CFI Science specializes in connecting research and development to commercialization. Their approach links audience research, product development, and market validation. CFI works with startups and established companies and provides their clients with detailed, in-depth analysis of its research findings.
Challenge
Measure UK Gen Z attitudes of trust. CFI Science was approached by two UK-based charitable organizations to conduct an extensive two-year study to measure how attitudes of trust impact Gen Z’s willingness to engage with charitable causes. The project required equal parts quantitative and qualitative data.
The challenge was twofold. To be successful, CFI needed a large sample of potential charitable donors in the UK within the 18-to-25-year-old demographic and they also had to determine what would motivate them to care about social causes.
CFI needed a flexible and agile research platform. A colleague from another market research company, who was also a Cint customer, recommended them Cint Marketplace’s DIY platform to help him develop a winning engagement strategy.
Neuroscience has documented that the region of the brain responsible for releasing dopamine, equated with attention, is also where trust is developed or lost.
Working from that scientific fact, CFI and their clients suspected that shortened attention spans paired with a general mistrust of technology and institutions was the cause of apathy among Gen Z towards charities. They were determined to validate or disprove their theory.
However, CFI found that the cost of data acquisition was a make-or-break factor that would decide whether they could source the sample required to conduct the research, putting the project in jeopardy.
“We had a limited budget and needed to find the most economical acquisition methods to engage with 18-to-25-year-olds in the UK. The cost of data acquisition was an eye-opening experience for us,” stated Nathan Newman, Founder.
“Cint Marketplace offers options that you just can’t get sourcing through paid media.”
Solution
“Cint was the only way we were going to get the sample size we needed at a cost that fit our modest budget.”
Cint Marketplace was critical in providing the quality sample size adequate for CFI to test their theory and to accumulate a population they could reengage with later to gather additional warm qualitative data around trust through interviews, workshops, and roundtables.
After comparing different methods of sourcing sample that included paid media and paid referrals, CFI chose to use Cint, leveraging Cint’s 1,027 panels in the UK.
“The difference in cost between paid media and Cint sample is really huge.”
“We found Cint’s targeting tools can do the job equally as effective at a much lower cost and we were still able to home in on the exact demographic we wanted, including age and interests. The range of interest criteria that Cint has available is quite extensive and Cint Marketplace offers options that you just can’t get by going through paid media to find participants,” stated Nathan.
Speed was of the essence. “Our Cint Account Manager checked the survey set up, we went live, and within a half an hour we had 500 completes.”
In addition to cost, it was beginning to look like if CFI relied completely on paid media and referrals, they would miss their deadline for delivery of initial study results. Running behind, they needed to switch to a fast solution that would shave weeks off the project allowing the team to catch up.
Again, the solution was Cint. In one example, with the clock ticking on a client review meeting scheduled in an hour and a half, Nathan said, “Let’s run our (first) survey through Marketplace and see what comes out. I expected the responses would take a bit of time to come through. Our Account Manager checked the survey set up, we went live, and within a half an hour we had 500 completes.” Nathan and his team had the remaining hour before their client meeting to prepare their analysis of the data.
Benefits
CFI Science relied on Cint for several reasons:
- Speed and ease of the do-it-yourself solution
- Low CPI cost
- Cint Account Managers to assist at every step
- Detailed criteria to find sample from a tightly defined demographic
- The flexibility to change survey questions mid-flight
- The breadth of available survey sample
- Quick validation of their working hypotheses
- Find and vet candidates for further virtual round tables, structured interviews, and workshops
“I was so used to the slow cadence of using paid media to source sample – but it’s the vast respondent pool of the Cint platform that makes the difference. It’s the reach available in the bundled services you provide. Your Gen Z sample is extremely responsive.”
Results
“We got some great quality data by using Cint for sample and support.”
Eventually, over the course of several surveys, CFI gathered a total of 3,000 active respondents.
Considering the hidden costs of sourcing through paid media, the Cint solution made sense. CFI kept their overhead low and saved themselves hours of labor having to manually verify and manage respondents. With Cint, all of that is handled.
Once CFI identified their core cohort of respondents, they were able to remain in contact with them via Cint.
“I was really quite surprised at the depth of responses that we got using Cint and the respondents we were able to identify and remain engaged with for our follow-on workshops,” shared Nathan.
Cint was crucial to the success of CFI Science’s two-year study which resulted in an in-depth report for their clients. As CFI Science learns more about the attitudes toward trust of Gen Z, they are “eager to grow beyond the charity sector to work with products and services that can holistically rebuild trust in that generation through consumption.”
