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Product Launch · Before

Market research for product launches in Malawi

We interview the people your launch has to reach before you spend on production or media. A typical study is 100 to 200 interviews across four to six districts, in Chichewa, Tumbuka and English, and it ends in a creative brief.

The expensive way to find out what the market thinks is to launch.

How it runs

  1. 01Scope

    We list what you believe about your audience and mark which beliefs are still assumptions.

  2. 02Field

    We interview people in their own districts, and hold focus groups where the audience is a household.

  3. 03Synthesis

    We turn the interviews into personas, objections and the words people use.

  4. 04Position and name

    We agree the proposition with you in one sentence.

  5. 05Brief

    We write the findings up as the creative brief and take your team through it.

What you get

  • Audience personas
  • Assumption test
  • Language and associations
  • Positioning and naming
  • Creative brief
  • Findings session
In detail
Audience personasWho the audiences are, what moves them, and where they can be reached.
Assumption testEach assumption marked supported, corrected or unsupported by what people said.
Language and associationsThe words and associations people already use for the category. We carry them into the advertising.
Positioning and namingThe proposition in one sentence and, where naming is in scope, a name a customer can repeat.
Creative briefThe brief that the adverts, films and design are made against.
Findings sessionA working session with your team to go through the findings.
FieldworkAcross the Central and Southern regions, roughly 70% rural. Reported in English.
Monitoring and evaluationSeparate work. This research comes before a launch and shapes what gets made.

Can we skip research on a tight budget?

You can make it smaller. Research is rarely the largest cost in a launch, and getting the audience wrong usually is.

Proof

Design Outreach

We interviewed people in five rural districts before anything was produced, and the words they used for their hand pumps went into the advertising. Ten months after launch, the product had expanded across all five.

“Most of what we thought was right, but the things the research corrected were important.”
Russell RitterField Programs Director, Design Outreach

Every launch rests on a few assumptions. Which of yours would you most like tested?

Tell us what you’re launching