We’re a content development agency made up of a senior team of market researchers and strategists. With over 50 years of client and agency experience, we have a strong commercial awareness and have helped produce prize-winning creative content. We really love our work – from shedding light on a hard-to-reach consumer base in London to evolving a classic animation for a global youth audience – and enjoy getting involved across all aspects of our projects, from recruitment and moderation to idea generation and merchandising.
Analytical Masterminds
Meet the team
Debbie is Hook Research’s kids and youth specialist. She has been a pioneer in qualitative market research for 20 years, and her experience is regularly called upon by leading children’s programming providers.
Debbie’s experience with kids and youth culture has helped develop successful programming for brands such as Turner, Disney, and CBBC. Her research has directly helped create award-winning content in broadcast and in print, and she has a highly successful track record with all of the major publishers.
She particularly loves helping companies to understand their brands. She is a Guardian small business network research expert, as well as a resident research expert at Lewisham and Southwark College. Her work has helped to map out competitive landscapes to show where brands fit and identify potential for growth.
Debbie is also an accomplished public speaker and trainer in qualitative research techniques – she has recently been invited to run training sessions for the BBC, MEC, and MRG – as well as being a qualified teacher and humanistic counsellor, regularly working with disenfranchised kids and young offenders.
Nick has been helping media brands – both client and agency side – for over 20 years. He is particularly interested in getting to know respondents’ real worlds by developing methods to gain deeper, more useful insights.
His real passion is for agency life, having worked for a number of the biggest independent media and brand strategy agencies in the UK before co-founding Hook.
Nick has worked client side for diverse media owners from the BBC in the UK to CTC Media in Russia. Throughout his career Nick has completed content development and branding projects for many of the biggest media players in the UK. This covers: TV (BBC, ITV, C4 and Sky); Print (News UK, The Guardian and IPC media); Digital (Ofcom, Turner, BBC.com and lastminute.com) and New Media (The Guardian, ShortList media, and Sky).
Recently, Nick has been the driving force behind Hook Research’s use of panel software and research apps to get closer to what respondents really think. He believes that it’s really important to not only know a product’s audience, but to realise the worth of an audience to advertisers as well.
Nick also leads Hook Research’s international projects. In recent months he has led projects across Europe, America and Asia. Recently, he completed a pan-Russian project for Viacom exploring how to re-launch MTV Russia. He is fluent in Russian – which helped.
Sam is a market researcher with a background in consumer engagement and new media. As well as being interested in all types of social media and content creation, he is also an experienced filmmaker and editor.
Sam opens up video as a means of exploring unique consumer insights, from short-form video projects to deep-dive interviews. He has also previously worked within international consultancies, and brings a broad range of knowledge to the table.
Francesca started life as a researcher gaining both qualitative and quantitative experience, before moving into qualitative field management almost 20 years ago. She is adept at running projects both in the UK and internationally, across many subjects including media, entertainment, fmcg, and children.
Her previous experience as a researcher provides an invaluable perspective, and as such she is involved from the beginning of each project, making sure the research brief is met. Francesca is a full member of the MRS.
Her previous experience as a researcher provides an invaluable perspective, and as such she is involved from the beginning of each project, making sure the research brief is met. Francesca is a full member of the MRS.
Annwen is Hook’s Office Manager. She has a keen interest and Diploma in Digital Marketing and also holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Early Childhood Education. She has a number of years of experience as an Executive Assistant in the risk management sector in South Africa and brings logical structure to the everyday running of the office.
With a degree in Chemistry and Forensic Analysis, Imogen brings with her an analytical mind and a broad based training in both qualitative and quantitative research. Being new to the media industry she is excited to see how she can develop these skills and what she can bring to the team.
