© Photo by Warren Wong on Unsplash
Successful brand management needs ground breaking insights. We have been providing these for more than 35 years through our psychological market research.
Often human behaviour appears schizophrenic despite clear insights. This has changed since we began to focus on the respective decision-making contexts.
With our ContextThinking® approach, we support our clients in successfully anchoring their brands in the relevant contexts.
Because today it’s about people thinking about our brand in decision-making situations, not so much about what they know about the brand. This applies to consumers, B2B decision-makers and healthcare professionals.
© Photo by Warren Wong on Unsplash
We strengthen brands!
Successful brand management needs ground breaking insights. We have been providing these for more than 35 years through our psychological market research.
Often human behaviour appears schizophrenic despite clear insights. This has changed since we began to focus on the respective decision-making contexts.
With our ContextThinking® approach, we support our clients in successfully anchoring their brands in the relevant contexts.
Because today it’s about people thinking about our brand in decision-making situations, not so much about what they know about the brand. This applies to consumers, B2B decision-makers and healthcare professionals.
How do brands survive in abundance? They have to stand out from the overabundance and show their colours. Brands are strong when they have a physical presence, such as distribution, and above all a mental presence - salience via memorable brand signals and in relevant brand contexts.
Strong brands need really good brand researchers. We support you in a target-oriented way with optimal research solutions, are courageous, clear and straightforward in insight generation and implementation recommendations. And we deliver the necessary impulses for better performance and strategies without ifs and buts. The benchmark for our services is future brand success.
K&A BrandResearch stands at the intersection of psychology, market research and brand management. Our central idea generators are …
Psychology:
Daniel Kahneman
System-1, Autopilot
Gerd Gigerenzer
Good decisions, irrational consumers
Photo: Franz Johann Morgenbesser
Jacob Moreno
Psychodrama, experiencing rather than enquiring
Marketing:
Al Ries
Positioning, brand strength
Photo Mary Jane Starke CC BY-SA 4.0
Byron Sharp
Salience, contexts
Photo chabn001
Marc Ritson
No Bullshit-Marketing
Our philosophy forces us to be clear, realisable and consistent. In terms of brands: We not only analyse psychoanalytically how brands have come to dead ends, but also show horizons how schemes can be changed in terms of branding.
Until the 1990s, marketing rules such as "Differentiate or Die" or "Strategy of Strength" were still relevant. The origins of K&A and the so-called BrandMonopole approach of K&A founder Peer-Holger Stein also fall into this phase. Today, relevant positioning is usually no longer enough for market success. Successful brands are context heroes in times of too much choice: These brands are the most suitable alternative for people in everyday contexts to efficiently satisfy a need.
Through our ContextThinking® approach, we understand brand occasions, redefine contexts and help shape mental brand presence to be effective in the market.
Brand success is our benchmark.
The people and tools in market research and brand consulting at K&A regularly prove: ContextThinking® works better.
That's what our customers say about us:
"As a Product Senior Manager, it is absolutely essential for me to understand exactly how customers use the product I am responsible for in their everyday work. This is precisely where the concept of psychodramatic market research developed by K&A helped us, because the resulting in-depth and practical findings sparked sustained discussions within my team, which led to significant strategic adjustments for the success of the product."
Dr. Thomas Wittmann,
Product Senior Manager at Amgen
"Personally for me K&A stands out from others because of their market research expertise and high quality strategic consultancy services. For the past 2-3 years, I have been able to rely on them to advise our business teams to make informed and often complex decisions, which they are able to guide with industry fluency and strategic thinking. Another highlight is their recruitment team. They consistently fulfill sample requirements, even when dealing with niche customer segment — something that many agencies struggle to achieve. Overall it has been a great collaboration and I would recommend them highly for market research and business consultancy needs."
Zifang Zhao-Comte,
Market Insights & Data Analytics, ViiV Healthcare
"The key added value of K&A lies in the strategic guidance and support provided throughout the entire market research process. K&A takes our perspective as a brand and advises us from the initial question to the interpretation of the results. In this way, we are able to develop studies that are directly and specifically relevant to brand management."
