Many CALD migrants struggle to integrate into Australian culture due to knowledge and understanding gaps, and fear of not doing the right thing. In partnership with the VRC, the Chinese Museum and Myer, we strived to close these knowledge and understanding gaps through creating a meaningful engagement opportunity for n=10 handpicked, high-net-worth, first to fifth generation Chinese migrants. ​

Guests were invited along to a two-part event: The first part was a session at the Chinese Museum to educate guests on the racing industry and the Chinese-Australian migration journey, followed by an exclusive personal shopping experience at Myer’s flagship Bourke Street Mall store. The second part of this event, the Sofitel Girls’ Day Out, provided the guests with a wonderful opportunity to truly engage with the sport, whilst removing the barriers.​

From research insights to cultural immersion to actual conversion, all the event partners involved in this program received remarkable/ measurable levels of direct benefits and returns – brand recognition​ & loyalty, high ‘sticky’ customer experience and finally, conversion.

​This was a wonderful opportunity to see our insights in action –​ through understanding the needs and pain points of our CALD community and transferring them into an opportunity to serve this audience and our brands. ​

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) on behalf of the Australian Energy Regulator (AER), commissioned strategic market research and CX consultancy Bastion Insights to conduct a review of Energy Made Easy (EME), their electricity and gas offer comparison tool.

In its quest to redevelop Energy Made Easy, AER needed to more accurately understand user needs and expectations, ensuring it based its new vision, product roadmap and website user experience within a deep understanding of the energy consumer.

Through a multi-disciplined approach including usability testing, workshops, an online community and a survey, we developed insights to inform AER’s planning over the next few years. These insights included a series of personas and journey maps of users, outlining approaches to communications, information and interaction requirements, their behaviours and user experience enablers that would assist in improving the experience when using the Energy Made Easy tool for each persona.

Findings have already fed into a technical feasibility study for the redevelopment of the website, budget reviews and redevelopment of fact sheet templates.

The results have also provided a critical level of context and a benchmark against which to gauge future iterations of the Energy Made Easy tool which can be found at www.energymadeeasy.gov.au 

Transurban wanted to understand the pain points the Chinese-speaking community was experiencing, and the key questions they have when it comes to traveling on toll roads and paying for them.

Bastion Insights helped to explore how language barriers may impact customers’ knowledge and experience of using toll roads. This helped Transurban develop relevant and meaningful communications that engage Chinese drivers and encourage them to get set-up for traveling on toll roads.

The Cross-Cultural Insights team has identified gaps and issues that are deeply linked to the Chinese culture and brought-up, combined with challenges new migrants face. These have shaped the video content and narrative as well as language to be appropriate and meaningful to truly help the Chinese community better drive in Australia.

Despite being first to market with the innovative pancake shaker bottle, our client has experienced a significant increase in competition in recent years – particularly from private label. As the current market is heavily price-driven, our client is seeking a point of differentiation in order to reinstate growth within the product category once again.

Everyone loves pancake shakers for how easy and convenient they are to use (and the quick clean up afterward) but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement. We wanted to uncover any functional pain points, big or small, that could be addressed through product innovation. In order to redefine their marketing strategy, we also evaluated brand perception and key areas of differentiation.

The Qualie platform was used to give our client personal accounts from customers. Using the Compelling Consensus™ approach we captured the richness of qual using emotive videos from real pancake shaker users. The next step involved participants reviewing and rating each other’s videos. This added the robustness of quant and provided the client with a consensus opinion.

Feedback from consumers along with data to back it up provided a solid business case for an innovative solution that will address newly uncovered and unmet needs.

The Compelling Consensus™ method

Traditional qualitative research is rich with insight and quantitative research has the rigor of numbers, so why not combine the two? ComCon adds a layer of statistical significance by combining thoughtful video-based insights with a layer of quantitative data, so clients hear only highly considered opinions from the right customers.

Does your marketing strategy need a shake-up? Get in touch to learn more about Compelling Consensus.

Yalumba, Australia’s most historic family-owned winery, wanted to gain traction with the Chinese community and create an effective activation strategy in China. Bastion Insights’ Cross-Cultural team conducted research to further understand the Chinese communities wants and needs and uncover potential business opportunities both locally and beyond.

