Boston Scientific wanted to identify the best methods and drivers to reach atrial fibrillation patients in order to drive patient interest in the Watchman device.

Fusion Hill sought to understand:

• The patient journey
• Drivers and barriers in selecting a device over standard drug options
• How patients learn about and consume media related to atrial fibrillation

In Boston, Minneapolis, and Houston, we conducted 14 ethnographies and 2 focus groups with patients. We also spoke with 10 doctors and 3 nurses via nationwide calls. All participants completed pre-work and journaling.

Next, we conducted a half-day co-creation session with patients and the client to identify key visuals and messages to leverage in creative. Based on the results, our team created mood boards to explore and leverage the various themes. We then created three distinct patient campaign concepts and tested them in focus groups.

The WATCHMAN device was launched directly to consumers using the research and creative developed by Fusion Hill. Today, WATCHMAN has been implanted in over 100,000 patients and generates nearly $1 billion in annual sales. Learn more here.

As mobile payments become a day-to-day necessity for consumers, financial companies are seeking to differentiate their mobile payment solutions. Our client sought insight into the impactful features and benefits of a variety of digital wallets in order to identify key opportunities and benefits for its digital wallet offerings. In addition, we sought to learn more about how consumers make purchases both online and in store as well as how they feel about having their personal bank account details stored on their smartphones.

We shadowed users of a variety of digital wallets in their homes and during shop-alongs across the country, observing them as they made purchases. With the addition of focus groups and consumer workshops, we sought to gain a deeper understanding of consumers and their mobile wallet experience.

We uncovered motivations and barriers impacting participants’ willingness to sign up for and use digital wallets as well as features and functions that consumers would find appealing in future digital wallets. Our client used these insights to guide marketing strategies, inform product development and create impactful features for its new digital payment offering.

Venmo, a leading consumer FinTech brand, sought to deeply understand its users and their needs as a way of driving direction and inspiration for new expanded digital features to further monetize its business model.

Fusion Hill conducted 20 in-home ethnographic interviews with users in Los Angeles and Atlanta and held two co-creation sessions in Chicago. Prior to their sessions, participants completed an extensive journal to reflect on their financial lives and brainstorm new product or service ideas against their financial pain points and unmet needs. During the sessions, we probed deeper into each user’s lifestyle, values, financial philosophy, goals and challenges. We explored opportunity areas for feature expansion and drivers for deeper engagement.

Insights from this research are helping refine Venmo’s target user and drive the development of new app features and future product offerings. Over 20 new opportunity areas were presented along with a number of fully designed feature prototypes, all of which are now informing the development road map.

As food trends shift from convenience to sustainability to health, we’ve been on the edge of the transformation. Along with our clients, we sought to understand where the trends were headed next. What are the hopes, dreams, passions, pain points, lifestyle, favorite brands and media behaviors of consumers? What drives food choices, and how do we uncover what people are thinking about food?

We’ve attended tours, chats and classes for millennial bakers. We’ve conducted ethnographic interviews in Southern homes. We’ve moderated online networks about breakfast. And our team has planned guided trend trips in markets across the U.S. exploring desserts and the indulgence category.

From granola to yogurt to snacks and soda, we’ve immersed ourselves in more than 50 categories of food, condiments and beverages. And through all this we’ve been able to explore consumers’ values and how they affect food preferences, keeping in mind personal choices, familial needs and culture.

Insights have been used to guide product development, determine messaging and establish preferred modes of engagement that foster brand growth and loyalty.

To develop loyalty programs for skin care products, brands must first understand the emotional drivers of loyalty and consumers’ motivations and needs related to loyalty programs. Why does one choose a certain program over another? What is out there that works well for consumers? How do programs make people feel? And what visual components make a program seem desirable?

Holding one-on-one interviews and focus groups in Taipei, Taiwan, we asked consumers to describe their favorite existing loyalty programs, create the ideal loyalty program, complete several emote exercises and provide feedback on verbal and visual stimuli. Participants also focused on describing their journey with their current cosmetic brand.

Diving deep into consumers’ emotions regarding loyalty, we gained insight into the current emotional drivers of loyalty as well as those that have the most potential to drive loyalty in the future. Estée Lauder used this research to develop loyalty program offerings for La Mer that generate greater emotional connections with consumers, garner brand allegiance, and inform current marketing and messaging tactics.

Stinson Leonard Street, a legal firm with offices in 14 U.S. cities, sought to gain a deeper understanding of its place in the market and develop a new brand positioning, messaging and brand identity. The firm has grown through mergers and acquisitions, and was looking to bring cohesion to its internal culture as well as its external presence.

To gain insights into the current legal landscape and how Stinson was perceived among competitors, we began with a competitive audit and qualitative research. Interviews were facilitated with clients, internal leadership and attorneys representing a mix of locations and practice areas. After conducting a brand workshop, we developed a brand strategy, including brand positioning, brand essence and personality; firm name recommendations and rationale; and external messaging. We also consulted on website architecture. We then designed a new brand identity for Stinson including logo, image system, marketing templates and brand guidelines.

The combined efforts of our research, strategy and creative teams helped Stinson reposition itself with a strong and differentiating brand that demonstrates having fresh perspective in a highly competitive industry.

In the retirement-planning landscape, Generation Xers and Millennials are beginning to save for their golden years as Boomers settle into retirement. To make investing easy for these younger generations, many financial companies are offering target-date funds. But what if your retirement timeline isn’t the same as your peers? Or you’d prefer to be more aggressive than most? To create a truly tailored approach for individuals, Federated Investors – in partnership with retirement specialist Ann Schleck & Co – created a program that educates advisors on how to pitch and build custom target-date funds for their clients. Fusion Hill was engaged to build the program brand and the suite of creative materials.

Our team developed several campaign concepts — all with the goal of communicating this complex product and its benefits in a simple and effective manner. While the more readily available target-date funds appeal to groups of participants who have similar retirement goals, this new approach allows for customization at the individual level. The chosen theme, “No Two Alike,” conveys that differentiator clearly. We applied it to a program-in-a-box with both advisor and plan sponsor-facing materials.

These value-add materials have had immediate and tremendous success with advisors and were granted the 2016 Signature Award from the Plan Sponsor Council of America.