The when, what and how
illume believes in the power of stories...here is ours
illume is a consulting firm in Bangalore, India specializing in delivering user/consumer insights based on behavioural research. Behavioural research combines elements of economics and psychology to understand how and why people behave the way they do in the real world.
Founded by two professionals - Reshma Bachwani who studied Economics, Marketing and later topped it up with a diploma in Analytical Hypnotherapy and Ravi Paritosh - a film and visual communication designer from NID, Ahmedabad.
subconscious research - our first love
illume evolved from a fuzzy dream to being a concrete thought in August 2011. Reshma's used her formal education in diverse disciplines to create a unique research process that could help a client understand the subconscious behaviour, mindset and hence what are the 'real reasons' behind the seemingly non-rational decisions that we see amongst people. Why do people say something and do the opposite? What could be the reasons behind their fixation with certain brands/habits?
Having dabbled in subconscious research since 2003, we were convinced it offers insights that are far richer than the ones gathered through traditional research and in a manner that is far less taxing on the consumer / the person being interviewed. We decided to formalise the offer and illume was born to tap into 'insights from the subconscious'. The more work we did with the subconscious, the more we realised what a versatile medium it is for insight-gathering. As part of the offer, we have uncovered brand imprints (earliest memories around brands), discovered the language of the senses (the words to describe a smell or a taste or a sound) stumbled upon strong cultural symbols or trends which unbundled the problem statements of our clients. But this was not all that we did. You can read about our offer under 'what we do'.
The journey from the narrow bylanes of marketing research to the blue sky of behavioural sciences
Having spent 10 years, solving marketing problems for clients, a serendipitous meeting in 2013 took us on a new path, where the 'brand' was not a household name but one that had to be created. That marked our foray into behavioural research and the task cut out for us was to understand the mindset of the electorate - our client - a distinguished name in society and a new entrant into politics. That was one of the most exciting years in the history of Indian politics - the Loksabha elections of 2014. Amongst other things, it led to one of the most comprehensive and seminal research in which we semiotically decoded the codes for 'power' and how those have changed between post-independent India and today.
September 2014, further intensified our journey into the behavioural sciences research space with one of our most valued clients 'The EkStep Foundation' whom we continue to work with to date. Between then and now, thanks to the countless research interviews done with students, teachers, parents, educators, education-dept. officials, school leaders, and ECCE experts, we have gained a deep understanding of the education sector in India and the transformation that it has experienced.
Some of the other unforgettable research pieces during this phase have been
- 'The Birth of a Birth Centre' - a UX research that contributed to the creation of The Aastrika Midwifery Centre
- The power of body, voice and mind for every girl - an impact evaluation research conducted for MukkaMaar
- Employee generations in the Indian workplace - a study by Prof. Vasanthi Srinivasan (IIMB) and SHRM on indegenious classification of generational cohorts in India, for which illume plugged in with the qualitative research module.
- Workplace stress - impact and outcome - a collaborative study between Chestnut Global Partners and SHRM India to assess the impact of employee stress on productivity, for which illume plugged in with the qualitative research module.
Most of our research reports tend to stay out of the public domain. You will find a complete list of projects and clients here and do get intouch with us if it sparks off a similar or related research that you might want to commission.
What we believe and how we go about our work
We believe work shouldn't feel like a task that takes you away from 'life' that you otherwise enjoy. Work and life can continue seamlessly only if one enjoys what one is doing. We strive to make research - interesting/enjoyable for everyone involved - researchers, the people being interviewed and the clients who ultimately use the research data.
At illume, there are no strict definitions or boundaries with respect to what we can / cannot do. Of course, there are areas we understand we are good at. But for the rest, it's always a challenge to get a brief that is interesting and figure out a way to execute it.
In the years that have gone by - the work that illume has done has been diverse and fulfilling. We have created consumer insight films, travelled the length and breadth of the country decoding how people imagine colours in their mind and in the process discovered that 'synesthesia' is not a trait that is restricted to only some people. In our research on colours, we were stunned to hear that all 50 people we interviewed irrespective of age or gender, could effortlessly talk about the smell of blue, the taste of yellow, the sound of red and so on...
And for all this, we are utterly grateful to clients who trust us with such research briefs. There is nothing better than a call from a client who says - go and do some interviews and tell me - what goes on in a photographer's mind just minutes before he clicks that perfect shot!
We believe work shouldn't feel like a task that takes you away from 'life' that you otherwise enjoy. Work and life can continue seamlessly only if one enjoys what one is doing. We strive to make research - interesting/enjoyable for everyone involved - researchers, the people being interviewed and the clients who ultimately use the research data.
At illume, there are no strict definitions or boundaries with respect to what we can / cannot do. Of course, there are areas we understand we are good at. But for the rest, it's always a challenge to get a brief that is interesting and figure out a way to execute it.
In the years that have gone by - the work that illume has done has been diverse and fulfilling. We have created consumer insight films, travelled the length and breadth of the country decoding how people imagine colours in their mind and in the process discovered that 'synesthesia' is not a trait that is restricted to only some people. In our research on colours, we were stunned to hear that all 50 people we interviewed irrespective of age or gender, could effortlessly talk about the smell of blue, the taste of yellow, the sound of red and so on...
And for all this, we are utterly grateful to clients who trust us with such research briefs. There is nothing better than a call from a client who says - go and do some interviews and tell me - what goes on in a photographer's mind just minutes before he clicks that perfect shot!
How we do it
We generally focus on one or two projects at a time - immerse ourselves completely - take ownership...enjoy the experience - give the research design a lot of thought (we are not trigger-happy people) - work with a team of associates (field agencies, moderators, transcribers) who believe in quality as much as we do (we always pay them on time and hence only work with clients who have similar values) - we are never afraid to take risks and never afraid to say NO if something doesn't make sense - we love connecting dots. We are constantly thinking about & observing people, brands, and behaviour whether we are out on a holiday, randomly browsing, grocery shopping or partying!
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