Simon listens to and films people from all walks of life, from business leaders to the least advantaged, on a huge range of topics. He sifts and interprets diffuse arrays of conversations, photos, posts, diaries and observations to uncover their real meanings for clients. Simon works flexibly: he is equally happy running his own projects and freelancing for research agencies.
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Simon has guided many leading companies and public bodies on the development of new products, designs and services, inspired by real-life observation and inputs from end-users.
His co-creation and concept development work takes raw ideas and develops them in collaboration with consumers and audiences themselves.
He has helped organisations innovate smartly in areas ranging from drinks packaging to financial services to laundry products.
Simon helps brands connect with people.
He understands the creative process involved in producing great communications, but also the sensory overload of the busy people digesting them.
Simon believes strongly that good comms research helps the best creative work get through. It allows the creatives to deliver, by helping channel their time and energy into ideas with real cut-through.
Simon has helped many leading brands you'll know - from household goods to alcoholic drinks to laundry products - with their positioning, messaging and advertising. He also works with public sector clients on brand and communication issues.
A former qual research director at Ipsos MORI, Simon has worked for overseas governments and prestigious international NGOs as well as major UK institutions and charities, on themes as diverse as adult literacy, national identity among minority ethnic groups, the use of emblems in the Middle East, high speed rail, attitudes to gender in the Armed Forces and the sharing of health data between government agencies.
There are many overlaps between commercial qual research and qual research for public bodies, but there are also important practical differences in requirements of the researcher. An Oxford law graduate, Simon is a careful and nuanced explainer of qualitative research validity to the most sceptical audiences.
Simon has spent many hours in stores around the UK over the last decade and more, observing shopping behaviour and exploring what drives it. He is a former head of UK Shopper Qual at a global agency where he helped qual researchers around Europe with shopper methodologies.
Simon has unpicked many categories from a shopper perspective, including coffee, laundry, frozen food and alcoholic drinks. He helped pioneer new qual approaches such as combining real in-store experiences with retail lab work and creative spaces to do fixture optimisation. He was also an early mover in bringing the shopper angle into pack design to help refine on-pack messaging.
Simon has gained particular insight from collaborating with eye-tracking providers, which allows him to probe shoppers in detail using video evidence of what they were really looking at.
Simon explores changing audience expectations and habits across media for major organisations.
He has delivered creative feedback for radio programme makers and helped a leading international radio station develop its interstitials.
With tv, he has explored the value of Champions’ League coverage to football fans, worked with tv regulators to understand disabled audiences’ needs and investigated the children’s advertising code in the Irish Republic.
Shore is a hub for international qualitative research.
Shore has a network of qualitative specialists it works with around the world. As quality of thinking is everything in qual, Simon only works with very high level researchers. He also travels out personally to view research wherever possible. Yet, as a small and agile business, he can deliver international qual at a very competitive cost.
Simon has managed and delivered major global studies for some of the biggest and most prestigious names in consumer goods, media, retail as well as global NGOs.
He has delivered qualitative training to staff of a major international NGO in Switzerland and Jordan; managed global innovation work among niche audiences in Australia, Germany and Spain; travelled to Ivory Coast to oversee qual for a big international broadcaster; and scoped markets in Europe for a new online retail proposition.
Shore uses a mix of methodologies wherever possible to open up different angles of insight. These are some.
Pose questions over several days on the platform, watch people post their words and pictures on their mobiles, tablet or laptop.
Shore creates great research films in partnership with a professional documentary-maker. Clients tell us the films engage their people like nothing else.
Shore believes strongly in the power of well-designed, well-moderated discussion groups to generate rich insights highly cost-effectively. Dismiss them at your peril.
Returning to research participants over a prolonged period, to follow how behaviours or views might be changing.
Experimenting in mock-up shopping environments to explore at-shelf effects
Relaxed but penetrating conversations, one-on-one - where participant gives clues to deeper feelings and motivations
Bringing clients and consumers or stakeholders together within a carefully designed collaborative structure to think through issues together.
Usually a pre-task, they are a place for participants to be creative and express private feelings they may not reveal in discussion with others. Can be done online or offline.
Ethnography comes in all shapes and sizes. Shore works at the more punchy commercial end, but can also partner with academic ethnographers for more in-depth pieces.
Learning from spending long periods in-store watching what shoppers do, with on-the-spot intercepts
Shore takes the lead on projects that go well beyond qualitative research. Collaborating with specialists in other fields, Shore provides a hub for the delivery of wider insight.
Navigating the visual and cultural contexts brands live in, with semiotician Chris Arning
Bringing in people who are helping make the weather
Partnering with eye-tracking providers to create video that shows what people are looking at
Partnering with quantitative researchers to do questionnaire-based measurement
Understanding how cognitive biases, choice architecture, Systems 1 and 2 play out, with academic experts
Working with devices that detect physiological responses
Measuring and evaluating social media sentiment on your brand or service
