Remote
Focus Groups
Bring consumers together and get them to open up about their perspectives and beliefs — without being in the same room.
Uncovering Creative Inspiration
In advance of revamping an international television campaign, RE/MAX and their agency Camp + King needed quick-turn research in the middle of a developing pandemic. The brand and the agency wanted to find inspiring stories about home buying and selling to inform the creative brief and set the stage for timely award-winning creative work.
Getting the Good Stuff
Current Forward recruited and conducted focus groups with a diverse range of 60 recent homebuyers and sellers across six cities in the US and Canada. Through one-hour focus groups conducted over Zoom, we uncovered a gold mine of personal stories that illustrated many triumphs and pain points along the buying and selling journey. These engaging narratives were summarized as part of the research output delivered to the agency team.
The Mom Whisperer
"My mom was all about “you need this… you need that...” She and the real estate agent were a team. My mom would have to give the approval first about everything."
The Storyteller
"I found my agent was often telling me a story. She’d say, “the nook … you can just imagine yourself sitting there reading or having breakfast.” She was often placing little stories in our heads about the different rooms in the house."
The Anytime Agent
"I put an offer in on a property and my agent called to say we needed to increase our offer. I was at a bar. He drove down to the bar with the paperwork for me to sign. It was 10pm on a weekday!"
The Buying and Selling Journey
Though the home buying and selling process is different for everyone, every time, we developed a journey that highlighted the themes of the emotional experience that participants often encountered. Key quotes from the research are featured to provide context and meaning. Additionally, we observed distinct differences between first time buyers and experienced, affluent buyers. Those findings were presented along an emotional spectrum. For agency creative teams and brand-side marketers, these two pieces delivered a deeper understanding of what consumers are going through as they interact with RE/MAX and its agents.
Understanding Agent Value
Because one of RE/MAX's primary differentiators is support from a real estate agent, the research also probed into uncovering the value that an agent brought consumers' home buying and selling process. Participants provided a robust list of terms they associated with the real estate agents with whom they worked.