Always On Research: A New Era of Customer Closeness Through Video
Customers don’t always wait for surveys to share their thoughts. They post, record, react, and express - in real time, across contexts, from the palm of their hands.
For market researchers, this shift demands a new mindset. No longer can we afford to drop in on our customers’ lives every few months. We must now embed ourselves within them, empathetically and continuously.
Welcome to the world of Always On Video Research - a transformative approach that deepens customer closeness, redefines the Voice of the Customer, and elevates the role of market research from occasional observer to continuous listener.
What Is Always On Research?
“Always On” research is a way of staying perpetually connected to your customers.
It’s not a one-time project or a quarterly check-in—it’s a sustained, scalable method for understanding consumers in the flow of their daily lives.
Key traits of an Always On approach:
Continuous Engagement: Maintain a rolling dialogue with your audience.
Real-Time Insight: Respond to consumer behavior as it happens.
Human-Centered Methodology: Let people share naturally, in their own time and space.
When done right, Always On research delivers empathy at scale, making the customer not just a data point, but a living voice within your organisation.
Why Video Diaries Are the Heartbeat of This Method
While there are many ways to listen to customers, video diaries offer something uniquely powerful: presence. They bring you into the customer’s world, showing not just what they say, but how they live, feel, and choose.
Video diaries:
Let participants express themselves in their own words and environments.
Capture facial expressions, tone, and mood - critical nonverbal cues.
Offer layered context: the background noise, the products on the shelf, the toddler interrupting a skincare routine.
Enable longitudinal observation - habits, motivations, and emotions as they evolve over time.
Video is emotional. It’s visceral. And when insights feel this real, teams listen.
Customer Closeness and the Voice of the Customer
Traditionally, Voice of the Customer programs have been dominated by numbers - satisfaction scores, NPS, churn rates. These metrics are useful but impersonal. They describe, but they don’t reveal.
Customer closeness, on the other hand, is about forging emotional proximity. It’s about understanding the “why” behind the “what,” and seeing customers not as consumers, but as humans.
Always On video research allows organizations to:
Build a living repository of customer experiences.
Infuse real voices into decision-making at all levels.
Break down silos by making insights accessible and shareable across teams.
Cultivate a culture where customer empathy becomes a daily habit—not an annual offsite theme.
Key Use Cases
Market Research: Collect real-time opinions on product prototypes, packaging, and customer journeys—refining product and marketing strategies based on direct consumer feedback.
UX & Product Design: Observe how target audiences interact with new features, interfaces, or devices in their natural environments. Gain insights into usability issues and possible improvements.
Brand Strategy: Understand the emotional connection consumers have with your brand. Gather context-rich data on brand loyalty, perceptions, and sentiment.
Academic & Social Research: Document cultural, societal, or behavioural dynamics in real-world contexts using multimedia diaries, bringing classroom and theoretical concepts to life.
Enter Indeemo: Humanising Research in an Always On World
At the heart of this transformation is Indeemo - an AI-Powered Video research platform that brings researchers and participants closer than ever before.
Indeemo empowers researchers to:
Capture real-life moments as they happen: Participants use their smartphones to record short, meaningful video entries—anytime, anywhere.
Contextualize behavior with visual storytelling: Whether it's how a customer uses a product, shops in-store, unboxes a package, or reflects on a decision, Indeemo turns everyday behaviors into powerful narratives.
Track emotional and behavioral changes over time: Longitudinal studies become seamless, allowing researchers to observe evolving needs, routines, and rituals.
Scale empathy across organizations: Videos are easily clipped, tagged, and shared—helping insights teams bring the customer to the boardroom, the brainstorm, or the backlog refinement session.
With Indeemo, researchers don’t just run projects—they build relationships.
They don’t just analyze responses—they witness realities.
They don’t just present findings—they tell stories that stick.
Why It Matters Now More Than Ever
Consumers are more dynamic than ever. Trends emerge overnight. Behaviours shift with context. And loyalty is earned, not assumed.
In this environment, organisations can no longer afford to be passive or episodic in how they listen. They need insights that are:
Timely
Context-rich
Authentic
Emotionally engaging
Indeemo makes that possible—not by asking customers to come to the lab, but by inviting researchers into the customer’s life. It’s this level of proximity and presence that sets great brands apart.
From Data to Dialogue
The future of research is not more data. It’s better understanding.
It’s moving from metrics to meaning. From static reports to living stories. From seeing customers as numbers to knowing them as people.
And with tools like Indeemo, researchers are uniquely equipped to lead this shift. To champion customer closeness. To honor the voice of the customer. To stay Always On, and always empathetic.
Because when we listen continuously, we learn continuously. And when we see our customers, we start to serve them better.
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