SALT — strategic consumer research & consulting. Ask Why. Act Smart.

Full-cycle projects

Strategic Research & Consulting

We never start with a method — we start with your question, and we see the answer through to something real. Here are the jobs we’re hired to do, and the approaches we bring to them.

Understand your audience

Who your people really are, what moves them, and the needs the market has yet to meet.

U&ASegmentationDemand SpacesJobs to be DonePain Points Map

Develop the product

From the first spark to the right formula, taste and price.

Concept testsProduct testsSensorialConjointKanoUX/UI

SALT Decision Stress Test

Build brand & communication

Brand health, positioning that holds, and messages that truly land.

Brand HealthValue propositionCommunication GuideAd / Pack / Claim testsSemiotics

SALT AI VOC

Understand the shopper in the moment

The path to purchase, and the nudges and barriers at the shelf — offline and on.

Shopper Insights / CJMShop-alongsNPS / CSI

SALT AI Shopper

Manage price & assortment

Where pricing peaks — and the share a new product can win.

Price SensitivityConjointShare modeling

Embed knowledge into teams

So insight lives in everyday decisions — not in a deck gathering dust.

WorkshopsConsumer-centricity DevelopmentSALT.Trend.Watch

SALT AI Trend Early Detection

— SALT’s automated solutions. Click through for the full story.

SALT Solutions

SALT Lab

Research is evolving: alongside the trusted interview and survey, a new generation of instruments is emerging. We have built four of our own. They run on AI — but the point is never the technology. It’s what they let you do differently: catch a trend long before it peaks, read your brand’s standing continuously rather than once a year, hear what shoppers actually ask at the shelf, and stress-test ideas before a budget is committed.

FlagshipContinuous monitoring

SALT AI Trend Early Detection

Early detection and classification of trends — so you stop investing in SKUs whose moment has already passed.

Problem. An SKU takes 8–14 weeks to produce; a meme lives for 2–6. Too many products launch into trends that are already dying.

How. Four layers of signals — social, e-commerce, media, competitors → classified as meme / cultural trend / macrotrend → scored against five criteria → a recommended play, and its window of opportunity.

Output. A live dashboard, Telegram alerts, and a weekly trend briefing for your product team.

Base. A library of 100+ cases from 2018–2025 — including some forty failures, because the model learns from the misses too. Scores run 0–100; at 85 and above, the window is open and the clock is ticking: seventy-two hours to decide.

For:Product teamsMarketingFMCG, retail & e-commerce

Request a demo report

Continuous monitoring

SALT AI VOC

Always-on brand perception monitoring, built on the live voices of your audience and an AI reading of emotions, patterns and signals.

Problem. Trackers measure awareness and share. They miss a brand’s emotional capital — and only register the shift once it has already happened.

How. Four source types — social media, marketplace reviews, forums, diaries → AI analysis of meaning and sentiment, validated by hand by SALT researchers → an emotional trust index: NPS for a new generation.

Output. Two to four waves a year: how four emotions and eight purchase patterns move against your competitors — with recommendations you can act on, audience by audience.

Format. Every wave includes two mini-workshops with your team — unpacking the findings and re-tuning the lens as your brand and market move. Every AI read is checked by human researchers.

For:CEO / Brand directorCMOCMI / Insights

Request a demo report

Retail + brands

SALT AI Shopper

An AI platform that listens to the questions shoppers actually ask at the shelf — and shows precisely where the purchase falls apart.

Problem. Sales data arrives after the fact; research arrives averaged; staff feedback arrives biased. No one sees what breaks at the very moment of choice.

How. Shopper–assistant dialogues from speech analytics → every question recoded as a signal of choice failure — orientation, differentiation, trust, overload → matched to how the conversation ended.

Output. A map of questions and breaking points, a Shopper Question Load KPI, a clean split of responsibility — brand, retailer or training — and a priority list of what to fix first.

Start. SALT collects nothing new in the field. We plug into the speech analytics you already run — all we need are transcripts and metadata: category, brand, SKU, shelf layout.

For:RetailersBrandsCategory teams

Discuss a pilot in your stores

Risk-check

SALT Decision Stress Test Synthetic Personas

Ideas and strategies stress-tested on synthetic personas — a layer of risk-checking between the idea and the launch.

