Philosophise
About
Philosophise is a behavioural strategy consultancy. We identify and externalise key consumer behaviors and worldwide trends using intimate, intuitive and creative research. We use storytelling as a technique for choreographing services across brand touchpoints.
We specialise in working with luxury brands that span different cultures and locales.
What we do
Transparency
Global Cultures
Traditional culture influences modern society. In an increasingly globalised world, we look at how local cultural subtleties influence global mindsets.
Future Grazing
Understanding global trends can assist in planning and development. We create trend briefings to explore pertinent topics and their relevance to the business issue at hand.
Innovation
Creating context sensitive research methods
People don't always feel comfortable in interviews, so aside from techniques such as ethnography and documentary etc, we create new ways to probe and understand thoughts and action.
Facilitation
Training and Facilitation
We create and facilitate innovation workshops and provide training in techniques for understanding and interpreting human behaviour.
Communication
We work with clients to simplify complex concepts into digestible stories for both internal audiences and external consumers.
New Ventures
Starting a new business, entering new markets and defining solutions for people. These are all exciting ventures. We work with you to help define the people to target, how to target them and what offerings they will respond to. We can help develop your business plan, providing input into the offering, competition, target group and marketing approach.
Recent Projects
open_the_box
Developed in 2007, open_the_box is a tool for exploring the moment when a users personal story collides with the story of a designed space. It uses chance procedures to set up scenarios which encourage you to connect with your own experience as it plays out in a particular environment. open_the_box is a research tool designed to evaluate the usability of a space and generate new ideas for that space based on user narratives. The method can be modified for any medium (product, space, service etc) and any domain.
POV on Knowing and Believing
A project for IDEO, developing a Point of View (POV) on how knowledge and belief affect relationship to brand. This short project consisted of research, interviews, case studies and innovative synthesis to turn a potentially complex topic into something very digestible. It resulted in a human centered approach to thinking about how people relate to and process brands. We delivered a short narrative and a series of usable insights.
PLAY.orchestra
PLAY.orchestra was a collaboration between Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design, the Southbank Centre and the Philharmonia Orchestra. PLAY.orchestra is a life size outdoor virtual orchestra that invites the general public to ‘sit & play'. Visitors sit on the sensor controlled seats activating the sound of the instrument they are sat on. The more people that sit down, the more of the composition is played. PLAY.orchestra was shortlisted for 2 BT Digital Music Awards, the INDEX Design Award and 2 Royal Philharmonic Society Awards (for which it won in the education category). The installation attracted over 250,000 visitors over 6 weeks.
Psychology of Luxury
A short research project that looked at the evolving nature of the luxury market. Dominated by ‘massclusive' brands, hyper luxury is fighting back and conscious consumers in the hyper luxury arena demand a very different level of service both in traditional physical realms and new virtual realms. We looked at how texture, touch and body memory play a big role in perception of luxury. We considered characteristics of personality and wealth along with global factors (international flair, cross cultural issues, globalisation and global conscious wealth etc) that affect the authenticity and honesty demanded by todays consumers.
Tools
Downloads
Cultural Insights in the Field (PDF - 901kb)
Made to order
open_the_box can be made to measure; modified to suit your needs. As a tool, it aids in brainstorming and can be used in house to generate different user scenarios. To request a set of complimentary dice, or inquire about dice tailored to your needs, please get in touch.
Do you want to know where you can see people behave and act a certain way, see where they encounter certain types of problems and successes, how they need to adapt their bodies to suit the designed environment? Get in touch and we'll put together a short guide of places you can visit to observe these things for yourself.
Philosophy
It's simple really, if you connect with people on a level they understand instinctively and viscerally, where they don't have to think too hard about your offering, then they are willing to participate. Even if there is some fear or uncertainty, they will experiment to make things their own.
Approach
People
We work at the intersection of behaviour, business and design. We use narrative techniques to provide clarity around the subtleties of human behaviour, helping brands to understand new and existing markets and working with design teams to understand how a product or service will be received and used.
Stories
Stories drive interaction, they enable communication and they facilitate relationships. Using design thinking and real world business insight, we make the narrative of the consumer and the narrative of the company collide, facilitating innovation and interaction.
Reality
As fun as it is to play, we are realistic about what drives progress and we work to make things happen. Our behavioural insights are generative and we direct change.
Who we are
Rakhi Rajani
With a background in Human Behaviour and Design Strategy, Rakhi enables clients to combine business objectives with the evolving demands of increasingly global consumer expectations.
Rakhi was previously a Scientist and Project Manager at HP Labs in California, running cross cultural projects and facilitating relationships between brand and innovation. She was Program Chair for DUX 2005 (Designing for User Experience) and regularly writes and teaches on the topic of how human behaviour affects, and is affected by, design.
Network
We work with a highly qualified and international network of specialists, tailoring multi-disciplinary teams to suit specific projects.
Business Sectors
Experiences do not exist on their own, they exist in the context of other experiences. As our work spans a variety of industries and clients, we use insights from a multitude of sectors to innovate across domains.
We work for leading brands and small boutique agencies. Recent clients include Yahoo!, IDEO, Central Saint Martins Innovation, Nokia and ARUP.
Recent domains include Hospitality (Hotels and Resorts), Luxury products and Environments, Retail, Health and Wellbeing, Interactive Environments, Social Media and Mobile Technology.
Writing
Other Ventures
Rakhi co-founded Like People Do, a design consultancy based at Central Saint Martins Innovation:
http://www.likepeopledo.org
Get in touch
info@philosophise.com
t. +44 (0)20 8144 5639
m. +44 (0)7912 485811