Michael Brechtelsbauer,
Chief Sales and Marketing Officer (CSMO), LEKI Lenhart GmbH
"As a medium-sized company in the dairy products industry, we attach great importance to consumer proximity. Dealing with changes in markets is just as much a part of our success as shaping these markets ourselves. To do this, we need partners who understand markets, people and, not least, our business. We have been working with K&A on a basis of trust for years. Because they engage with our challenges, pragmatically develop the right approach and support us as a sparring partner with the really important insights and recommendations."
Christian Tasche,
Marketing Director, Käserei Champignon Hofmeister GmbH & Co. KG
"K&A has been a reliable and competent partner for us for many years when it comes to better understanding the consumer. The exchange with K&A is always exciting. The in-depth interviews conducted on the individual studies regularly surprise us with new insights and thus make a valuable contribution to sharpening the profile of our brand and successfully leading Em-eukal into the future."
Perry Soldan,
Managing Partner of Dr. C. SOLDAN
"At Baumgardt Consultants, we focus on passenger information for transport companies and their passengers. Because this is where we see the key to using buses and trains. With K&A and the context marketing approach, we have found a partner whose thinking can be directly applied to the challenges of our customers. Context-related strategies help passengers to become aware of the information they need in their everyday lives and help mobility providers to grow. Without an inflated marketing bubble, but with tangible implementation ideas."
Bodo Baumgardt,
Managing Director, Baumgardt Consultants
"With the K&A psychodrama, we were able to dive deep into the world of thoughts and feelings of our target group, and learned a lot about the fundamental drivers in the market. This is the ideal basis for tackling the challenges of the future and launching appropriate measures. K&A BrandResearch also supports us in this with methodological and consulting expertise."
Andreas Waidosch,
Head of Marketing, BSW Verbraucher-Service Beamtenselbsthilfewerk GmbH.
"1&1 is driving the digitalisation of extremely diverse customer groups in B2C, B2B, national and international with technically sophisticated offerings. To effectively align our products with the target groups, a broad and at the same time deep understanding of their needs is essential. K&A stands by our side as a reliable partner. From methodological consulting to the setup and management of complex projects to the discussion of results and the deduction of relevant findings as well as clear recommendations for action: K&A BrandResearch supports us with reliable analyses in the development and marketing of our products!"
Sabine Becker,
Head of Customer Research, 1&1
"As a medium-sized company, it is particularly important for us at Seeberger that concrete answers are provided to concrete questions. This applies in particular to market research. K&A always provides us with targeted insights that inspire our actions and are central to strategic decisions for successful brand management - from packaging design to consumer psychology to the design of a modern brand experience."
Joachim Mann,
Head of Corporate Communications Seeberger GmbH
"The world of online shopping is in a constant state of flux. For eBay it is vital to have a finger on the pulse of the times, to provide shopping experiences that meet the changing needs of buyers and sellers. Our best advisers are the 16.5 million active German buyers on eBay themselves. K&A provided valuable contributions that help us understand these buyers and their wishes even better. Internal interviews with key stakeholders offered an additional comparison of viewpoints with management."
Philip Siegel,
Senior Manager Market Research, eBay GmbH
"K&A is about much more than just generating numbers. In our trend studies for the international Kitchen Innovation Award competition, we regularly receive in-depth and groundbreaking interpretations. The unique approach and the comparison of results across generations and years make it possible to produce forecasts for the world of kitchens with a high degree of accuracy and reliability. This leads to a considerable gain in knowledge for all participants, as the precise evaluations of the studies provide direct recommendations for the development of new, successful product innovations. It could hardly be more practice-oriented! For over 20 years, I have appreciated the competent and cooperative support as well as the flexible adaptation to new market requirements!"
Susanne Nick,
Head of Marketing and Project Management at
Kitchen Innovation Award by LifeCare.Network UG
"As a medium-sized company, I initially asked myself what added value market research should bring to our company. But based on the output, our K&A positioning analysis was worth every single Euro! I was amazed at how deeply K&A was able to empathize with our company. And was able to give us concrete, target-oriented recommendations for future marketing strategies in addition to their insights."
