Flamingo Tokyo

Flamingo Tokyo was founded in February 2007. We decided to set up here for various reasons:

  1. Some of our biggest clients asked us to
  2. we felt there was an excellent opportunity to bring our deep understanding of how brands work in many many markets around the world to Japan, where the current qualitative research and brand consultancy offer is, we feel, not strong.

So far, clients including Reckitt Benckiser, Unilever Japan, Diageo, PepsiCo international and Nokia together with a number of research and marketing consultancy organisations in Europe and the US, have come to us for our unique approach.

  • Our way of working

    Flamingo have trained moderators in-house and we also outsource in some cases. Crucially, whether the moderator is from our own team, or outsourced, their role is not simply to be 'the interviewer.' Rather, they are briefed carefully from the start, and also play a role in our analysis process. Thus they become, together with the rest of the team, owners of the project.

    Because they are joint owners of the project, and understand the objectives, they don’t just read the questions; they are far better placed to know when to probe and when to pick up on significant issues.

    When it comes to analysis, we work in teams. We believe that two minds are better than one. More than that, we believe that two minds from two different cultures are better than two from the same. This is why we have made it a core aspect of our recruitment policy to bring international diversity into the heart of our team. Most project teams will include at least one Japanese executive and one non-Japanese.

    Great outputs don’t just come from great quality thinking. We also make a particular point of getting the nitty gritty of sampling and recruitment absolutely right.

  • What makes us different from our competitors?

    Here in Japan much qualitative research is conducted by the big quantitative organisations, according to quantitative reflexes.  This means lacklustre outputs, reportage rather than analysis and a lack of flexibility when it comes to methodologies.

    Our conviction is that there is a real demand for better - careful and insightful analysis based on an in-depth understanding of the culture rather than just slavish reportage, and a full range of methodologies, both conventional and  leading-edge.   Thus since opening in February this year, clients have come to us not only for conventional methodologies, but also for ethnographic approaches, on-line research and semiotics.