Insights

heatseekverb

A market research method that uses AI and live in-market experiments to gather real evidence of customer behavior and purchase decisions, without recruiting survey panels.

The podcast · Finding the Heat

The CMO of L'Oréal on bridging the art and science of marketing.

Episode 1: Lex Bradshaw-Zanger, Chief Marketing & Digital Officer, L'Oréal SAPMENA, on de-risking creativity and why what customers say is only 20 to 30% of the story.

Explore the podcast →
“You're bringing the ability to de-risk amazing creativity, in a space that's needed it for hundreds of years.”
Lex Bradshaw-ZangerLex Bradshaw-Zanger / CMO & CDO, L'Oréal SAPMENA · 39 global brands
Featured · Strategy4 min read

The best idea in the room usually dies in the room.

Lex Bradshaw-Zanger, CMO of L'Oréal SAPMENA, on why bold marketing ideas die for lack of proof, and how de-risking creativity closes the say/do gap between what customers say and what they actually do.

Kate O'Keeffe · CEO, Heatseeker · Aug 1, 2026
The say/do gap
20 to 30%

How often what people say they'll do matches what they actually do. Bold ideas die in the gap, proof is how you close it.

Research · 6 min

Concept testing: what it's actually for.

Most concept testing answers a shallow question: which variant wins? The version that's worth doing reveals what your customers actually want.

Kate O'KeeffeAug 3, 2026
Strategy · 6 min

Marketing budgets are down 30%. The winners won't have the best AI stack.

Every CMO has an AI mandate. But the teams that pull ahead will own behavioral ground truth, not the flashiest tool stack.

Kate O'KeeffeNov 18, 2025
Research · 5 min

Why surveys quietly compound into 0.1% confidence.

Surveys predict purchase intent at 20 to 30% accuracy. Stack five decisions on that foundation and the math falls apart fast.

Steven BrennenOct 22, 2025
Research · 7 min

How real and synthetic data work together to outlearn your market.

Fast is not useful if it is wrong. Why grounding synthetic personas in live experiments beats survey-trained bots.

Rutger CoolenNov 4, 2025
Guides · 5 min

How do you know your AI is right? For sure?

AI answers any market question instantly, with total confidence. What separates real AI market research from a good-looking guess.

Heatseeker Team
Guides · 7 min

B2B market research: test the message on the buyers who sign.

Validate positioning and value props against real B2B decision-makers, not panels.

Heatseeker Team
Guides · 7 min

B2C customer segmentation built on behavior, not personas.

Find the segments that actually respond differently, and message each one right.

Heatseeker Team
Guides · 7 min

B2C market research that predicts what shoppers actually buy.

Move past stated preference to revealed behavior, what real consumers choose in market.

Heatseeker Team
Guides · 7 min

Business validation: prove the demand before you defend the budget.

Validate a business case against real buyer behavior, not a survey or a room of opinions.

Heatseeker Team
Guides · 7 min

Product innovation: prioritize the roadmap by real demand.

Validate which concepts real buyers want before engineering commits a quarter to them.

Heatseeker Team
Guides · 7 min

SaaS conversion rate optimization starts with the message.

Before you tune the funnel, validate the promise that earns the click.

Heatseeker Team
Guides · 6 min

What people say. What people do. The gap that eats launches.

Stated intent predicts real buying only 20 to 30% of the time. The say-do gap, which research tools inherit it, and how to actually close it.

Heatseeker Team
Guides · 6 min

Synthetic personas will tell you anything. Here's how to know when they're right.

A synthetic persona answers in minutes, with total confidence, whether or not it's right. The two questions that separate a real one from a party trick.

Heatseeker Team
Guides · 6 min

Sometimes the fastest way to sell more is to charge more

Willingness to pay defies surveys. How to find your real number by watching what buyers do, under your own brand.

Heatseeker Team
Straight answers

The questions teams ask before they switch.

Everything worth knowing before you put surveys behind you, no jargon, no hedging.

What is behavioral ground truth?

Evidence of what customers actually do, verified clicks, purchases and choices observed in live markets, rather than what they say they'll do in a survey or focus group.

How accurate is behavioral testing vs. surveys?

Surveys predict real purchase behavior only 20 to 30% of the time. Heatseeker calibrates its predictions to up to 95% correlation with verified behavior.

What is a synthetic persona?

An AI model of a customer segment trained on verified behavioral data and your own first-party data, not scraped web text. You can question it directly and get an answer in minutes.

How is heatseeking different from A/B testing?

A/B testing optimises one asset for one metric. Heatseeking reveals the deeper drivers behind a decision, jobs to be done, pain points, pricing, language-market fit, and feeds them into a private model of your market.

How fast can I get an answer?

Synthetic experiments return a behavior-backed read in minutes. Live in-market experiments return statistically significant proof in days, not weeks or months.

Is my data used to train shared models?

No. Your synthetic audience is trained only on your tests, your first-party data and your behavioral signals. No one else gets access to it.

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