Carter Associates is a Japan based market research agency established in 2004. We are known for the creativity of our responses to clients' briefs, applying research and related understanding that delivers highly practical, prescriptive and actionable solutions.
Market familiarization
Carter Associates provides the gamut of research solutions necessary to become familiar with the Japanese market. These may include desk research, group discussions, depth interviews, ethnographic/observational exercises, or primary quantitative surveys. Our guiding principle is that genuine market insight only occurs when information is married to context. Therefore, we aim to facilitate good decisions by helping our clients understand the results they see, placing them in the context of the market and the culture from which the results are drawn. The difference this sort of contextual consultation makes to the effectiveness of decisions is significant.
Marketing optimization
Our clients often need to address issues relating to maximising return on marketing investment and staying competitive. For example, reducing the level of risk surrounding an expensive activity such as a TV advertising campaign. In such cases it often makes sense to use a proven technique such as Ameritest® to research the likely consumer response and to make appropriate adjustments to the ad before it is placed in the market. Clients may also want to track the effectiveness of their total brand campaign over an extended period of time, and to incorporate the findings in their planning.
Clients also come to us with customer retention and enhancement briefs, which can cover everything from a simple tracking of a single facet of customer service delivery to a full audit of customer loyalty. Since it is rare that this type of work can achieve closure on a 'once off' basis, clients are most often interested in building feedback systems that will allow them to make better informed, more profitable decisions time and again.
Customized research
Our researchers are highly experienced in accommodating "out of the box" objectives. They are capable of designing customised quantitative and qualitative market research and data collection methodologies. While some clients can benefit from an advanced computational method, others need more nuanced contextual insights, so we use a combination of experience, judgment, creativity and collaboration to put forward the optimal research design and analytical process. We answer your brief with solutions that are advanced yet practical.