Bank of Scotland Business Banking Survey

The Client
Bank of Scotland Business Banking, part of HBOS Plc, provides a full range of financial products and services for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs).

The Challenge
To provide insight into the opinions, experiences and aspirations of Britain's SME directors. This insight is to inform with a regular stream of marketing and press material.

Our Response

• Each quarter ORB work with the Bank of Scotland marketing team to identify contemporary business issues - these are worked into a questionnaire which will elicit data of interest to national regional and trade media.
• We undertake quarterly polling of 1000 SMEs via our in-house telephone unit.

Topics covered recently include: economic confidence, business performance, marketing and business development, cashflow, regulatory burden and work-life balance.

The Outcome

Branded as the 'Bank of Scotland Business Banking Survey,' our research assists in reinforcing the bank’s reputation as a provider of reliable information on business sentiment.  The survey results are regularly featured in The Sunday Times, Scotland on Sunday and a wide variety of regional and trade publications.

McCarthy and Stone

The Client
With 70% of the market, McCarthy and Stone is the leading private sector provider of sheltered housing.

The Challenge
To produce evidence and a report that would communicate the relevance of sheltered housing as an attractive, valid and underprovided housing choice for older people.

The target audience included national policy makers, local government and academic commentators.

Our Response

• Initial in-depth debriefs with client;
• In-depth desk research to assess prevailing attitudes and build the social, political and economic case for private sheltered housing;
• Four qualitative groups (older people and key stakeholder groups in the private, public and voluntary sectors) to determine the core areas that research should cover;
• Quantitative research conducted amongst over 1,500 older people in the UK. No assumptions were made about older people – the study was based entirely on their opinions, needs, demands and aspirations.

The Outcome

The largest ever independent study into sheltered housing was published in November 2003. It was launched in the House of Commons and endorsed by stakeholders across the board including the Department of Health, Help the Aged and the Association of Directors of Social Services.

“The presentation, structure and content of the report is first class and I will certainly have no hesitation in recommending your services… I have been particularly impressed with the interest that you have shown in the subject matter and with the enthusiasm that you have shown for my Company and its concerns.”

Gary Day, Land and Planning Director, McCarthy and Stone

The Conservative Party

The Challenge

• To provide timely and reliable data on voters’ opinions of parties, politicians and policies.

• To develop a set of key messages that could form the basis of a general election campaign.

• To evaluate and refine proposed communication/advertising material.

• To ensure the campaign director and party leader received daily updates on voter sentiment during the campaign itself.

Our Response

• Convening almost 100 focus groups consisting of ‘target’ voters in marginal constituencies. The initial phase provided an understanding of the issues that mattered most to voters and culminated in the launch of the ’10 words’ at a pre-election conference.

• Conducting monthly, weekly and, during the campaign itself, daily quantitative tracking to measure message delivery and voter sentiment.

• Overnight debriefs of focus groups.

• Delivery of data and interpretation of results every evening of the campaign – report on each evening’s polling delivered for review at the daily ( 5.30am ) campaign team meeting.

The Outcome

Our research guided the Party’s strategy, messaging, language and advertising and was an integral part of a campaign that was widely considered to be the most professional undertaken by the Conservative Party for many years.

“The team at ORB provided me as General Election Campaign Director with timely and rapidly reported analysed research findings – both qualitative and quantitative – to ensure that our campaign was always in touch with the concerns of voters.  They were flexible and creative and provided a good, personal service.  Timely and accurate information is critical for campaign decision making and ORB delivered it on a daily basis.”

Lynton Crosby , 2005 General Election Campaign Director, The Conservative Party

Basic Skills Agency / Learning and Skills Council

The Client
The Basic Skills Agency at a national level and local participation with Learning and Skills Councils.

The Challenge
To measure numeracy and literacy rates throughout England and Scotland and to predict a basic skills levels for every single ward throughout the country. The target audience included UK adults and employers.

Our Response

• Initial in-depth debriefs with client.
• Group discussions amongst parents and children.
• Quantitative research consisting of a total of 17,000 face-to-face interviews each lasting 30 minutes.
• Quantitative research amongst employers throughout the country measuring attitudes towards learning skills, the provision of basic skills training within the workforce and the problems associated with finding qualified employees.