Steffen Marx,
Founder and Managing Director, GIESINGER BIERMANUFAKTUR &
SPEZIALITÄTENBRAUGESELLSCHAFT MBH
“We were completely convinced by K&A's way of thinking and approaching context thinking: it gives us a totally free and unbiased view on our customers, their everyday life and the role of brands in it. For us at Almdudler, this type of consumer analysis is groundbreaking for market-effective positioning, portfolio, and context strategies in Austria, Germany, and everywhere else that's being done.“
Claus Hofmann-Credner,
Marketing management, Almdudler Limonade A. & S. Klein GmbH & Co KG
"Great mix between scientific background and pragmatic derivation! K&A delivers results that give us direction and save us from making mistakes!"
Christian Klebl,
Managing Director, Gartenbau Rednitzhembach Schmid GmbH+Co. KG
"For our brands, it is more than helpful to have consultants and market researchers at our side who understand regional peculiarities and the concerns of medium-sized companies. K&A's input via research, consulting and publications is a helpful and insightful support for our marketing and sales strategies."
Andreas Leikeim,
Managing Partner, Brauhaus Leikeim
“K&A's exceptional marketing and beverage expertise repeatedly leads the Free Brewers to work with the Institute. The breweries in particular like the way it directly and bluntly calls a spade a spade when it comes to consumer opinions and brand deficits, while at the same time pointing out implementable proposals for solutions.“
Jürgen Keipp,
Managing Director, Die Freien Brauer GmbH & Co. KG
"K&A and their tools of their Context Thinking approach fully convinced us and accompanied our repositioning up to the agency pitch. In particular, the strongly customer-centred perspective helped us to rethink many things in our team and to jointly develop market-effective solutions. And: it was fun! I can only recommend K&A for branding processes."
Heike Slotta,
Head of Events Department, NürnbergMesse GmbH
"The K&A psychodrama was new methodological territory for us. It was all the more fascinating to experience how it gives us a completely different, deeper access to the consumers than is possible, for example, in classic group discussions. In doing so, K&A knows how to ask the right questions and get to the heart of things ¬ from the setup to the recommendations for action -derived."
Eva von Erdmannsdorff,
Head of Market Research, AVS GmbH
"K&A not only provides well-founded insights, but also practical impulses for successful implementation in the company. The combination of psychological depth, pragmatic industry and marketing know-how as well as an understanding of customer needs have made many a decision at the publishing house easier for us. We are happy to recommend K&A to others!"
Martin Vogelmann,
Market Research, Wort & Bild Verlag Konradshöhe GmbH & Co. KG
"Only the person who asks the right questions and knows how to listen and, above all, to understand correctly sees into the heart of the consumer. Only consumer research, which knows how to uncover the emotional acupuncture point of the consumer helps us to build more relevant and consequently more appealing brands through strategic orientation and communication. With the tools of K&A we have – depending on the task – decoded precisely the insights which have led us to the goal of successful (further) brand development."
Michael Coenen,
Coenen Partner Marken-Positionierung
"The psychodrama is for me a trusted classic in terms of market research. Over the last 10 years it has always given me clear, understandable and "tangible" results. The flexibility with which K&A uses these to develop customised approaches to extremely specific issues is a source of fresh inspiration to me."
Sonja Williamson,
Marketing Director, Chiquita Bagusat Smoothies
"K&A BrandResearch has acquired a high level of recognition in the branded goods industry. The K&A team penetrates deep into consumer insights thanks to intensive research and analysis and combines this knowledge with the brands and their challenges. The result of this work is brand strategies, which are shown to lead to long-term success. Without a doubt, when it comes to the field of qualitative market research K&A plays in the premier league."
Peter Strahlendorf,
publisher, New Business Verlag
"As a Product Senior Manager, it is absolutely essential for me to understand exactly how customers use the product I am responsible for in their everyday work. This is precisely where the concept of psychodramatic market research developed by K&A helped us, because the resulting in-depth and practical findings sparked sustained discussions within my team, which led to significant strategic adjustments for the success of the product."
Dr. Thomas Wittmann, Product Senior Manager at Amgen
"Personally for me K&A stands out from others because of their market research expertise and high quality strategic consultancy services. For the past 2-3 years, I have been able to rely on them to advise our business teams to make informed and often complex decisions, which they are able to guide with industry fluency and strategic thinking. Another highlight is their recruitment team. They consistently fulfill sample requirements, even when dealing with niche customer segment — something that many agencies struggle to achieve. Overall it has been a great collaboration and I would recommend them highly for market research and business consultancy needs."
