Research

See how our innovative approach to qualitative research helped Ciba Vision gather fresh insights into how daily contact lenses dramatically impact the quality of life. This is just one of hundreds of stories we can tell you about how we’ve investigated consumers’ relationships with brands and categories, improved prototypes, observed how shoppers behave and many more.

Research & Innovation

We’ll be happy to tell you more about how we worked with Valvoline and many other clients to design and orchestrate multi-faceted programs incorporating creative input from consumers, harnessing client talent and outside knowledge experts to develop new products and business ideas.

Innovation

This brief story of creating mouthwatering new ideas for a snack food company illustrates one example of how we develop powerful, business building ideas with our distinctive model which is grounded in practicality, and expanded by creative exploration.

Reva Dolobowsky

Creative facilitator and qualitative researcher
Reva paints a vivid portrait for her clients of the inner lives of their customers, and helps create new products that meet customers’ wishes and dreams. For over twenty years, she has provided critical insights and innovative ideas in many industries, creatively engaging consumers and management teams in focus groups, idea generating, and in-depth interviews. Reva is a former associate of Synectics, and has also worked in market research for J. Walter Thompson and Cabot Advertising. She holds a Masters degree from Northwestern University. In addition to her professional pursuits, Reva hones her skills in creativity and observation through travel, growing heirloom tomatoes, hospice volunteering, yoga, and singing. Reva is President and Founder of Boston-based Dolobowsky Qualitative Services.

Patricia Sunderland, Ph.D

Cultural anthropologist, ethnographer
Patti Sunderland is an anthropologist and a founding partner of Practica Group. She brings background and interest in linguistic as well as visual anthropology to her specialty in the ethnographic, cultural analysis of consumer environments. Patti has been melding ethnographic video and photographs with cultural analysis to bring consumer environments to life for a wide range of clients for more than a decade. She spent five years living in Europe and speaks both German and French. Patti is co-author of Doing Anthropology in Consumer Research, a book published by Left Coast Press in November of 2007.

Harvey Ehrlich

Visual Illuminator
Harvey Ehrlich brings a unique visual and evocative verbal component to strategic and product innovation. Whether functioning as a visual diarist, or making product and packaging concepts real, his special talent is to make pictures worth a thousand words and to make words worth a thousand pictures. His career as designer, illustrator and fine artist spans more than thirty years. His background is diverse— from design of products, exhibitions, museums and world's fair pavilions, to Broadway and movie posters, packaging, corporate identity, animated sculpture and film, advertising, editorial illustration to direct mail, point-of-purchase, industrial shows, to painting and drawing. His range and expertise in all areas of idea generation makes his talent and contributions unique in his field.

Lisa Parker

Creative facilitator/ qualitative researcher
Lisa specializes in new market entry, product development and innovation process. She focuses on building effective teams and communication for projects. Lisa is certified in administering and analyzing the Myers-Briggs Type Instrument (MBTI®) and the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI®), two leading tools in identifying team thinking and personality dynamics. Lisa earned her BA in Psychology from Trinity College in Connecticut and her MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. She currently serves as the Fuqua School of Business representative on Duke University’s National Alumni Advisory Board.

Deb Van De Weghe

Creative facilitator/food trends specialist
Deb is Head Thinker at Minneapolis based Big Think, Inc. She’s practiced most of her career in the food business - building new businesses, tracking and reporting food trends, and inspiring a long list of happy clients to generate new and exciting business ideas. She travels to food cities around the world where she attends food shows, leads trend inspiration excursions for client teams, and designs and facilitates shake-up-your-brain innovation sessions.

Ron O'Reilly

Master Storyteller & Personal Historian
Ron brings a unique background to PIE with thirty years' experience as an educator in psychology, sociology, mythology and philosophy of science. He is also an experienced clinician, human services administrator and consultant in mental health, family systems, senior life issues and group culture evaluation. A master storyteller, Ron trains, consults and facilitates the use of story for motivation and alliance building, as well as healing. Ron is founder of the New Jersey based Stories Worth Repeating from People Worth Listening To, a personal history service which interviews, archives and produces first person stories of individuals and culture carriers in families, businesses and communities.

Gayle Jay

Creative facilitator
Gayle brings high energy and experience in leading executive teams to develop breakthrough strategies, innovative products/services, and organizational transitions. Gayle served nine years with IdeaScope Associates, where she was an officer and manager of their West Coast operations.

Gayle has traveled the globe on consulting assignments with top tier companies. Gayle also donates her time to the boards of the Big Brothers Big Sisters, the Make-A-Wish Foundation and the Orange County Child Abuse Prevention Center. Located in the San Francisco bay area, Gayle is co-founder of Stratovation Associates.

Maria Rosenblum

Videographer & video editor
Maria is an award winning filmmaker, whose works have appeared at Sundance where she was nominated for the Relentless Drive Award, and the Brooklyn International Film Festival where she won the Audience Choice Award. She's currently working on a documentary, entitled 'Myths of Mothering' and applies all her skills as a filmmaker to the video she shoots and edits for PIE.

Bruce Duhan

Creative Director/Designer
Bruce has a long and varied career in art and design in advertising agencies and in corporate. He was Executive VP, General Manage OgilvyAction, CT office, was one of the founding partners and EVP-Chief Creative Officer of BEN Marketing Group where he built and led a creative team that consistently produced award winning marketing solutions for some of the best known and most demanding clients in the world including Coca-Cola, Holiday Inn, IBM & DuPont & HBO. Bruce is also a full Professor of Pratt Institute in the Communications Design Department. Bruce is President, Creative Director at Duhan Creative.

Debra Fox

Field Associate
Debra Fox has 25 years' experience in marketing research field management with an expertise in both qualitative and quantitative research. Prior to starting Fox Field Research, Debra was the Managing Director of Field and Operations for KRC Research for 6 years. Debra has extensive facility management experience as co-founder of Group Dynamics/Cherry Hill, New Jersey and Vice President in charge of field management for Shugoll Research in Bethesda, MD.

Debra began her research career as an interviewer and focus group recruiter. The depth of this experience has given her a keen understanding of the needs of the respondents, the field facilities and her clients.

The four legged, furry Associates