Leo Burnett UK case study

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Leo Burnett UK selects GMI to power research offering

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Customer profile

Originally founded in Chicago in 1935 with eight employees and three clients, Leo Burnett Worldwide, Inc. today spans a global network of over 200 operating units, including a variety of specialty marketing services and 94 full-service advertising agencies in 83 countries. London-based Leo Burnett UK handles many of the world's most valuable brands and successful marketing organisations, including Kellogg's, Samsung and Nintendo. The agency has a rich history of producing innovative campaigns, including the recent award-winning Teen Road Safety “Cameraphone” spot.

The challenge

Historically, conducting surveys and research to support advertising was a slow process that could take as long as two to three months to complete. Quantitative research would have often been ruled out on cost grounds or on the basis of the time available. The Internet now enables more quantitative research to be conducted during the development of marketing communications because data collection is cheaper and faster than ever before.

In 2005, Leo Burnett UK set about reviewing its existing quantitative market research infrastructure to identify its key needs. While looking for solutions, the company experimented with bringing the whole research process in house, including programming and panel management amongst other tasks. However, it quickly became clear that the cost savings from this were outweighed by the additional management and administration involved. Leo Burnett UK's decision to outsource that stage of the process to outside experts was made on the basis of ease, convenience and price.

The company set out to find a field-and-tab supplier that could turn around high-quality fieldwork at a good price and within tight deadlines while still remaining in charge of the front-end (research design, questionnaire writing etc.) and the back-end (data analysis and reporting).

The solution

Many agencies in the marketplace offer quantitative field-and-tab services. After working with several suppliers, amongst them GMI (Global Market Insite, Inc.), Leo Burnett was impressed with GMI on costs, timings, quality and general helpful, can-do attitude, and confident in GMI's ability to turn projects around on time and on budget.

“The trust we have built up on the basis of work conducted over the last couple of years was a key reason for using GMI,” comments Mike Treharne, senior research manager at Leo Burnett UK. “We had considered reducing overheads by bringing the whole research process in-house, but decided against it as it was more efficient to hand over tasks such as programming the software to an expert such as GMI.”

“We work with a variety of both qualitative and quantitative research suppliers, depending on their sector expertise and client preferences for a particular provider,” continues Treharne. “GMI is our preferred supplier for online usage and attitude quantitative consumer research.”

The results

By working with GMI, Leo Burnett UK also has access to GMI's global panels which provide reach to over 13 million consumers across 200+ countries in 37 languages, as well as GMI's growing specialty and B2B panels. “We end up saving costs and time on all of our quantitative research projects,” explains Treharne. “We rely on GMI to not only programme our surveys, but also manage them to ensure that the optimum number of panel members complete them.”

As a result, Leo Burnett UK can devote more time to analyzing the research data for strategic insights that will improve the effectiveness of their clients' communications.

“Since bringing in GMI, managing our external quantitative research process has become simpler and more efficient,” concludes Treharne. “We know that we can fully rely on GMI to deliver on a research project quickly without compromising quality.”

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