis
- In order to increase the precision of survey results, VGM analyzes data based on the “cleaned data” by filtering out “invalid data” based on screening questions (including open-ended responses) in the survey
- VGM provides both quantitative (e.g., statistical) and qualitative (e.g., semantic) data analysis
- VGM also provides “cleaned” raw data in Microsoft Excel (.xlsx) and/or SPSS format (.sav)
Topline Deliverable
- Upon completion of a study, within 48 hours VGM will provide a topline report in Microsoft Excel (.xlsx) and/or Word format (.docx) to distill the key takeaways of the research
Final Deliverable
- VGM provides a final report delivered in Microsoft PowerPoint format (.pptx) 5 to 10 days after the topline report is produced
- Our professional design team can also produce premium visual infographic reports (.pdf)
Presentation of Results and Follow-up Analysis
- Upon delivery of the final report, VGM will provide a formal presentation of the results and deliver any follow-up analysis at the client’s request
- We securely preserve each client’s survey data for future study or comparison
White Glove Project Management and Customer Service
- From greenlight to the final deliverable, your dedicated project manager will be focused on your research study and provide you with an exceptional level of customer service 7 days/week
Superior sample quality for both online and in-person studies. Rigorous screening, line-by-line data scrubbing, and extensive quality control methodologies.
- For our clients that wish to conduct research internally and need only the respondents, we provide unparalleled recruiting quality for both in-person and online studies.
- Access VGM’s panel of consumers ages 13+ in 45 countries worldwide. We can also provide samples of children under the age of 13 by contacting the parents.
VGM has conducted 1,000+ focus groups and IDIs to understand consumer behavior and to evaluate products, media, and concepts.
- Ideal For
- Hands-on Product Testing (video games, mobile applications, websites, consumer electronics, any type of product)
- Media Testing (trailers, promos, pilots, ads, film, any type of media)
- Concept Testing (positioning statements, concept descriptions, feature lists, key art, video, any type of conceptual assets)
- Consumer Behavior and Ethnography
- Background
- We bring groups of 6-8 respondents into a secure facility to evaluate a product or concept and participate in focus group discussion
- Depending on the research objective, we may choose to conduct 1:1 interviews in lieu of groups or in addition to groups
- Research objectives may include but are not limited to:
- Journey mapping: Understand the consumer’s path from initial awareness to purchasing and post-purchase information sharing
- Product evaluation: Identify the areas of improvement and key strengths of the product
- Longitudinal studies: Analyze respondents’ progressive experience with the product over a set amount of time (e.g., days, weeks) via in-person or phone discussions and periodic diary-style surveys
- Follow-up interviews: Obtain additional feedback and clarification from respondents that are identified as particularly informative
- Concept testing: Evaluate the appeal of pre-production concepts and/or marketing materials to hone in on the most appealing opportunities
- Marketing materials: Gauge the efficacy of written copy, screenshots, promotional video, packaging/box art, app icons, potential product names, and more
- Pricing: Determine the price point respondents are willing to pay for the product
- Mock reviews: Assemble a group of reputable professional reviewers to evaluate the product in an effort to predict market and critical reactions
- Process
- Group Testing and Discussion (60 minutes or longer if necessary)
- Product Testing: Consumers use the product either at individual stations or together in groups, as specified by the client. We observe organic usage behavior
- Media Testing: Consumers are seated at individual TV stations with headphones and exposed to the visual stimulus (trailer, promo, pilot, ad, film, any media)
- Concept Testing: Consumers evaluate concept descriptions, positioning statements, feature lists, key art, and video footage
- Consumer Behavior / Ethnography: Respondents discuss their attitudes, preferences, purchasing behavior, and any other topics of interest
- The client will be able to observe behind a one-way mirror
- We securely record and stream the experience live to accommodate remote clients worldwide
- In-Depth Interview (60 minutes or longer if necessary)
- The moderator sits down in-person or conduct a phone call with the respondents and conduct a personalized interview regarding their experience with the product.
