We are taught to believe that actions are the result of careful, rational consideration. But when we look honestly at our own behaviour, we acknowledge the picture is much more complex.
Sometimes, we do the opposite of what we say we will do. We contradict our own beliefs. We deny our own needs. We act against our own best interests. And most of the time, we don’t even know why.
Beneath logic, we encounter the seeming irrationality of human experience.
At The Hidden Depth, we take irrationality very seriously.
We Are Asked…
Why don’t people keep taking a pill that can save their lives?
Why do we love something, but never buy it?
Why don’t doctors prescribe treatments with the strongest evidence?
Why do we still mistrust a company that tries to act with integrity?
Why do we keep doing things that are bad for us?
Scientists estimate that 95% of human cognition occurs below conscious awareness. Which is why it’s often difficult to make sense of decision making using qualitative, self-reported, or behavioural research alone.
At The Hidden Depth, we specialise in understanding how emotions that operate in the unconscious mind help shape our decisions and behaviours.
We decode situations where people act in ways that are hard to justify, even to themselves. We find the missing link in scenarios where the answers seem blatantly obvious, and yet do not add up. We detangle loops of information that keep leading back to the beginning.
With this knowledge, we help companies answer complex, hard-to-answer questions.
Often, clients come to us when other research approaches have reached the end of the road, and the problem remains unsolved.
Our Products
Strategy
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Hidden Depth Interviews have proven themselves super-effective when facing a strategic question that doesn’t seem to have a logical answer.
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Why don’t asthma patients use their inhalers?
Why don’t doctors prescribe a drug proven to improve quality of life?
Why do people love an advertising campaign, but avoid the product?
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HD Interviews are 1:1 conversations that last about 3 hours, preceded by an emotional journaling pre-task. They can take place online or in person.
Execution
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Semantic Differential Reiterative Testing helps select and hone creative executions and innovation concepts to ensure they hit the sweet spot for behaviour change.
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How do you trigger an emotional response to a communications campaign?
Which messages capture a doctor’s attention without sounding patronising?
What is the specific language that delivers on a great insight or idea?
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SDR Testing consists of 3 rounds of 1:1 interviews that last about 90 minutes, and the stimulus is refined and reiterated between each round of testing to create the best possible expression.
Values
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4D Purpose explores the relationship between values and behaviour. It leapfrogs generic motivations to the deep drivers of action for specific groups of people.
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How can you create a meaningful segmentation model?
How can a company connect its own values to those of its audience?
How can the same product be presented to different audiences in a way that is both consistent and targeted?
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The 4D Purpose framework is built from at least 24 depth interviews with the group being profiled. Analysis results in a map that illustrates what attracts people to a group, what helps them belong, the difficult things they repress, and how their shared purpose evolves over time.
Co-Creation
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Immersive Hidden Depths are the fastest way to get to solutions across disciplines and stakeholders. They link knowledge and creativity through the lens of reality.
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How do external forces in people’s lives impact their behaviour?
What happens in the relationship between people and hidden power dynamics?
What needs do people have that they are unable to articulate?
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Immersive HD is shorter and more intense than traditional Hidden Depth interviews, bringing clients and the research team together “in market” to create shared understanding and solutions.
Our Expertise
The Big 5:
Death, Sex, Money, Identity, Safety
At The Hidden Depth, we are experienced working across complex topics and sensitive issues such as terminal illness, mental health, HIV, sexuality, beauty and body image, addiction, financial planning and ultra high net worth. We are specialists in dealing with vulnerable people in critical situations and ‘niche categories’ in culture and society.
In particular, we have developed a deep expertise in personal care, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, working with HCPs and patients across many clinical specialities.
But even if your question seems mundane and everyday in comparison, like the food in children’s lunches or cleaning products for the bathroom, we often find the Big 5 at the root of the problem. Everything in life, from the extreme to the mainstream, has fundamental deeper psychological dynamics at play.
Our work targets specific business challenges with precise answers that drive growth, build intelligence and win awards for our clients.
Sometimes we make clients cry, but only very temporarily. As we’ve learned in our work, surgery can be a bit painful, but often saves lives.
What Clients Say…
“It feels like we were all fumbling around in a dark room – and then you came in and turned on the light, now we can see it so clearly, it seems obvious.”
— Team working on a new monoclonal antibody treatment
“We are all born and raised in Rio, we know our target well, and yet you managed to identify things we have never even considered before; the whole experience, I feel, deeply changes us.”
— Team working on a new smoking cessation device
“It completely revolutionises how we see cancer patients. The implications were so clear and precise we could start working with them literally the day after.”
— Head of Oncology
Case Studies
A Patient's View of Terminal Cancer
Meaningful Mode of Delivery in HIV
Comfortable Penis
Hidden Needs in Asthma for Innovation
Inertia in Mental Health
Breakthrough Messaging for Dry Eye
New Beauty Category in China
Reframing Vaginal Health
Different Audiences for Immunology Treatment
Smoking Cessation Innovation
Gender Agnostic Innovation in Alcohol
Speaking to Generation Z
Biopolitics of Beauty in Brazil
Get in Touch
We work for global players across Pharma, FMCG, high technology and financial services, and for the research, innovation and communications agencies that support them.