We’ve all heard it before – everything is constantly changing. But frankly, what’s new? Despite the countless articles on navigating flux, many brands still cling to outdated ‘golden formulas,’ ignoring the shifting landscape around them – often with disastrous results. Take Brooks Brothers, once a go-to for formal menswear; they faltered as remote work and casual wear took over, unable to adapt to the new reality. In his book, Reorganize for Resilience, Harvard professor Ranjay Gulati reminds us that brands adopting an outside-in approach are more resilient, especially in times of change. By prioritising consumer needs and adapting to their evolving expectations, brands build resilience. Online research communities play a pivotal role here, allowing to get closer to your audience to uncover and act on what truly matters.

Such online research communities come in many shapes and forms. But what we define as communities are closed platforms gathering a group of interested and interesting people. Always-on in nature, online research communities provide the much-needed agility to immerse in people’s lives and react quickly to changing circumstances – guiding your branding, experience and innovation initiatives.

Community x Immersion: cracking the code of human complexity

At the heart of every successful brand is a holistic understanding of people. Online research communities enable you to immerse yourself in the lives of the people that matter to your brand. They help you uncover what they think, feel and do by immersing, observing and quantifying consumer behaviour within a holistic human context.

L’Oréal’s Dermatological Beauty division (LDB), for example, sought deeper connections with real women to enhance their consumer-centric approach. Since 2016, they’ve engaged with 150 dermo-cosmetics consumers across five markets through the “So Healthy” communities. By complementing these insights with input from dermatologists and pharmacists, LDB gains a comprehensive understanding of consumer needs. This collaboration informs daily decision-making, allowing LDB to optimise product concepts, packaging, and marketing strategies while fostering greater empathy among their brand marketers.

Similarly, together with Nest, the National Employment Savings Trust in the UK, we set up  the “Your Way” community to enhance its customer-centric approach and better understand its members’ profiles across various life stages. With over 2,900 participants, the online community facilitates surveys, video interviews, and discussions, ensuring members’ voices inform Nest’s strategies. “Your Way” allows members’ voices to be heard within Nest, from tactically helping to refine communications through to behavioural deeper dives into the world of pensions from a consumer perspective.

Community x Branding: building strong brands that people talk about

Relevance is no longer enough. Great brands truly resonate with their audiences. By leveraging online insight communities, you can gain instant insights to craft brand strategies that truly hit home. Test your messaging in real-time and refine your communication swiftly, ensuring you stay in tune with shifting consumer sentiment.

Take Manulife, for example. By tapping into the financial habits of Gen Z and Millennials, using an ongoing online insight community, The Green Room, Manulife was able to craft campaigns that resonate with these youngsters. An example is their campaign featuring influential Filipino Millennial women sharing financial advice. This deepened trust and strengthened their brand by addressing real consumer needs. As Melissa Henson, Chief Marketing Officer of Manulife Philippines, puts it: “Listening to customers through our online insight community has allowed us to deepen the trust of our customers, with insights on their everyday needs ultimately helping us deliver more flexible solutions.”

Another great example the work we did with Nestlé’s KitKat, where we sought to understand how Gen Z experiences breaks. By engaging with young adults across five countries, we uncovered a key insight: while many felt they took enough breaks, only 34% truly enjoyed them. This community insight inspired the KitKat’s “Break Better” campaign, encouraging Gen Z to take more meaningful breaks and driving a fresh global message that resonates with the next generation.

Community x Experience: elevate the moments that matter to people

Experience design is more than just solving pain points. Online research communities can give you the insight you need to craft memorable moments that can transform people’s lives. With the ‘Trip Talk’ online research community, for instance, we helped British Airways (BA) dive deep into the customer journey, integrating these insights with trend research and behavioural tracking.  This allowed BA to map the end-to-end customer experience, shaping everything from marketing to data analytics with real customer voices. The result? A more seamless, customer-centric experience at every touchpoint.

Similarly, Bloomingdale’s was looking to create a remarkable experience for their beauty shoppers. They sought to understand what Millennial consumers expect both online and in-store. Through the Beauty Bar online research community, we helped Bloomingdale connect with these consumers over seven months, gathering insights that led to the launch of Glowhaus – a unique beauty boutique that mixes various brands under one roof, allowing customers to ‘try before they buy.’ This innovative space features visually displayed products, dedicated play stations with testers, and a digital mood board with tutorial videos available in-store. Sales associates, trained as cross-brand experts, guide consumers through their exploration without pushing specific products. This approach that blends online and offline features won the WWD Beauty Inc Retailer of the Year award, just months after the launch.

Community x Innovation: creating products and services that enrich people’s lives

Great brands don’t just innovate for people; they innovate with them. Online insight communities help you identify friction points, curate ideas that align with real-time consumer shifts, and pilot concepts for immediate feedback – turning consumer insights into breakthrough innovations.

For Avara, a leading UK food supplier, we ran an online research community, “the Fresh Hub“, to breathe new life into its Added Value poultry category. Through a series of surveys, community members evaluated 28 AI-generated product concepts, refining them into 200 innovative ideas focused on healthier, more exciting options. This consumer-driven approach has allowed Avara to stay ahead of evolving preferences and create products that resonate with today’s shoppers.

In a similar vein, Philips partnered with us to develop a novel innovation approach that prioritizes human understanding. As a leading electronics company, Philips has transformed into a focused health technology firm dedicated to enhancing health and well-being. To support this shift, they partnered with us to develop a new innovation practice centred around human understanding. The “My Living Square” online research community, with over 3,500 participants, plays a crucial role in the Continuous Learning approach, facilitating co-creation and tailored interactions. This practice has helped Philips significantly improve lives – impacting over 535 million people in 2022 – and strengthened their reputation as an innovator, earning numerous awards and recognition in the health tech sector.

Community thinking isn’t just an approach, it’s your engine for making people-centric decision-making a reality. It helps you see what matters and move away from the ‘tried and true’ formulas that are no longer valid.