Value in the first week. Not mandated from the center — adopted by the teams.
8 yrs
Since 2018
EVERY
Business unit — plus regional creation centers
500k+
Consumers engaged
~5,000
Products with feedback integrated
01
Scoped against strategy
Annual alignment with senior leadership on corporate strategic priorities, then the testing plan is built against those goals. Reviewed monthly, reported to global leadership quarterly.
02
Teams bring the question
Every business unit gets a working session on where consumer testing fits their calendar and which method fits the decision — organic research where the answer needs nuance, synthetic where it needs speed and scale.
03
Investment follows strategic weight
Scope is planned a year ahead against each unit’s milestone calendar. Units carrying bigger bets get more of it.
And several have funded work beyond their allocation when demand outran it.
04
Insight travels downstream
Findings from one unit get picked up and applied by another as a matter of routine. From Q3, teams brief and pull studies through a Co‑Pilot plug-in inside the tools they already work in.
A deeply integrated partnership
Leadership sets the direction, business unit teams own the adoption, and the impact runs across the entire product calendar.
MAKER/SIGHTS
Design innovation where no data existed
Product too confidential for traditional research
~10%
Sell-in lift, millions of euros.
+400%
Purchase orders and full door distribution.
adidas, the spectrum
From a need nobody had data for, to a 4× purchase order
Same partner. Opposite ends of the calendar.
Upstream, before the market exists
Downstream, the purchase order
Innovation
Define and launch award-winning kits for the NWBA Championship Series, based on the needs of adaptive athletes, a population nobody had designed for.
Product creation
Consumer-driven confidence on franchise colorway decisions, across all key cleat franchises and hundreds of real players - all in one sealed environment.
Color & graphics
Thousands of graphics, one of the largest categories, validated instantly. The winners are sorted into optimal distribution groups across regions and accounts.
REI Sell-in
Secured major buyer commitment to a radical departure from the traditional hike wall, backed by expected performance against the existing wall and cut across priority REI segments.
MAKER/SIGHTS
Consumers from this study now exist as Digital Twins, allowing the full assortment to be tested, not the twenty products a survey carries. Range validation from the learnings: what's an SMU for wholesale? what goes in the whole line?
available to review the full assortment, whenever you have questions
DTC + DSG shoppers
US wholesale entry
As DTC-native athletic brand enters US market, one deepdive supported four teams
2,000+ US consumers across 4 states, 4 metro regions, and 2 consumer groups.
WHERE TO OPEN
WHAT TO STOCK
Targeting activation
And now it compounds
Retail store planning
Wholesale and account
Field marketing and consumer
on-demand research
MAKER/SIGHTS
Guided the store launch decision with direct insight into local consumers, over 30% of whom didn't know the brand was on the shelf at all.
Defined the optimal range for the new stores and the wholesale door, built on different local consumer preferences across launch cities.
Redirected activation investment through brand awareness and market sizing. 47% bought on retailer trust, 40% on the in-store display.
Uncovered per-city insight into gym proximity, willingness to travel to store, and activewear spend.
Determined category and price tier mix directly guided by the local appeal of key stories.
Shifted in-store investment from demand-gen to visibility and fixture presence.
HOKA, product whitespace
Seized the whitespace by developing the Transport into a bestseller, in a single year
HOKA had no commuter shoe — only 10% of women and 8% of men were satisfied with what they commuted in.
four decisions from Concept to purchase order
01 Concept validation
Consumer landscape
Commuter habits and unmet needs identified, then validated, before anything was designed.
02 Design and exploration
Design research
14 style iterations tested on features and color, down to the lacing system.
03 Merchandising
Market line adoption
Consumer preference read separately in 5 markets, so each region bought on its own evidence.
04 Go-to-market
Key account sell-in
The same consumer data carried into wholesale pitches to secure purchase orders.
160%
Of the initial sales target, in year one.
7th top search
On hoka.com two weeks after launch
4x adoption
REI declined pre-launch, then asked for allocation.
Instant
Sell-out of TransportX in all sizes
MAKER/SIGHTS
Decathlon, seasonal direction validation
Twelve directions in. Five briefed with a palette and an audience
Decathlon’s Design COE decided how each direction gets developed, colored, categorized and communicated.
Before any product exists
Into development
Influence directions
Twelve influence moodboards, no product yet, tested across China, Germany, Spain, Italy and France. De-branded, with the brand revealed only at the end.
Category fit
Category fit was asked per direction, so apparel and footwear left the same twelve directions with different shortlists.
Color
Palette, not narrative, was the leading reason a direction worked — so color variants became the next wave of testing.
The brief out
One flat direction was rejected, the other simply unclear. Recommendations were sent back for a sharper articulation, not a cut.
