Mixed methods research & strategy
I help organizations understand the people they're trying to reach, and figure out what to do with that. Available for full-time and contract engagements.
"It feels overwhelming to think about how much money I'm sending home. Where did my money go?"
"It gives me reviews, fees, options, all in one go. Then I go to the websites to confirm."
"No idea. Never heard of it."
What I'm hired for
Naming, positioning, and campaign performance usually get argued from taste. I'd rather settle them with data: the right sample, a sound instrument, and something to compare against.
What a name signals before marketing touches it, whether it permits expansion into adjacent products, and what a stretch costs.
Upper-funnel brand reads at metro scale, including audiences that online panels cannot reach.
Whether a promotion is understood, when in the flow it actually gets read, and where it quietly breaks trust.
How people find and vet products, including the shift from search engines to generative AI, and what that means for content.
Clients and projects
Fontanini Advisory Services
Qualitative research informing the structure and strategy of the AI Catalyst Course, a cohort-based AI fluency program for VP-plus insurance executives. Depth interviews with founding cohort participants to surface mental models, anxieties, and readiness signals, then a strategic action plan shaping curriculum design, participant experience, and commercial launch.
Remitly
A sustained mixed methods engagement spanning product usability, global marketing strategy, and UX research with immigrant communities who send money across borders to support their families. Studies ran from moderated sessions with individual senders planning a transfer home to a pre/post measurement program across three metros.
AssuranceAmerica
Ten in-depth interviews ahead of a brand refresh and new mascot, with current, lapsed, and cancelled customers and independent agents across six states. I recruited unhappy customers on purpose, and several of the most useful findings came from people who had left. Shown cold, the character's stern expression read as judgment aimed at the customer, which led to the most valuable change of the round: give his frustration a target that is clearly not the person he is there to help. Agents also needed different launch materials depending on how established the brand was in their market.
Illumina
Research with DNA lab scientists, cancer surgeons, and genomics decision-makers to shape positioning and commercial strategy. Also designed and deployed national surveys with the American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNM) on willingness to recommend NIPT, followed by depth interviews to understand the clinical reasoning and hesitations behind the numbers.
The General Insurance
Research underpinning a consumer insurance rebrand, from perception audits to positioning validation. Connected brand architecture decisions back to the people buying the product.
The General Insurance
Mixed methods research with the customer base at the onset of the pandemic, to understand how COVID was affecting their spending, their budgeting, and their emotional lives. Customers were under real financial strain, often from lost work, and struggling mentally and emotionally on top of it. The findings got the business aligned on extending payment flexibility and forgiveness further than the company ever had, at the moment customers needed it most.
Point Forward
Ethnographic, in-person contextual inquiry in two settings: automotive consumer behavior and the Kaiser Permanente member experience.
Building research from scratch
Doing the research is one thing. Building the conditions inside an organization so that research happens, gets used, and outlasts your tenure is a different skill set. I've done both.
At Illumina, partnered with product managers to conduct research alongside them, then trained them to do it themselves. Built capacity for qualitative and quantitative methods inside teams with little prior research infrastructure, so insight-gathering became part of how they worked rather than something they outsourced.
At The General, created a Research Champions group of about 40 people from across the company to build understanding of and enthusiasm for research. Connected the program directly to the brand refresh, so employees across the organization understood the research behind the strategic decisions and could speak to it credibly.
At Remitly, trained product managers, business managers, product marketers, and UX designers to run their own research from scratch. Focused on 0-to-1 initiatives and intentional handoffs, so teams could launch new efforts without waiting on a dedicated research function.
About
Most of my work sits with people making high-stakes, private decisions about money, health, or family. I choose methods against the objective, the timeline, the recruiting reality, and the quality of data I can actually get, and I scope backward from the choice a team has to make. The test of a deliverable is whether it helped someone decide something.
My PhD is in Human Development and Family Science, and I have twelve peer-reviewed publications (as Savannah Spivey), including early work on foodways in refugee households.
Get in touch
If you have a question about the people you're trying to reach, I'd like to hear it. Happy to talk through any of the work above in more detail, including the parts that didn't go smoothly.
savannahyoungresearch@gmail.com
Savannah Young Research & Consulting LLC
Savannah, Georgia