Navigating the Downturn: Research Hacks for Gaining Consumer Insights in Tough Times

For many of us operating in the marketing communications and research industry, 2024 was a tough year. Economic uncertainty led to lower consumer spending, impacting businesses across a broad spectrum of categories. 

While some chose to cut back on investing in research, at COMMON we spent time working closely with our clients to develop new means and methodologies to better serve this changed landscape. 

So we’re sharing some of the things we learnt along the way- as well as the skills we sharpened and solutions we offer - to enable you to better unlock powerful consumer truths in 2025.

Here are the three strategic approaches to guide your future research.

1. Prioritise Core Audiences: Sharpen Your Focus Through a Collaborative Workshop for Team Alignment

In challenging economic conditions, spreading resources across too many customer segments can dilute impact. Versus trying to appeal to everyone - we have found that a more effective approach is to prioritise the core audiences that consistently drive growth.

This isn’t just about identifying the 'right' audiences; it also requires cutting back on segments that demand significant resources but deliver little long-term value. These groups, often characterised by low loyalty or sporadic engagement, can divert attention from more impactful opportunities.

According to McKinsey’s research, companies that emphasise core customer segments report up to 2x higher revenue growth compared to those focused on less-engaged groups.

Key Steps to Refocus:

• Categorise customer segments with precision, identifying the most valuable groups.
• Review data regularly to identify and phase out low-return audiences.
• Reallocate resources to strengthen engagement with core audiences.

With greater focus, we have found that brands can simplify decision-making, streamline efforts, and ensure their resources are driving meaningful outcomes. 

“COMMON Research helped us uncover and prioritise our most valuable customer segments for our category. Through their collaborative workshops and data-driven insights, we clarified our audience personas, refined our messaging, and focused our resources effectively. As a result, we achieved significant e-commerce growth, topping all platforms during the June 18th festival. Their approach gave us the clarity and confidence to lead the category.” – A pre-made food company

However, finding the right core audiences is rarely straightforward. Many brands struggle with biases, over-reliance on data, or resistance from sales and channel teams who must adapt their efforts to new priorities. Audience prioritisation isn’t a simple top-down decision - it’s a complex process that demands alignment and buy-in across teams.

From our experience working with clients, we’ve seen that hosting an internal workshop is a highly effective way to tackle these challenges. Bringing cross-functional teams together creates a structured environment to share diverse perspectives, reduce blind spots, and collectively analyse data. Workshops help align priorities, facilitate meaningful discussions about trade-offs, and build a shared vision for audience focus.

By fostering collaboration and ensuring everyone is on the same page, brands can make more confident, well-rounded decisions that are embraced across the organisation even within a day.

Refining Our Workshop Approach Through Experience

At COMMON Research, our journey across numerous projects has allowed us to continuously refine how we help clients tackle audience prioritisation challenges. Over time, we’ve developed tools like the RFM analysis and the Audience Prioritisation Matrix, which have proven highly effective in guiding brands toward clearer, data-backed decisions.

• RFM Analysis: This method evaluates customer behaviour across Recency, Frequency, and Monetary value to identify key segments. By focusing on those who engage most recently, most often, and with the highest spending, brands can prioritise efforts where they matter most.
• Audience Prioritisation Matrix: This framework looks beyond surface-level demographics, factoring in elements like loyalty, lifetime value, and engagement potential to pinpoint the audiences that align with strategic goals.

We’ve also learned that no two workshops are the same. Over time, we’ve explored and optimised formats that suit different needs, including approaches like scenario mapping to explore possible outcomes, collaborative discussions to bring in diverse perspectives, and real-time prioritisation exercises to sharpen focus during the process.

Our goal has always been to create a workshop structure that’s adaptable yet rigorous - helping teams cut through complexity, align on priorities, and make decisions they can act on with confidence.

2. Secure Loyalty: Retain Your Base Through Cost-Effective and Adaptive Community Research

With the economic pie shrinking, competition for consumer loyalty is more intense than ever. Retention is no longer just a nice-to-have; it’s essential. In the current China context where consumers are more cautious and even conservative in their spending, customers are sticking to brands they trust, and they’re less likely to experiment. 

Nielsen’s Global Consumer Loyalty Report highlights that over 60% of consumers prioritise trusted brands during economic downturns, showing that loyalty becomes a strong competitive edge in challenging times. By investing in retention, you’re not just holding onto your market share - you’re fortifying it, possibly driving the repeated purchase of loyal customers, and eventually protecting your brand’s most valuable assets against market shifts.

In this climate, it’s critical to understand the specific drivers behind core customers’ loyalty. Brands should consider conducting mid-term research and regular tracking of these consumers' real needs to stay aligned with their evolving priorities and strengthen retention efforts effectively.