Zifang Zhao-Comte, Market Insights & Data Analytics, ViiV Healthcare
"The key added value of K&A lies in the strategic guidance and support provided throughout the entire market research process. K&A takes our perspective as a brand and advises us from the initial question to the interpretation of the results. In this way, we are able to develop studies that are directly and specifically relevant to brand management."
Michael Brechtelsbauer, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer (CSMO), LEKI Lenhart GmbH
"As a medium-sized company in the dairy products industry, we attach great importance to consumer proximity. Dealing with changes in markets is just as much a part of our success as shaping these markets ourselves. To do this, we need partners who understand markets, people and, not least, our business. We have been working with K&A on a basis of trust for years. Because they engage with our challenges, pragmatically develop the right approach and support us as a sparring partner with the really important insights and recommendations."
Christian Tasche, Marketing Director, Käserei Champignon Hofmeister GmbH & Co. KG
"K&A has been a reliable and competent partner for us for many years when it comes to better understanding the consumer. The exchange with K&A is always exciting. The in-depth interviews conducted on the individual studies regularly surprise us with new insights and thus make a valuable contribution to sharpening the profile of our brand and successfully leading Em-eukal into the future."
Perry Soldan, Managing Partner of Dr. C. SOLDAN
"At Baumgardt Consultants, we focus on passenger information for transport companies and their passengers. Because this is where we see the key to using buses and trains. With K&A and the context marketing approach, we have found a partner whose thinking can be directly applied to the challenges of our customers. Context-related strategies help passengers to become aware of the information they need in their everyday lives and help mobility providers to grow. Without an inflated marketing bubble, but with tangible implementation ideas."
Bodo Baumgardt, Managing Director, Baumgardt Consultants
"With the K&A psychodrama, we were able to dive deep into the world of thoughts and feelings of our target group, and learned a lot about the fundamental drivers in the market. This is the ideal basis for tackling the challenges of the future and launching appropriate measures. K&A BrandResearch also supports us in this with methodological and consulting expertise."
Andreas Waidosch, Head of Marketing, BSW Verbraucher-Service Beamtenselbsthilfewerk GmbH.
"1&1 is driving the digitalisation of extremely diverse customer groups in B2C, B2B, national and international with technically sophisticated offerings. To effectively align our products with the target groups, a broad and at the same time deep understanding of their needs is essential. K&A stands by our side as a reliable partner. From methodological consulting to the setup and management of complex projects to the discussion of results and the deduction of relevant findings as well as clear recommendations for action: K&A BrandResearch supports us with reliable analyses in the development and marketing of our products!"
Sabine Becker, Head of Customer Research, 1&1
"As a medium-sized company, it is particularly important for us at Seeberger that concrete answers are provided to concrete questions. This applies in particular to market research. K&A always provides us with targeted insights that inspire our actions and are central to strategic decisions for successful brand management - from packaging design to consumer psychology to the design of a modern brand experience."
Joachim Mann, Head of Corporate Communications Seeberger GmbH
"The world of online shopping is in a constant state of flux. For eBay it is vital to have a finger on the pulse of the times, to provide shopping experiences that meet the changing needs of buyers and sellers. Our best advisers are the 16.5 million active German buyers on eBay themselves. K&A provided valuable contributions that help us understand these buyers and their wishes even better. Internal interviews with key stakeholders offered an additional comparison of viewpoints with management."
Philip Siegel, Senior Manager Market Research, eBay GmbH
"K&A is about much more than just generating numbers. In our trend studies for the international Kitchen Innovation Award competition, we regularly receive in-depth and groundbreaking interpretations. The unique approach and the comparison of results across generations and years make it possible to produce forecasts for the world of kitchens with a high degree of accuracy and reliability. This leads to a considerable gain in knowledge for all participants, as the precise evaluations of the studies provide direct recommendations for the development of new, successful product innovations. It could hardly be more practice-oriented! For over 20 years, I have appreciated the competent and cooperative support as well as the flexible adaptation to new market requirements!"
Susanne Nick, Head of Marketing and Project Management at Kitchen Innovation Award by LifeCare.Network UG
"As a medium-sized company, I initially asked myself what added value market research should bring to our company. But based on the output, our K&A positioning analysis was worth every single Euro! I was amazed at how deeply K&A was able to empathize with our company. And was able to give us concrete, target-oriented recommendations for future marketing strategies in addition to their insights."
