Market Researchers & Game Developers: Strategic Storytellers Aiming for Immersive Impact

Authors
Emily Meier
Qualitative Research Specialist
Morgan Williams
Director, Qualitative Insights & Strategy Operations

Market research is critical to understanding consumer behavior and shaping business decisions. The challenge of socializing data-heavy content in a compelling way that also captivates stakeholders beyond what traditional presentations can deliver feels like a daunting task. Like market researchers, game developers are also tasked with translating abstract or ambiguous data from various inputs and voices into something that resonates. So, how does an insights presentation or video game storyline transcend the status quo? Through storytelling with engaging narratives and key focus elements. Storytelling is mission-critical to both consumer insights and video games; it’s at the heart of what it is to be human.

Video games have an uncanny ability to create immersive narratives and emotional connections and tell incredibly complex stories. Similarly, by crafting compelling, data-driven narratives, market researchers also foster a sense of emotional investment and understanding, which leads to stronger research recall beyond, “what slide was that chart on again?” Narratives of any story have the potential to break barriers and resonate with diverse audiences to get to the heart of consumers’ voices. It is the gateway to forging memorable insights that propels the impact of research beyond the core stakeholder teams and into the hands of key influencers, partners, and even the C-suite. For example, our Qualitative team recently elevated a project that involved Zoom presentations into a traveling roadshow of insights activation, involving all stakeholders and end users who learned the research to make better business operational decisions, particularly in the selling process. The project was originally slated to end back in June but given the insightful narrative to help socialize the insights in a compelling, memorable way, the clients have continued asking for socialization workshops. Their stakeholders are extremely invested in understanding the impacts of the research so they can drive their business forward.

Want to make this kind of impact at your company? CMB can assist.

Ready to deliver impactful, immersive, and emotionally resonant research? We look forward to gamifying your research into an artful story!

Authors
Emily Meier
Qualitative Research Specialist
Morgan Williams
Director, Qualitative Insights & Strategy Operations