Implementation area
Communication Research.
Optimise messaging, creative and media impact. Research that ensures your communications resonate.
Why communications research matters
Communications shape how brands are understood.
Communications play a critical role in shaping how brands are understood and remembered. Messaging, creative execution and media planning all influence whether communications connect with audiences or fail to gain attention.
Yet evaluating communications can be challenging. Campaigns often involve multiple creative ideas, channels and audiences, making it difficult to understand which elements truly drive impact.
Rigour’s communications research helps organisations understand how their messaging and creative assets perform in the real world. By combining audience feedback with behavioural analysis, we reveal which messages resonate, which creative elements capture attention, and how communications can be refined to maximise effectiveness.
The result is clearer guidance on how to design and deliver communications that genuinely influence perception and behaviour.
Key decisions
Questions we
help answer.
Communications research helps organisations make informed decisions about how they engage their audiences. Typical questions include:
01
Which messages resonate most strongly with our target audience?
02
How clearly does our communication convey the intended message?
03
Which creative concepts capture attention and drive engagement?
04
What elements of our communications influence brand perception or action?
05
How can we optimise messaging across different channels or audiences?
customer research
Three ways we work on communications.
01
Messaging
Messaging research explores how clearly and effectively key messages are understood by the intended audience.
This work helps organisations determine whether their communications express the right ideas, whether those ideas resonate with audiences, and how messaging can be refined to strengthen clarity and relevance.
The goal is to ensure communications convey the intended meaning and reinforce the brand’s strategic position.
- Message clarity and comprehension testing
- Resonance and relevance assessment
- Message refinement and prioritisation
- Alignment to brand’s strategic position
02
Communications Planning
Effective communications require careful alignment between audience needs, messaging and channel strategy.
Research in this area explores how different audiences respond to various communication approaches and how messaging performs across different contexts. This insight helps organisations prioritise channels and approaches that maximise reach, engagement and effectiveness.
Understanding these dynamics allows teams to allocate resources more effectively and design communications strategies with greater confidence.
- Audience response by approach
- Channel prioritisation and strategy
- Message performance across contexts
- Resource allocation guidance
03
Creative Evaluation
Creative evaluation focuses on how audiences respond to visual and narrative elements within communications.
By analysing how people interpret and interact with creative assets, we identify which elements capture attention, which aspects drive understanding, and where improvements may be needed.
This insight helps organisations refine creative execution to ensure communications are both engaging and effective
- Creative asset response testing
- Attention and engagement analysis
- Comprehension and interpretation
- Creative execution refinement
Methods
Methods we use
To understand how communications perform, we apply analytical techniques that combine audience feedback with behavioural evidence.
Key Driver Analysis
Revealing which aspects of communications most strongly influence perception or engagement
Read moreMaxDiff
Identifying which messages or claims resonate most strongly when audiences make trade-offs
Read moreConfirmatory Modelling
Understanding where attention naturally focuses within creative assets
Read moreVisual Analysis
Identifying patterns of visual engagement and interpreting how audiences interact with creative content
Read moreAdvanced analytics
From measurement to deeper insight
Communications research often benefits from deeper analytical exploration.
Rigour’s Advanced Analytics team applies advanced statistical techniques to uncover the relationships between messaging, perception and behaviour, helping organisations understand not only what audiences notice, but what ultimately drives impact.
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