Kathryn Waterton

Having graduated with a first in psychology at Manchester University, Kathryn enrolled in a global research agency’s graduate scheme hoping to translate her knowledge of what makes people tick to a more commercial purpose. 

Originally specialising in advertising, brand tracking and brand development, Kathryn went on to work across a range of market research projects in the consumer division before developing a taste for working in smaller, boutique market research agencies.

With nine years of experience, Kathryn joined Bonamy Finch in 2010. She prides herself on being an all-rounder, working in all areas of research including qualitative and quantitative research, design and implementation, moderation, script writing, data analysis, interpretation and advanced analytics. 

She has worked with all kinds of clients and products: from mobile phones to smoothies, alcoholic drinks to toilet cleaner and hair removal to blood donation. 

Kathryn is currently on maternity leave.

What’s the most interesting project you have worked on?

A product segmentation to help a department store organise their lingerie department in a customer-centric way allowing them to easily navigate from ‘comfortable’ to peephole.

What’s the best thing about working at Bonamy Finch?

Food!  Constant supply of homemade cakes, sausage rolls, flans, samosas…. (and the people that make them are quite nice too).

What are your biggest market research frustrations?

Unnecessary tight deadlines that take away thinking time and prevent us doing a ‘kickass’ job and data that isn’t used to its full potential.

If you could do one market research project what would it be?

I’d set about disproving Leigh’s Marmite hypothesis.  It is quite clearly a polarising product and if it wasn’t to start with, it is now as a result of the advertising.

And if you hadn’t been a researcher what would you be doing?

I’d be David Attenborough’s right hand (wo)man.  I’d travel to exotic places, research the natural world, meet interesting creatures and occasionally powder David’s nose.