Spring Research launches innovative planning tool

by Ben Bold, Brand Republic 15-Jun-07, 15:10

LONDON - Spring Research has launched Culture Track, a product designed to help brands quickly identify cultural changes and pursue market opportunities ahead of the competition.

The firm claims that the product brings together a set of skills that have not been combined before. It said that the tool has sparked interest at ad agency Leo Burnett, a major FMCG advertiser, and a car manufacturer.

Culture Track is the brainchild of former ad agency planner Sarah Hamburger, who has recently been recruited by Spring as research director, and agency managing partner Stephen Phillips.

Hamburger has worked at some the UK's top advertising and marketing agencies, including TBWA\London and Claydon Heeley. She was most recently senior planner at integrated agency Craik Jones Watson Mitchell Voelkel.

Culture Track offers clients cultural insights on a global level by using a combination of peripheral scanning, semiotics, expert interviews and biographical consumer interviews. Clients can specify which segments of culture they want to analyse. Spring is currently examining football culture and its impact on brands, the meaning of health in the UK and several other demographic projects.

Phillips said: "Clients now spend a lot of money looking at their brand, their competitors and their consumers, but often they miss the cultural dimension in which brands and consumers co-exist. Culture Track enables them to understand and keep track on this cultural dynamic and use the findings to direct their brands -- all in a cost-effective approach."