The gate wants evidence. The idea is still too early for a concept test.
Conveo is Consumer Understanding Infrastructure for the stretch between stage gates. Real consumer video conversations shape an idea while it is still taking form, so it reaches the gate already tested against the people it is for.
Most innovation processes attach their research budget to the gates. Concept testing happens when an idea is ready to be judged, which means the weeks of shaping that come before it run on desk research, internal debate, and whatever consumer conversations someone can arrange. Ideas reach the gate half-formed, the formal test judges them in that state, and promising territories get cut for reasons a few early conversations would have caught and fixed.
The gate judges ideas the consumer never helped shape.
Conveo supports innovation research across the whole pipeline, and does its most useful work in the stretch between gates. Keep your gate research where it is. Use Conveo for the shaping that comes before it.
Ask consumers how they handle the situation today, what frustrates them about it, and what they have already tried. Screen for the people you need and reach them through integrated panel providers or your own lists.
What changes:
you choose territories on evidence, before the team invests in a concept.
Put rough stimulus in front of real consumers, from a written description to a sketch to a product in their hands, and get probed reactions on video in 50+ languages. Change the idea and run the next round while the reasoning is fresh.
What changes:
the idea that reaches the gate has already been through several rounds with the people it is for.
Trace findings back to supporting quotes and video, then build a shareable quote reel for the gate committee. The case for an idea comes from consumers, in their own words.
What changes:
gate decisions rest on what consumers said, with the source one click away.
Most of what an innovation pipeline learns leaves with the ideas that get cut. One searchable insight library across every study keeps that learning, so the next idea in the same territory starts from what the last one found.
Every idea you kill leaves the next one better informed.
Early reads get dismissed when nobody can see where they came from. Every finding in Conveo traces back to the supporting quotes and video behind it, so a committee member who doubts a conclusion can watch the consumer who said it. Every participant is a real person taking part on video.
Early reads are also most reliable when they ask about what people already do. Questions about how someone handles a problem today produce evidence a committee can test. Questions about whether they would buy something that does not exist yet mostly produce optimism.
A committee that can watch the consumer stops arguing with the summary.
The hardest part of early research is asking questions that get honest answers about something that does not exist yet. Our guide to concept testing questions maps the questions to the decision you are making.
In practice
Ferrara’s launches kept beating their concept scores, so Carla Mahfuz, who runs consumer insights across its expansion markets, reversed the test. Shoppers bought the product, tasted it on camera and described it in their own words, and those words became the concept. Eight in ten said the concept matched the product, and concept tests now close in under a week.
In practice
National Research Group wanted to know which of eight fatherhood archetypes families actually recognized in their own lives. Their reactions, across hundreds of families, showed which archetypes resonated, and those archetypes now anchor NRG’s white papers on the evolution of fatherhood. A territory, tested against real lives before anyone built on it.
“You see them physically doing it. Testing the product for the first time, being probed right there. That unfiltered, in-the-moment reaction is possibly the most powerful thing you can see as a researcher.”
50+
languages
50+
markets
50+
of the Fortune 500
SOC 2
Type II certified
Trusted by teams at
Conveo fits the stretch between gates: exploring territories, shaping early ideas in rounds, and reading reactions across markets before the formal test.
Volumetric forecasting and nationally representative share reads stay with the methods built for them, and Conveo sits alongside them. Most innovation teams use both.
We will show you how the study would run, using an idea from your current pipeline.
Run continuous consumer understanding as an always-on program your team steers.
Get consumer evidence into the room while the decision is still open.
Research that keeps pace with the roadmap.
One platform for the qualitative workflow, and one security review.
Gate research tells you whether a concept is ready to move forward. Conveo is for shaping ideas before they get there, in the stretch where most of the work happens. Most innovation teams use both.
Before any concept exists. Territory exploration works best when it asks people about what they do today and what frustrates them about it, which needs no stimulus at all.
Yes. Written descriptions, sketches, early prototypes, and products placed in people's homes all work. Participants respond on video, and the AI research assistant probes their reactions.
It depends on the decision, the audience, how many markets are involved, and how confident the gate needs to be. Size each round with your insights team.
Fast enough to run several rounds before a gate. Timing depends on audience specificity and how many markets are involved. Studies you have already run count too: HeliosX leveraged Conveo interviews to launch in 48 hours, answering a launch question from a study it had run months earlier.
Yes. Studies run in 50+ languages, with transcription and translation handled as video conversations close, so a multi-market round arrives as one readable output.
They stay in one searchable insight library across every study, so the next idea in the same territory starts from what the last one found.
Conveo is SOC 2 Type II certified, ISO 27001 certified and GDPR compliant, with EU hosting. Security documentation is available ahead of a formal review.
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