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Illumination Research was founded in 2005. Karri spent four years as an independent moderator after receiving her marketing training at Procter & Gamble. Jeff also spent time at P&G on the finance team and they shared an entrepreneurial spirit and a goal of starting a company. At its core, Illumination was founded on a passion for uncovering what makes consumers tick and translating those insights into business building ideas. In our spirit, we are classically trained, progressive thinking business owners who strive to move quickly, creatively and efficiently to meet our clients needs.
Illumination... the Name
We knew we wanted to help guide clients to uncover new insights, new thinking, and new ways of seeing things. One night, when thinking about potential names for our new company, we recalled “Grand Illumination”, a summer tradition in our favorite family vacation spot on Martha's Vineyard. On this night, all of the cottages in the village of Oak Bluffs put up lanterns on their front porch, sending out beautiful beacons of light into the darkness. The name connected to us personally, and set the tone for our vision for the company. The lighthouse logo became a logical extension—a guiding light to help clients on their learning journeys.
Our Approach
At Illumination, we like to think of ourselves as MacGyver meets Goldilocks—able to effectively solve even the most complex challenges right there on the spot with a customized approach. We don’t pull generic methodologies off the shelf, but rather take the time to listen to what the client needs and serve up an approach that is just right for their goals and objectives.
Our Crew
We made the deliberate choice to focus on finding moderators with significant client side experience, as we fundamentally believe that understanding how insights are used is critical to understanding where and how to get them. We continued to add moderators as well as project directors who are aligned with the Illumination style: inquisitive and innovative, with the business acumen to illuminate insights into business actions. Our crew knows how to navigate our clients through every step of the research process.
Our Expansion
In 2011, we made some exciting additions to Illumination.
New Offices:
- New Home in Cincinnati: We recently opened a cutting edge facility in Mason, OH, which includes our own fully equipped focus group room for all of our clients to use. We have created new leadership roles, with Joanne Suh skippering our expanding crew of Insight Strategists, Kristin Bush overseeing operations and client management, Carolina Verela heading up Hispanic Research and Christina Wohlert leading Quantitative Research. {C}
- Chicago: Caty Gryzmajlo is captaining Midwestern expansion. She comes to us with over a decade leading some of Procter & Gamble's most innovative Market Research initiatives.
Partnerships: Partnerships have helped us expand our geographic scope and our breadth of methodologies. Strategic partnerships with GfK, the 4th largest research company in the world, allows us to better serve clients' quantitative and international needs. Our relationship with Catalina allows us to offer cutting edge research via our Pinpoint Precision™ tool. And our technology partner, BOI Solutions powers Virtual View,™ our portable In-store Research technology.
As you can see, Illumination has been navigating through an exciting decade. We look forward to helping you illuminate the best course for your business needs.