Meet the 85% research company launches

The company specialises in in-home ethnography with ‘mass mainstream’ participants in the UK using photography, audio and video. 

It will work with creative agencies and directly with brands.

Mark Hadfield (pictured) has previously worked in brand and communications strategy roles at advertising and marketing agencies including Engine, BBDO and Iris Worldwide. Most recently, he has been strategy partner at Newcastle-based agency Cravens.

Hadfield initially started Meet the 85% as a photography project in his spare time in 2021.

Hadfield said: "Getting closer to people in their natural environments can bring understanding other research methods struggle to achieve.

"While data has delivered a deluge of information and certainty to risk-averse marketers, it’s also taken us further away from people. One of our aims is to add a layer of personal humanity to the gigabytes of data clients and agencies own."

West Midlands-based research agency Flume is supporting Meet the 85% with qualitative and quantitative research expertise.

Advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi is a founding client of Meet the 85%, currently working with the business to conduct research on the experiences of people living in ‘modern Britain’.

Richard Huntington, chief strategy officer at Saatchi & Saatchi UK, said: "As an agency, we're on a mission to create the most influential ideas from Modern Britain. To do that, you really need to understand what is going on in people’s lives. Working with Mark and Meet the 85% has been invaluable in getting us closer to the people of the UK."