The great British summer can be difficult to predict.
You might get sunshine. You might get sideways rain. You might experience both while walking from the car to Tesco with your meal deal.
But there is one forecast we’re feeling rather confident about.
The forecast says there’s a 100% chance of quant!
Summer is often treated as market research’s quieter season. Diaries become a patchwork of annual leave, inboxes fill with out-of-office replies and arranging a meeting involving more than three people begins to require military-grade planning.
But while everyone else is trying to work out whether Claire is back before James goes away, consumers are still out there. Shopping, socialising, travelling, trying new things and forming opinions about all of it.
In fact, summer can create some particularly useful conditions for quantitative research.
People often have a little more downtime and greater flexibility in their routines. Longer days and better weather bring more people into high streets, retail parks, shopping centres, attractions and leisure destinations. That creates natural opportunities for people to stop, take part and tell you what they think.
Convenient, really, because opinions don’t tend to take six weeks off. 🤷🏼♀️
Quantitative research is all about gathering measurable information from a larger number of people. It helps businesses understand how many people think, feel or behave in a particular way, identify patterns across different groups and make decisions based on rather more than the opinion of whichever colleague happens to be standing nearest the kettle.
That might involve a national online survey, face-to-face interviews across several locations, product testing, exit surveys or intercept research conducted close to the point of purchase.
And summer can be a very good time to do it.
Of course, there isn’t a golden research rule stating that every quantitative project will perform better between June and August. Research rarely enjoys being that tidy.
The right timing will always depend on the audience, subject and methodology. Research involving teachers, for example, may need a rather different approach from a study speaking to festivalgoers. Good market research begins with understanding who you need to reach and when participation will be most realistic for them.
But in our experience of delivering quantitative market research fieldwork, a change in people’s usual routines can open up valuable opportunities.
Someone with a little time to spare may be more willing to complete an online survey or stop for a face-to-face interview. They’re also likely to give more considered answers than someone simultaneously attempting to board a train, answer an email and locate their left AirPod.
Then there are all those consumers venturing outdoors voluntarily.
When the weather improves, high streets, retail parks and shopping centres tend to become busier. For exit surveys and face-to-face intercept research, that means more opportunities to reach people in the right place and at precisely the right moment.
Instead of asking somebody to remember a shopping experience several weeks later, researchers can speak to them while it’s still fresh. What brought them there? What did they buy? What influenced the decision? What nearly put them off? Did the experience live up to expectations?
It’s real-time feedback from real consumers, gathered before “Ummmm I think it was quite good?” becomes the full extent of their recollection.
Speaking to people in context can also help market research teams include consumers who may be missed by an online-only approach. With trained fieldworkers, carefully designed questions and consistent quality controls, intercept research can gather structured, measurable data across several locations and provide a clearer view of how experiences differ between audiences.
And, with any luck, nobody has to shelter beneath a clipboard while the rain comes in sideways.
Summer also produces behaviours that simply can’t be understood quite as well from a desk in November.
People travel more. They socialise differently. They visit attractions, attend events, eat and drink different things and make purchases they may not consider during the colder months. Brands across retail, leisure, travel, hospitality, food and drink can measure those behaviours while they’re actually happening.
Quantitative research can explore seasonal purchasing habits, responses to summer campaigns, awareness and consideration, visitor satisfaction, event experiences and reactions to new products or concepts.
If summer matters commercially to your organisation, it makes sense to study it in summer. Asking people about their ice cream choices in November may still produce answers, but it does remove some of the atmosphere.
Online quantitative research can work particularly well during this period too. Participants can respond at a time that suits them, whether they’re at home, travelling or enjoying a brief interval in which nobody has asked them to join a video call.
Online surveys can help organisations reach larger or geographically dispersed audiences, compare responses between different groups and measure attitudes, behaviours and preferences at scale. When they’re supported by appropriate sampling, sensible quotas and robust participant verification, they can keep useful evidence moving even while internal diaries are scattered across multiple time zones and caravan parks.
That can make summer more than the awkward pause between two productive periods.
Run the fieldwork now and you can arrive in September with data ready to explore, decisions ready to make and something considerably more useful than a novelty fridge magnet. This is particularly valuable when autumn planning, campaign development or product decisions are already waiting in the wings.
Naturally, a sunny day does not replace a sound methodology.
Good quantitative research still requires a clearly defined research question, the right audience, carefully written and unbiased questions, reliable recruitment, appropriate quotas and consistent fieldwork. It needs proper quality checks, ethical data handling and a plan built around the decision the research is meant to support.
Timing creates the opportunity. Good research design turns responses into evidence you can trust.
At Acumen Fieldwork, we plan every quantitative research project around the people our clients need to reach and the practical realities of reaching them properly.
Sometimes that means speaking to consumers online across the UK. Sometimes it means trained fieldworkers working across several physical locations. Sometimes it means catching people at the point where their experience is most relevant, before they’ve had time to forget the detail or become distracted by lunch.
