Elena Bratan

Elena Bratan

Project Producer (Amsterdam)

Elena grew up in Ukraine, coming from a small ethnic group that counts 100,000 people all over the world, and the origin of which is obscure. Indeed, there are 21 theories about the origin of the Gagauz people. When doing marketing studies, she realised that working in consumer insights was perfect for her, with space for her analytical side alongside an intuitive feeling for people. After a short stint managing quantitative projects, she moved on to have many years of corporate experience in FMCG – including in strategy, planning and insight teams, before moving to brand marketing departments in Belgium and then Amsterdam. Along the way, Elena has grown into a skilled project manager. And when not at work, and not busy with her three children (like, hardly ever), you’ll find her exploring how the body, mind and soul work together – from yoga and mediation, to body work, tapping, intuitive dancing, you name it!

  • Narrated Galleries

    We love films, but narrated galleries – fusing showreels of still images and audio of participant commentary – creates outputs that allow for high levels of reflection and audience empathy. Ideal for user experience work, in other words

  • Crowd Communities

    We’ve a wealth of experience at setting up and managing communities for clients, with learnings on how best to engage audiences and a full box of tricks for maximising what we get out of the work – including geo tagging, streaming in social media data and a mobile optimised platform

  • Pinterest

    We’ve used Pinterest to really good effect on a number of projects recently, helping us to explore differences and commonalities among different typologies in areas such as fashion and style, home, holidays and entertainment. Engagement levels with participants always rank high, and clients love the vividness and clarity of the findings.

  • Citizen Journalism

    Citizen journalism works on the principle of making reporters of our participants, briefing them to capture what’s happening in the lives of their friends and family via video dispatches and blogging. It gets us places where we can’t otherwise get. It bypasses the bias of having a researcher in attendance. People are often more accurate reporters on those around them than on themselves, so that’s another bias circumnavigated.

  • Network Audits

    If you want to really understand how people interact with those around them, it’s logical to research interconnected groups of friends, family and work colleagues. First developed as part of our award winning word of mouth research for Guardian News & Media, and since then refined and reconfigured across a range of global projects, our network audit approach helps us understand who’s influencing who as authentically as possible.