dunnhumby needed a refreshed Community to meet their evolving needs
dunnhumby is a global leader in customer data science, helping retailers and brands use customer data to understand behaviour, deliver personalised experiences and improve performance, by linking insight to actions. They do this by analysing hundreds of millions of Tesco Clubcard transactions and blending this with primary research to provide deep insights on consumers, driving loyalty and sustainable growth.
They had an existing Community but needed to evolve and update the offering to better allow the dunhumby team to run research at pace and scale, whilst drawing upon transactional data from Clubcard, to provide insight not only on what consumers say, but also what they do.
The need for smarter sampling, richer insight and greater efficiency
Claimed or recalled customer behaviour often tells quite a different story to actual purchasing behaviour; much of what consumers do is fast, unconscious or not recalled. Through their access to Tesco Clubcard data, dunnhumby have a unique position in the market – they can close the ‘say-do’ gap and provide stronger insights and recommendations as a result. They wanted to build on the success of their existing Community by creating an evolved Community that would allow them to target research at customers based on actual, not recalled, behaviour, making recruitment more accurate and more efficient. They also needed a solution that could allow them to use qual, quant, in-store and online, alongside transactional data, to provide richer, joined-up insight.
dunnhumby have ambitious commercial goals, and a desire to scale smartly. This meant finding a partner that could scale with them, offering insight innovations and driving speed to insight through operational efficiencies, meaning dunnhumby could scale their offering without having to constantly increase headcount, and freeing up the team to focus on where they can most add value, through consultancy and interpretation of the data.
Building a data-integrated Insight Community
We partnered to create Shopper Thoughts – a Community of over 50,000 shoppers, in the UK and ROI. Member profiles are linked to Clubcard data, allowing up-to-date purchasing data to be used for fast, accurate sampling. This means shorter, more engaging surveys for members too, reducing the number of profiling and screening questions asked up front, as we already hold this data. Integrated data improves analysis too, providing a behavioural lens with which to segment data and ultimately identify how comms, products and packaging concepts will translate into actual purchasing behaviour.
We provide dedicated insight support to wrap around dunnhumby’s data science expertise; our specialists in online qual and in-store ethnography act as an extension of the team, allowing dunnhumby to provide in-store and qual solutions to complement their core offer.
Scaling smartly was a key part of dunnhumby’s ask. As the relationship has grown, and so with it the number of projects, we’ve worked with dunnhumby to create operational efficiencies and innovations, supporting their core offering. Agile quant programmes with templated elements, optimised scripting solutions, AI-assisted analysis and outputs straight to dashboards = speed from inception to delivery and allow dunnhumby and client brands to access their data, faster than ever.
An Insight Community solution delivering speed, precision and commercial impact
The Shopper Thoughts Community has become a powerful engine for faster, richer and more scalable insight at dunnhumby. By pairing Clubcard behavioural data with a responsive, well profiled Community, dunnhumby now moves into fieldwork significantly faster, saving around a day per project through templated survey structures and automated scripting. This removes manual setup time and enables teams to launch studies at pace, even under tight timelines.
Integrated behavioural data has also reduced the need for long profiling and screening, shortening surveys and improving respondent experience while maintaining highly accurate targeting.
Once data is collected, automated reporting and charting save a further 1.5 days per project, giving teams rapid access to high quality outputs without analytical bottlenecks. At scale, these efficiencies allow dunnhumby to take on more work without increasing headcount, expanding commercial capacity and supporting their ambition to scale smartly and sustainably.
Beyond speed, the Community delivers a more holistic understanding of customers. By combining qual, quant, instore and digital methodologies with real purchasing behaviour, dunnhumby can translate consumer attitudes into more confident, real-world recommendations for retail and brand partners. This joined up approach strengthens decision making, drives customer centricity and provides stakeholders with faster, more actionable insights.‑store and digital methodologies with real purchasing behaviour, dunnhumby can translate consumer attitudes into more confident, real‑world recommendations for retail and brand partners. This joined‑up approach strengthens decision‑making, drives customer‑centricity and provides stakeholders with faster, more actionable insights.
Overall, Shopper Thoughts has enabled dunnhumby to achieve more, move faster and deliver greater value, reinforcing their position as a leader in data driven customer understanding.
Close the ‘say-do’ gap with an Insight Community
Discover how you can close the ‘say-do’ gap with your own integrated Insight Community.