However, in today’s rapidly changing economic landscape, brands often rely on one-off, top-down research projects to gather insights. Building loyalty is like dating - one-off projects are like first dates: you only scratch the surface. In a volatile market, loyal consumers’ needs evolve, and brands risk missing out if they rely on occasional insights alone. While these projects can offer valuable information, they are typically limited in scope and frequency, providing only a snapshot of consumer behaviour at a single point in time. In a turbulent market, consumer preferences are evolving quickly, and a one-time approach may miss these shifts.

This is where community research becomes indispensable. By establishing an ongoing relationship with a dedicated group of loyal consumers, brands are able to tap into continuous feedback loops that offer real-time, authentic insights. Community research allows brands to stay closely connected to their audience, capturing evolving preferences, needs, and concerns in an agile manner. It creates a dynamic, adaptive feedback system that helps brands retain loyal consumers and stay responsive to their ever-changing demands.

Creating a passion-based community to build relationships and gain organic insight along the way

At Common Research, we created a community-driven approach that goes beyond conventional methods. 

• Up-to-date recruitment: Instead of recruiting members through the panel, we recruit through social media, hobby groups and offline events.
• Event-based research: we design immersive and resonating experiences and engage community members in activities tailored to their interests.
• Agile feedback: we collect real-time feedback on brands/products/services in daily talks. This continuous flow of member opinions enables brand to stay agile and responsive. 

Our community research offers the advantage of continuous engagement, creating a dedicated group of loyal consumers whose feedback provides real-time, evolving perspectives. This consistent connection builds genuine relationships, allowing brands to adapt quickly and retain loyalty in a more dynamic, efficient way. The result is a smaller, targeted scale of research that’s more cost-efficient and continuously reusable. Through our community’s valuable insights, brands can stay closely connected to loyal consumers, creating focused strategies that strengthen retention and engagement.

"Common Research helped us establish a truly engaged community in the Chinese market, enabling us to align with gen z values and create meaningful connections. Their community-led approach, combining organic recruitment with immersive experiences, allowed us to not only understand but also respond to our audience’s evolving needs. This has been instrumental in fostering loyalty for our sub-brand and driving sustainable growth in a competitive market." – A Leading Fashion Luxury Brand

3. Stay Agile: Adapt to Market Dynamics with Actionable Signal Research 

In today’s fast-paced market, staying agile is crucial, especially during economic downturns, when the importance of understanding early signals increases. 

Research indicates that during uncertain times, market signals often become more nuanced and challenging to interpret. Harvard's studies (Harvard Gazette) on consumer psychology note that consumer shifts may not always appear through broad indicators like sales drops but through more complex behavioural cues, such as shifts in spending patterns in essential versus non-essential categories. Furthermore, such signals are always subtle and hard to reflect or articulate by consumers.

To stay responsive, brands can do more than just interviewing consumers e,g, interviewing experts and conducting semiotic analysis to capture and act on these nuanced signals. These methods allow companies to anticipate customer needs better and adapt proactively, maintaining a competitive edge even in challenging economic climates.

However, in many companies today, there’s often a lack of systems to pick up early signals - meaning brands may not act until trends are too big to ignore, creating a reactive rather than proactive approach. This lag can cost valuable opportunities, especially in a turbulent market. Additionally, global headquarters may struggle to stay in tune with the nuances of local markets, while local teams spend time justifying and aligning on key insights.

'Signal' research bridges these gaps by bringing in key opinion leaders, industry experts, and cultural pioneers who offer real-time insights and frontline perspectives. This approach helps brands identify subtle shifts, decode cultural symbols, and uncover hidden motivations that traditional methods might miss. With insider knowledge, brands gain the agility to adapt and respond as trends emerge, staying aligned with their audience’s evolving needs and maintaining a competitive edge.

Conducting signal research through the lens of insiders 

At COMMON Research, we leverage an extensive insider network, connecting brands with KOLs and industry experts to help decode complex market dynamics. Our “signal” research enriched with rapid-turnaround semiotic analysis and expert interviews, revealing emerging trends, cultural insights, and shifting consumer preferences.

With our Signals service, we provide brands with continuous updates on relevant signals at weekly, monthly, and quarterly intervals, offering real-time insights and forecasting future trends. This enables brands to bridge local and global perspectives seamlessly, ensuring they make informed, agile decisions that maintain relevance in a fast-evolving market landscape.

"COMMON Research’s early signal approach helped us gain crucial insights into the evolving perceptions of luxury among high-net-worth individuals. By leveraging expert interviews and semiotic analysis, we were able to capture subtle shifts in consumer behaviour and redefine what luxury truly means. Using Maslow’s hierarchy to understand their emotional needs, we deepened our connection with this audience, leading to the creation of a whiskey experience guide that enhanced our brand’s resonance." – A luxury spirit company