Discovery brings clients to its Thinking Shed

Ad testing is one of a number of uses for the tool, according to company executives. Respondents can log in to the system to review posted marketing materials and add feedback by highlighting the areas of an image or video that they think are ‘positive’ or ‘negative’. Further comments can be added in pop-up boxes.

The Thinking Shed can also be used for diary-based projects – where participants are asked to keep track of what is in their fridge, for example, or which trainers they and their friends have worn over a period of time.

Researchers are able to keep tabs on respondent activity are through a back-office tool and email reminders can be sent to those participants that need encouragement.

Marion Gannon, a director at Jigsaw Research – one of the first agencies to sign up to the tool, said: “We previously did these kind of tasks on paper or via email but we found that we got a lot more out of the respondents using The Thinking Shed than we would have done otherwise.”

A new version of the tool adding support for major European languages is expected by the end of the year.

Ken Parker, a director at The Thinking Shed, said: “The idea came from an internal brainstorming session nearly two years ago. It took a long time and an obscene amount of money to develop it, but the end result is beyond our wildest dreams. It has transformed the way we look at qualitative research. ‘Respondents’ is now an obsolete term. Because they get involved for so much longer, I think ‘engagers’ is more appropriate these days.”