There is no single template for getting it right. The methodology should always follow the research question, rather than being chosen because it looks fetching in sunglasses.
But with the right audience, approach and fieldwork team, summer can be an excellent time to gather consumer opinions, measure real-world behaviour and build a clearer picture of what people are doing, and why it matters.
So, while the British weather remains anyone’s guess, the research outlook is looking rather more promising.
If you have a quantitative research project brewing this summer, speak to Acumen Fieldwork. We’ll help you reach the right people, choose the right approach and gather reliable answers at scale; whatever the weather decides to do.
Online fraud is changing quickly. As artificial intelligence, deepfakes and increasingly sophisticated scams reshape the threat landscape, understanding how the public perceives and responds to fraud has become more important than ever.
Acumen Fieldwork was commissioned to recruit participants for a qualitative research study exploring how people understand the evolution of online fraud, from past experiences and current concerns to the risks they expect to see in the future.
The client required 10 participants for a two-hour, face-to-face workshop in Central London.
The group needed to reflect a broad mix of public perspectives, with participants balanced across gender, age, ethnicity, socio-economic background and occupation.
All participants were required to:
Those working in banking or IT were excluded to ensure the discussion reflected the views of the wider public rather than people with specialist professional knowledge.
Meeting the demographic quotas was only one part of the brief.
The research required participants who had enough digital experience and awareness of fraud to contribute meaningfully, without bringing professional expertise that could influence or dominate the discussion.
The sample also needed to include people from five different age groups, ranging from 18 to over 60, while maintaining an even gender split and a broad mix of backgrounds and occupations.
This meant the recruitment process needed to look beyond surface-level eligibility and consider how each participant would engage with a complex, sensitive and fast-moving topic.
Acumen managed the recruitment using a free-find methodology, screening each participant against the full demographic, behavioural and attitudinal criteria.
Our screening explored how frequently participants used the internet, the range of activities they completed online and their existing awareness of fraud.
We also assessed their confidence in discussing unfamiliar or emerging issues, including AI-enabled scams and deepfake technology, as well as their ability to express their views clearly within a workshop environment.
Alongside recruitment, Acumen managed participant communications ahead of the session, including consent documentation, attendance information and identification requirements.
A balanced group of 10 London residents was recruited for the workshop, representing a broad range of ages, backgrounds, occupations and levels of online experience.
The project demonstrates Acumen’s ability to recruit for complex research where participant quality matters just as much as demographic fit. By combining detailed quota management with thoughtful behavioural screening, we recruited a varied group equipped to contribute meaningfully to a sensitive and rapidly evolving subject.
Acumen Fieldwork supports qualitative and quantitative research across complex, sensitive and emerging subject areas.
From carefully balanced public samples to more specialist audiences, our recruitment team can help you find participants who meet the brief and bring genuine value to the research.
The Study
At Acumen as part of our quantitative market research services we’re always happy to work with clients wherever they are in the process of creating their brief. Often people have a clear idea of the parameters of their research but increasingly clients will ask for our guidance on the feasibility and practical solutions needed for their project. We were recently commissioned by a well-known retailer to provide data for an online market sizing project. The results of this were intended to help the retailer get an overall picture of the market but with a specific segmentation to clearly market different demographics within the market.
Our Approach
To achieve this Acumen conducted 1700 online interviews via a number of panels which we have access to and then structured the sampling to match the client’s needs of an overall market sizing exercise and the segmentation required. Quality was implemented in the programming and data delivery stages, helping the client with additional requests outside the original brief.
The Outcome
Due to the way we structured this project we were able to be flexible to the client’s needs whilst supporting them through a demanding report period. Not only did this approach allow the client to get the most out of their data, something which is important to us, but we also delivered the project within a total timescale of 2 weeks.
see also a case study our award winning quantitative research for the GLC
The Study
A leading footwear brand wanted to know more about the purchase process that consumers go through when buying new shoes. They were interested in collecting sample data across a variety of markets including the UK, US, China, France and South Korea.
Our Approach
The quantitative market research team in Acumen have networks of interviewers throughout the UK and partners who can provide on-street interviewers throughout Europe and much of the world. We collaborated with them to create a schedule and a quota which would ensure we could meet the number of completes the client required in the time that was needed. The team used their own app to capture the data the client needed, positioning interviewers so that they could intercept shoppers and perform exit interviews. As this project was being conducted across multiple countries our survey also had to be formatted to the linguistic needs of that location.
We were able to program the survey for all countries ensuring that questions and responses were accurately collected in a consistent format which ensured data delivery was a quick and smooth process.
The Outcome
We were able to meet the clients required quotas providing them with a full picture of the consumer purchase process across a number of markets with complete accuracy and consistency. The client was then able to incorporate this into a number of campaigns which targeted potential customers with POS advertising and promotional material based on the analysis of the data we provided.