Problem. Teams fall in love with their ideas and stop seeing the failure points. And people rationalise — they rarely do what they say they will.

How. Personas are built from SALT’s own qualitative and behavioural data — models of how choices are actually made, not “avatars”. Every idea runs through every logic: not “what do I think” but “what would I do”.

Output. A map of risks and failure points — and your ideas in three piles: invest, rebuild, or kill before a budget is committed.

Scale. Every idea is framed as a decision proposition and simulated across every segment: 47 ideas × 5 demand spaces = 235 behavioural runs.

For:Strategy & innovationProduct teamsMarketing

Request a demo report

Classic field methods

Qualitative & Quantitative Research

The complete field toolkit — from depth interviews and ethnography to conjoint and hall tests. The mix is always built around the question, never the other way round.

Qualitative

In-depth interviewsonline & offline

One to two hours of undivided attention. Motivations in depth — for sensitive topics and hard-to-reach audiences.

Dyads / triadsonline & offline

How people sway one another: couples, parents and children, deciding together.

Focus groupsonline & offline

Behind the mirror or online; opinions forming, shifting and colliding in the room.

Creative focus groupsonline & offline

Trendsetters and creators in the room, generating ideas for product and communication.

Ethnographyoffline

On their turf: how the product actually lives in the consumer’s home.

Forums / diaries / communitiesonline

Three days to three weeks inside everyday life; vivid video reports included.

Shop-alongsoffline + video-glasses

Walking the aisles with the shopper — decisions observed live, not recalled.

Workshopsonline & offline

Your team turns the data into decisions; from three hours to two days.

Quantitative

Online surveysonline

Panel, river sampling or CATI-to-web — the fastest, leanest way to gather the numbers.

Phone surveys (CATI)phone

Quick and far-reaching, targeted down to a single building, with full quality control.

Face-to-face interviewsoffline

In person, tablet in hand; the workhorse of shopper research.

Hall testsoffline + eye-tracking

Product and shelf tests in a purpose-built facility.

Home testsoffline

Products tested where they belong — at home, by the whole household.

Process

How we work

A fixed budget, agreed checkpoints and round-the-clock access to the team — you always know exactly where your project stands. Every conclusion and recommendation is made by SALT’s researchers; AI is confined to the routine of transcription and first-pass processing.

Brief & hypotheses

We frame the business question and the hypotheses, and fix the budget and timing.

Fieldwork & analysis

Fieldwork and analysis are led by SALT’s experts; AI takes care of the routine.

Insights & decisions

Not what people said — what to do about it. Recommendations, in order of priority.

Embedding

A workshop with your team, so the knowledge moves into product and communication.

Ask Why. Act Smart.

Who we are

We are in the business of sustainable growth — built on a close, productive relationship between our clients and their consumers.

We immerse ourselves in people’s lives, methodically and for the long haul: mapping the moments a category is consumed, finding the pockets of dissatisfaction, and shaping communication that gets heard. And we don’t stop at the report — we keep going until the thinking is embedded across the business.

Love

For people, for categories, for the craft. Research is about real human beings — and we do it with love.

Decisiveness

We say what we mean, recommend precisely, and never hide behind “on the one hand, on the other”.

Genuine curiosity

We are endlessly curious about how people live and choose — so we keep asking why, until we reach the truth of it.

Creation

An insight earns its keep when it becomes a product, a campaign, a decision. We work for outcomes, not documents.

Ask Why.
Act Smart.

Strategic Research & Consulting

SALT Lab

Strategic Research & Consulting

Understand your audience

Develop the product

Build brand & communication

Understand the shopper in the moment

Manage price & assortment

Embed knowledge into teams

SALT Lab

SALT AI Trend Early Detection

SALT AI VOC

SALT AI Shopper

SALT Decision Stress Test Synthetic Personas

Qualitative & Quantitative Research

Qualitative

Quantitative

We talk. And we share what we find.

How we work

Brief & hypotheses

Fieldwork & analysis

Insights & decisions

Embedding

Who we are

Love

Decisiveness

Genuine curiosity

Creation

Let’s talk