- We securely record and stream the experience live to accommodate remote clients worldwide
- Recruiting
- You will have total control over the recruiting criteria of your respondents
- VGM delivers superior quality, higher accuracy, and faster turnaround time on recruiting vs. other full-service vendors because we recruit for qualitative studies using our proprietary respondent database and our internal team of seasoned recruiters
- We are one of the only full-service vendors that handles recruiting internally rather than outsourcing to third-party subcontractors
- Every respondent that attends your groups will undergo a rigorous seven-step screening process:
- Group Testing and Discussion (60 minutes or longer if necessary)
- Moderation
- The moderator will have experience conducting 500+ qualitative sessions
- Watch and direct the qualitative discussion sessions in real time with VGM’s live video stream and integrated chat, included at no charge
- Analysis and Reporting
- Part 1 – Topline (delivered in 48 hours upon completion of the research, including weekends)
- Outlines the key takeaways of the research and the most critical areas of improvement
- Part 2 – Final report (delivered in 5 to 7 days upon completion of the topline, including weekends)
- Our deliverable provides an overall assessment of quality, outline the key strengths and differentiators, and most importantly, will provide actionable steps that the client can take to improve product quality
- Part 1 – Topline (delivered in 48 hours upon completion of the research, including weekends)
- Services Included:
- Full service test plan creation and execution
- Project management
- Recruiting
- Respondent incentives
- Moderation
- Streaming/recording of group discussion (secure online archive)
- Streaming/recording of product usage (secure online archive)
- Real-time chat feature with moderator during group discussion
- Device rental (iPhone, iPad, Android Tablet, PC, TV)
- On-site logistics
- Facility
- Travel
- Client meals
- Analysis
- Topline report
- Final report
- Follow-up analysis upon request
VGM brings the experience of 1,000+ usability sessions to develop an intuitive user interface for your product.
- Ideal For
- Refining and improving the user interface of video games, mobile apps, websites, or any product with UI elements
- Objectives
- Assess the overall quality of the UI
- Identify each and every point of confusion that occurs as a new user explores the UI for the first time
- Develop actionable steps to improve the UI
- Process
- The moderator will:
- Physically sit in the room next to the user
- Be prepared with a comprehensive checklist of the UI elements that are being tested
- Present the User with a series of tasks that will require engagement with each and every UI element that is being tested
- Observe the User’s organic behavior and gauge ability/inability to complete each task
- The User will:
- Provide an on-going stream of dialogue so that the Moderator can understand the User’s thought process
- Explain his/her reasoning at each fail point
- The development team will:
- Be able to observe from behind a one-way mirror
- Have a two-camera view of the User’s face and screen
- Be able to communicate with the moderator in real-time through integrated chat
- The moderator will:
- Recruiting
- You will have total control over the recruiting criteria of your respondents
- VGM delivers superior quality, higher accuracy, and faster turnaround time on recruiting vs. other full-service vendors because we recruit for qualitative studies using our proprietary respondent database and our internal team of seasoned recruiters
- We are one of the only full-service vendors that handles recruiting internally rather than outsourcing to third-party subcontractors
- Every respondent that attends your groups will undergo a rigorous five-step screening process: database registration, email screening, phone screening, LinkedIn/Facebook check, and in-person re-screening
- Moderation
- The moderator will have experience conducting 500+ qualitative sessions
- Watch and direct the qualitative discussion sessions in real time with VGM’s live video stream and integrated chat, included at no charge
- Execution Timing
- We complete 6 to 8 one-on-one sessions per day
- Typical length per session is 45 to 90 minutes
- In most cases no more than 1 to 3 days of total testing is required to achieve the objective
- Analysis and Reporting
- Part 1 – Topline (Delivered in 48 hours upon completion of the research, including weekends)
- Outlines the key takeaways of the research and the most critical areas of improvement
- Part 2 – Final report (delivered in 5 to 7 days upon completion of the topline, including weekends)
- Our deliverable will provide a checklist of every fail point in the UI, the logic behind the failure, and a recommendation on how to fix it.
- Part 1 – Topline (Delivered in 48 hours upon completion of the research, including weekends)
- Services Included
- Full service test plan creation and execution
- Project management
- Recruiting
- Respondent incentives
- Moderation
- Streaming/recording of group discussion (secure online archive)
- Recording of each User’s face and screen (secure online archive)
- Real-time chat feature with moderator during group discussion
- Device rental (iPhone, iPad, Android Tablet, PC, TV)
- On-site logistics
- Facility
- Travel
- Client meals
- Analysis
- Topline report
- Final report
- Follow-up analysis upon request