Insights video company Explners launches

Explners will help insight teams use storytelling to summarise key insights and messages in video format, using techniques and material such as data visualisation, animation, voiceover, music, sound effects and existing footage such as vox pops or focus group respondents.

The company, which was soft launched earlier this year, has already completed projects for several clients and will be focusing initially on the UK and specialising in fast-moving consumer goods.

Rose (pictured centre) was research director at GfK until 2013, when she launched ContentWrite, a writing consultancy for the insights sector.

Whalley (pictured right) was previously head of food and drink research at GlobalData Consumer, and then was insight controller at convenience food producer Greencore until 2023, when he founded strategic insights consultancy The Differential.

Parker-Smith (pictured left) was content producer and filmmaker at Trinity McQueen until 2019, when he founded The Word Is Out, a videography company specialising in the market research and insights sector.

Rose said: “Research reports may be thorough, but they aren’t often easy to read or impactful – especially for stakeholders who aren’t research literate.

“Much of my work over the last 10 years has been about helping agencies and end clients tell the story of their research using the written word, so it’s been exciting to bring those skills to storyboarding our explainer videos.”

Whalley said: “My observation is that for many client-side researchers, the problem is not the access to quality research – it’s the struggle to communicate those insights in a consistent and compelling fashion.

“Too often, the findings from big, investment research programmes such as category visions, segmentations or demand spaces get lost in PowerPoint decks which makes them hard to activate in the business.”

Parker-Smith added: “I’m a big fan of explainer videos from companies such as Vox, and it struck me that there is nothing similar available in the insights sector.

“Currently, video content is typically limited to talking heads or content from qualitative projects – with my background in film, I saw an opportunity to do something better and more engaging.”