In order to do this, Bastion Insights first needed to dive into the Chinese consumers’ understanding of the wine industry. Bastion Insights unveiled various Chinese cultural aspects of alcohol and wine, the shopper’s journey, path-to-purchase and primary retail options within China and Australia. The findings were extremely helpful in navigating the complex Chinese market.

The research was conducted via Bastion Insights’ Golden Voice community, where over 400 Chinese wine drinkers both offline and online were interviewed, including a sensory test (blind taste test for wine).

Bastion Insights uncovered particular demographics within the Chinese community that were ideal to target, as well as Chinese cities with the most purchase potential.

Understanding the concept of Chinese ‘face value’ and wine gifting was new to the client and somewhat complicated to grasp. It shaped the Yalumba brand proposition as well as the communication strategy profoundly. Bastion Insights have helped with recommending a winning product mix and creating a unique brand narrative and position for Yalumba that appeals to the Chinese market.

“Before the research took place, we didn’t have a thorough understanding of how our brand was perceived by Chinese, but we have learned so much about Chinese and their culture, this (research) has been an invaluable investment!”

–  Jo Jeffries, Brand Manager, Yalumba

How can your organisation tap into this growing market? Bridge the gap and have your business questions answered. Get in touch to find out more. 

Deakin University’s Faculty of Health had experienced a significant drop in enrolments for their course, the Master of Human Nutrition, over 5 years from 2014 to 2018. This is one of the largest and most important courses for the university. Furthermore, nutrition is a priority area of research for Deakin with their Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition (IPAN)  being a world-leading research institute dedicated to improving the health and quality of life of Australians. This course plays an important role in supporting this positioning.  

In response to the 5-year enrolment decline, the Marketing Division conducted a deep-dive course review workshop and identified the need for a better understanding of their customers’ motivations and barriers for choosing courses. Customer research conducted by Bastion Insights was used to understand the student experience and decision-making process. 

Nikki Howlett, Market Insights Strategist, Deakin University sums up the result of this work: 

“The impact of this research has far surpassed our expectations. Not only were we able to capture highly valuable customer insights and personas on the student journey, but the insights were almost immediately able to be workshopped and implemented with Faculty. Marketing communications strategy has been strengthened and has become more targeted, leading to the main end goal of increasing enrolments. ”  

On October 16th Deakin and Bastion Insights were recognised for this work and won the AMI Award for Market and Consumer Research Insights.  

THE

PROBLEM

Bastion Banjo had previously tested the desirability of a smoking cessation Chatbot to assist smokers planning to quit. The concept was found to be highly appealing, with the likelihood that smokers would use them as part of their quitting strategy. Since developing the concept, content, and back-end of the Chatbot, user acceptance testing was required before launching in the market.

THE

SOLUTION

Through Facebook Messenger, where the smoking cessation Chatbot was created, Bastion Insights conducted a number of online interviews with current smokers to test whether users accept the functionality and look and feel of the Chatbot. The findings from the user acceptance testing confirmed that the Chatbot was found to be appealing, useful, and supportive to current smokers in an effort to stop smoking.

THE

PROBLEM

L’Oréal Australia was seeking a way to create an ongoing, holistic connection with all their consumers, that was strategically responsive as needed. L’Oreal needed a customised but consistent approach that could provide fast insights (often within days) bringing together all parts of L’Oréal’s business covering different consumers, across categories, brands and channels from boutique to department stores to pharmacy, supermarket, and online shoppers.

THE

SOLUTION

Bastion Insights has partnered with L’Oréal Australia over the past 3 years to drive their consumer centricity strategy via “The Beauty Collective” – an online community of over 2,500 Australian beauty consumers that enables L’Oréal’s different business units to see their consumers beyond the products they sell. The Beauty Collective gives L’Oréal a pool of consumers to tap into at a moment’s notice, using wide-ranging methodologies including surveys, qualitative discussions, in-home product trials, video diaries, and self-ethnography shopping missions. The Beauty CollectiVe members don’t just respond to surveys or discussions, they also talk to us about their lives, and how the beauty, hair care, and other things fit into their lives. We have created a microcosm of L’Oréal consumers that give us permission to ‘see’ into their lives.