Just Eat
Take-outs from the takeaway: Product innovation
Building customer empathy in hard-to-reach environments…

Takeaway Owners
Operating in the increasingly competitive place where tech meets home delivery, Just Eat reached out to Crowd DNA to help optimise the brand’s relationship with takeaway outlets – specifically in the UK and Spain – and their owners.
It’s a tough space to research. Takeaway owners are busy people, not particularly inclined to divulge the inner workings of their businesses.
Interviews And Ethnography
We embarked on extensive research with 16 takeaway businesses in the UK and Spain, first working hard to build relationships through phone interviews. With an important level of trust gained, this was followed by an ethnographic phase, in which our teams spent time in the restaurants and outlets, witnessing how each operated, the main challenges they face and where digital services can provide advantage.
It was a challenging process, but less in-situ research techniques wouldn’t have got remotely close to the detailed understanding that we arrived at here.
Rich Narratives
Capturing very rich and real narratives to share in our workshop sessions with Just Eat stakeholders helped this data-driven brand to craft striking new ways to connect with takeaway providers.
And while the project was originally focussed on developing specific products, the insights revealed so much about these businesses as to open up a breadth of opportunities for Just Eat across marketing, CRM and account management.

"Takeaway partners are the heart and soul of the Just Eat business. They are also busy, independent and diverse. Crowd DNA's approach to cultural insights allowed us to get a fascinatingly detailed and authentic read on what working life is like for them, and where we can provide them with true value. We were hugely impressed by Crowd DNA's ability to recruit hard to reach audiences and their carefully considered outputs and recommendations."
Rufus Weston, head of insight, Just Eat