Methods

Your Prefmap tells you which recipe to develop for each consumer segment. It doesn't tell you how to convince them to buy it.
By enriching preference segmentation with psychometric measures and AI-moderated qualitative interviews, then bringing each segment to life as a conversational Digital Persona, Repères connects the ideal product to the message that will get it chosen in store.

Liking scales, attribute profiles, often thin open-ended questions: product tests still rely heavily on what consumers declare. Yet what they do, what they say in the moment and what they declare afterwards do not always match. By combining video observation, emotional measurement and projective verbalisation on the same respondents, it becomes possible to go well beyond declarative data, without significantly extending timelines or budgets, thanks to AI.

Doing more with less: that is the equation many R&D and marketing teams face today. Less product available, less time, less budget, yet the same need for sound decisions. The Smart Product Test, developed by Repères, was designed precisely for these situations: an agile protocol for comparing several formulas on a small sample (e.g. 60 units per product), with first results 2 days after fieldwork, without sacrificing diagnostic depth.

Your research, whether qualitative or quantitative, yields rich and nuanced typologies. But once the report has been delivered, these profiles often remain static in a set of slides. Références transforms them into conversational personas: synthetic characters that your teams can freely interact with, at any time, independently.

Hair color is one of the most demanding segments in the cosmetics industry. The extreme diversity of hair profiles, consumers' high sensitivity to color results, and the complexity of formulas to evaluate all make designing rigorous consumer tests in this category a true niche expertise. It is precisely in this category that Repères has established itself over more than twenty years as a trusted partner for the sector's leading players.
Whatever the objective - competitive benchmarking, formula renovation, or innovation - succeeding in a consumer test requires a tailored approach and expert support, both for at-home tests and in-salon evaluations.

Numerous studies in management, psychology and neuroscience have shown that natural environments foster creativity.
At Repères, we have launched an ambitious research programme: to study the effect of physical and sensory work environments on creativity. In this article, we take you behind the scenes of our first series of experiments, focusing on the effect of immersive natural environments on idea generation.

Turn your challenges into innovation opportunities with Repères and Inspire.
Our multi-step, hybrid methodology-combining qualitative and quantitative research, foresight, and collective innovation-is designed specifically for your most strategic products: your iconics.

The Key Product Assets method identifies the essential attributes of a product/brand, its distinctive assets and elements that are likely to evolve. Based on a hybrid consumer + AI analysis and inspired by the work of Géraldine Michel and Byron Sharp on brand identity and distinctive assets, it guides renovation, innovation and identity consistency.

Augmented Preference Mapping: integrating overall liking into the construction of the sensory map via MFA for better preference modelling

Before undertaking any repositioning actions, it is essential to carefully analyse the current situation. Repères Insights offers a comprehensive methodology for diagnosing the performance of your offering, both in itself and against the competition. By combining emotional, perceptual and rational measures, our approach identifies strengths, weaknesses and areas for optimisation so that you can (re)become the obvious choice in the eyes of shoppers.