Steffen Marx, Founder and Managing Director, GIESINGER BIERMANUFAKTUR & SPEZIALITÄTENBRAUGESELLSCHAFT MBH
“We were completely convinced by K&A's way of thinking and approaching context thinking: it gives us a totally free and unbiased view on our customers, their everyday life and the role of brands in it. For us at Almdudler, this type of consumer analysis is groundbreaking for market-effective positioning, portfolio, and context strategies in Austria, Germany, and everywhere else that's being done.“
Claus Hofmann-Credner, Marketing management, Almdudler Limonade A. & S. Klein GmbH & Co KG
"Great mix between scientific background and pragmatic derivation! K&A delivers results that give us direction and save us from making mistakes!"
Christian Klebl, Managing Director, Gartenbau Rednitzhembach Schmid GmbH+Co. KG
"For our brands, it is more than helpful to have consultants and market researchers at our side who understand regional peculiarities and the concerns of medium-sized companies. K&A's input via research, consulting and publications is a helpful and insightful support for our marketing and sales strategies."
Andreas Leikeim, Managing Partner, Brauhaus Leikeim
“K&A's exceptional marketing and beverage expertise repeatedly leads the Free Brewers to work with the Institute. The breweries in particular like the way it directly and bluntly calls a spade a spade when it comes to consumer opinions and brand deficits, while at the same time pointing out implementable proposals for solutions.“
Jürgen Keipp, Managing Director, Die Freien Brauer GmbH & Co. KG
"K&A and their tools of their Context Thinking approach fully convinced us and accompanied our repositioning up to the agency pitch. In particular, the strongly customer-centred perspective helped us to rethink many things in our team and to jointly develop market-effective solutions. And: it was fun! I can only recommend K&A for branding processes."
Heike Slotta, Head of Events Department, NürnbergMesse GmbH
"The K&A psychodrama was new methodological territory for us. It was all the more fascinating to experience how it gives us a completely different, deeper access to the consumers than is possible, for example, in classic group discussions. In doing so, K&A knows how to ask the right questions and get to the heart of things ¬ from the setup to the recommendations for action -derived."
Eva von Erdmannsdorff, Head of Market Research, AVS GmbH
"K&A not only provides well-founded insights, but also practical impulses for successful implementation in the company. The combination of psychological depth, pragmatic industry and marketing know-how as well as an understanding of customer needs have made many a decision at the publishing house easier for us. We are happy to recommend K&A to others!"
Martin Vogelmann, Market Research, Wort & Bild Verlag Konradshöhe GmbH & Co. KG
"Only the person who asks the right questions and knows how to listen and, above all, to understand correctly sees into the heart of the consumer. Only consumer research, which knows how to uncover the emotional acupuncture point of the consumer helps us to build more relevant and consequently more appealing brands through strategic orientation and communication. With the tools of K&A we have – depending on the task – decoded precisely the insights which have led us to the goal of successful (further) brand development."
Michael Coenen, Coenen Partner Marken-Positionierung
"The psychodrama is for me a trusted classic in terms of market research. Over the last 10 years it has always given me clear, understandable and "tangible" results. The flexibility with which K&A uses these to develop customised approaches to extremely specific issues is a source of fresh inspiration to me."
Sonja Williamson, Marketing Director, Chiquita Bagusat Smoothies
"K&A BrandResearch has acquired a high level of recognition in the branded goods industry. The K&A team penetrates deep into consumer insights thanks to intensive research and analysis and combines this knowledge with the brands and their challenges. The result of this work is brand strategies, which are shown to lead to long-term success. Without a doubt, when it comes to the field of qualitative market research K&A plays in the premier league."
Peter Strahlendorf, publisher, New Business Verlag
What moves us. What we move. We write articles in the trade press on topics such as market research, brand management and brand positioning, about our ContextThinking®, psychodrama research and brand awe.
In our own K&A studies, we get to the heart of current marketing topics.
Our articles in the trade press
K&A Own Studies
Would you like to commission your own study from us that answers your individual questions?
We look forward to hearing from you and will be happy to advise you:
info@ka-brandresearch.com