The Outcome

The publication of CD-ROM by the Basic Skills Agency predicting numeracy and literacy levels for each ward in England and Scotland and delivering the local Learning and Skills Councils in Birmingham, Thameside, Suffolk, Gloucestershire and Wokingham a more in-depth quantification of levels within their areas.

“At a time when detailed information on levels of adult basic skills was not readily available, we were pleased with the survey work undertaken on our behalf by the Opinion Research Business. Their work was carefully constructed, sensitively conducted and robustly analysed. This presented us with a far more detailed picture of the literacy and numeracy context, across parts of the West Midlands, than we had ever had before. This, in turn, allowed us to take our own thinking and planning to a new level.”

Geoff Bateson - Core Skills Development Partnership

e-citizen National Project

The client

e-citizen National Project was one of 23 National Projects set up by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) to develop the e-government agenda. The project had the aim of encouraging take-up of local authority services delivered through electronic methods, for example making payments online or reporting environmental problems by text message. The results of the campaign are intended to enable local authorities to market e-services successfully to citizens.

The challenge

Our brief was to identify target citizen types for e-services, to help refine marketing concepts suitable for use with that citizen type and to provide measurement of take-up of e-services. The challenge here was to provide the required number of focus groups and interviews within the tight timescale required by the marketing campaign. 13 local authority areas throughout England were included in the "proof of concepts" research.

Our response

• Successful testing of the initial marketing concepts using focus groups to ensure that ads were as effective as possible for that target group.
• 6000 face to face and telephone interviews and 32 focus groups across 13 local authority areas to measure effectiveness of marketing campaigns.
• Research was conducted from December 2004 to March 2005, and full reporting can be found on www.e-citizen.gov.uk
• Foundation of a productive on-going working relationship between ORB and Photolink Creative Group, the marcomms agency.

The outcome

A targeted marketing campaign can cause significant increases in awareness and use of e-services. E.g. Awareness of a service to text to report abandoned cars rose from 1% pre to 24% post campaign. The e-citizen National Event in April 2005 and attended by around 200 local authorities showcased the research and launched the website. The website contains a "toolkit" outlining for local authorities how they might use the e-citizen experience to drive their own take-up of e-services.

“The focus groups were conducted in a professional environment, very professionally done. extremely useful and we learnt a lot from these.”

Lilian Barton, Marketing and Communications Manager, Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council

Strategic Rail Authority

Passenger Segmentation and Message Development

The Client
The Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) is charged with delivering the strategic priorities for Britain's railways over the next ten years. It operates under directions and guidance from the Secretary of State for Transport.

The Challenge
To understand comprehensively and for the first time, the behaviour and attitudes of rail passengers in order to communicate directly and effectively with them.

Our Response

• Twelve qualitative research groups with passengers across the UK to identify top line issues, behaviour and attitudes towards the railway;
• Working with the in-house team and external consultants to create a high level narrative, home and key messages for the SRA to communicate to passengers with;
• A quantitative study of 2,000 passengers focusing on behaviour, attitude and experience;
• Analysis of results and the segmentation of rail passengers into seven distinct, profiled passenger types along our Ratchet Effect model;
• Six qualitative groups to finalise and test messages for each priority segmented group;
• Ongoing message testing for communicating individual policy announcements;
• Ongoing research and polling amongst distinct segmented groups to test effectiveness of policies and produce tactical proof points for the media;
• Development of advertising campaign targeted at two distinct segmented groups;
• The ongoing measurement of changes in the Ratchet Effect™ as Dissidents are Neutralised and Advocates become Champions.

The Outcome

The most comprehensive understanding of rail passengers in the UK which means that the SRA are able to communicate with authority to distinct passenger groups through the media and directly through advertising.

Through our research and messaging, the SRA is now able to create advertising for individual regional and national newspapers which targets the specific concerns of their rail-using readers. In addition, our tactical polling and our deep down understanding of the behaviour and attitudes of passengers enables the SRA to fight tactical campaigns in the media and across the rail industry's stakeholders by using our analysis to present a more accurate portrayal of passenger views.

“This was ground breaking work for our sector and has informed the very core of our communications strategy.”

Ceri Evans, Director of Communications, Strategic Rail Authority