The Who & The How
Carsten Burgdorff, owner of Fourth Monkey Market Research & Marketing Consulting, believes that the best consumer insights are discovered and unearthed through a genuine, unbiased, and open-minded engagement with consumers.
"The greater the trust, the better the result.
The ideal situation is for a client to experience the WOW!
Consumer insights usually don't grow on trees, but can be harvested through a systematic, yet emotionally engaging and inventive mechanism: Experiencing
what it means to be a consumer themselves will give you this WOW!
Clients who are willing to let me get to this WOW! will get the greatest reward."
Carsten has worked for more than fifteen years in the area of Market Research and Brand Development, helping strong and not so strong FMCG brands to become even stronger and more successful through spot on product innovation and communication.
Carsten has worked for more than fifteen years in the area of Market Research and Brand Development, helping strong and not so strong FMCG brands to become even stronger and more successful through spot on product innovation and communication.
But, he considers his most valuable education having moved from the field of science (his Dr. in Chemistry during his studies in Germany and Israel) to the exposure
and hands-on experience he acquired working in the consumer insight area as an executive at Unilever, a major FMCG company.
Carsten continues to both expand and refine his views and methods on how to generate the best consumer insights by maintaining both eyes open - while looking at
various elements that define a product's success: The product itself, the name and graphics, the packaging, the olfactorial dimension as well as the brand and its communication.
"I am not confined to a particular set of methods when it comes to digging out consumer insights. The challenge of a project is setting the framework in which
different methods and approaches are being used. Sometimes the client needs to be put out of the comfort zone, and march off into unknown territory to truly discover a different way
forward.
Time plays a key role here, and teams need the time to embrace, investigate and distill the learnings to feel comfortable with the outcome.
Over the years I have learnt that there is nothing more rewarding than a client left with more impactful new ideas than required - as this provides a new
positive feeling: The comfort of having to choose the 'right' ones from a wider set of consumer-infused ideas. Clients who are willing to follow my approach get the greatest
reward."
Through extensive work experience in every area of the consumer field over the past fifteen years, Carsten has acquired a wealth of knowledge about consumer
insights, good and bad new ideas, successful brands and urgently required brand differentiation.
A visionary approach in anticipating the desire for good new ideas that are genuine, contemporary and promising (in the monetary sense of the word), Carsten has
overseen every aspect of developing and launching skin cleansing and care products for men and women on various brands. He applies the same discipline to Fourth Monkey Market Research &
Marketing Consulting, devoting equal and exquisite attention to every detail of his client's projects.