Stuart Malcolm

Director, Cultural Strategy (APAC)

Having studied marketing at university in Scotland, Stu’s first career step may have seemed pretty clear – do something in marketing. So it was a slight surprise when he ended up working in the music industry. Eventually, he switched to strategy and insight, moving to London, via Leeds, in the process. Fast forward 10-ish years, and Stu has had the opportunity to work with some fantastic brands on category-defining projects spanning Europe, the US, and Asia – including spending some of that time working at Crowd DNA London. Seeking to add another twang to his (already pretty mixed) accent, he moved to Sydney in 2017. So far, he’s worked in the alcohol, wellbeing, fried chicken, tech, finance and retail categories, on projects spanning CVP development, brand architecture, innovation and audience understanding. When not in work mode, he spends time watching good (bad) horror films (it’s all about the synth soundtracks), surfing/treading water, or explaining to people where his accent is from.

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.