Direction judged before the brand got a say
One set of directions, two category shortlists
Adoption reason
Inspired further studies for color insights.
12 → 5 directions
Briefed with an audience and a palette.
MAKER/SIGHTS
adidas Running, campaign video validation
From three campaign videos to instant sell-out, decided in a week
The most expensive creative decision of the year, made on evidence from a thousand runners — before the money was spent.
Before the money was spent
After it launched
On correct-benefit recall
Brief to consumer learnings
7 days
20%
Misunderstood a benefit of the product.
+13 points
Sell-out
Instant, in every size, then a waiting list.
The test
Two benefit videos head to head — cushioning against lightness — rated by 1,049 experienced runners across the US, Germany, China and Mexico.
Comprehension
One cut carried its benefit and the other did not. The winning video was the one consumers could actually read.
The risk caught
A fifth of viewers came away believing a durability benefit the execution was never built to carry. Caught before the global rollout, not after it.
Launch
Three versions of the franchise shipped on the winning cut, with one market kept on its own read rather than the global one.
MAKER/SIGHTS
Altra, APAC hike entry
Category and APAC expansion for the fastest-growing VF brand
Altra was weighing category expansion into hike across APAC. The read came back before a single sample was cut, and it reset both the product brief and the go-to-market plan.
one category read, two markets, ten competitor styles
01 The decision
Hike category entry
Altra was weighing expansion into hike across APAC. The read told them whether the demand was real before the investment was committed.
02 Product brief
Two markets, one line
China rewards support and structure. Japan rewards a wider, more flexible fit. Lightweight and breathable is table stakes in both.
03 Go-to-market
Product over badge
Overall style and look drove interest across the set. Brand and logo placement barely moved it, so the plan led on what the shoe does.
Six figures saved
In sampling and in-store testing.
~12 months faster
Time to market thanks to better decision-making.
Refined strategy
For the product brief and go-to-market plan in Japan.
MAKER/SIGHTS
01 /Who we work for
Over 11 years, we’ve helped thousands of
gain confidence in the new ideas they’ve introduced to the world
02 /Eleven years
What that adds up to
91,000+
concept launches supported
176,000,000
consumer perspectives gathered
03 /The reality today
Getting consumer input at the scale and speed of decision-making was impossible
TCentral Team · ChatTuesday
Merchant · 4:12pm
Hi! I have a seasonal kickoff in two days, so I want to run a test to decide which archive product to bring back
CT
CT
Central Team · 4:19pm
Happy to help! But it’ll take a few days to set up and another week plus for results…
Merchant · 4:26pm
Ah okay, I’ll just make a call then. Thanks anyway.
And the next question. And the one after that…Never sent
04 /End-to-end delivery
We reimagined every step of the process of delivering insights to Makers
01 Need understood, plan proposed
02 The right perspectives gathered
03 Insights that drive action
300M consumers150+ countries
05 /Stating the need
01 Need understood, plan proposed
02 The right perspectives gathered
03 Insights that drive action
Good morning, Dan
What do you want to learn?
Describe the decision in front of you — e.g. which styles to take into a key account for next season…
Build manuallyOr choose from your calendar moment
Strategy Kickoff
Design Iteration
Product Naming
Pricing
Line Adoption
Marketing
Key Account Sell-In
Describe your need, in whatever format is most convenient
Conversational
Upload brief
Start with template
We propose the best plan based on your goals
Cross-referenced with best practices from thousands of studies for Makers
An end-to-end study plan drafted
06 /Audience access
01 Need understood, plan proposed
02 The right perspectives gathered
03 Insights that drive action
Study typeCommercial validation of innovation
🇨🇦VANCOUVER · 38Specialty run · HOKA, Saucony
🇩🇪BERLIN · 29DTC · On, Veja
“The mule silhouette is exactly what I’d slip on after a run.”
🇧🇷SÃO PAULO · 23DTC · Nike, Allbirds
“Cute recovery shoe, I’d wear it to the gym and to brunch.”
🇿🇦CAPE TOWN · 52Specialty run Brooks, HOKA
🇯🇵TOKYO · 34Specialty · ASICS, New Balance
🇦🇺SYDNEY · 47Mass · Nike, Under Armour
“Backless is fine at home but I’m not sure for travel.”
Access
300M+CONSUMERS
From the top panel providers, plus your own CRM, social and store associates.
Quality
10+CHECK POINTS
Every response passes custom quality checks before entering your data.
07 /Introducing Digital Twins
01 Need understood, plan proposed
02 The right perspectives gathered
03 Insights that drive action
Every response creates a taste profile of the respondent; we call these Digital Twins
