Getting to the heart of the matter

An interview with Helen Nuki, Funding Partner of Monkey See

Tell us about your company.

Monkey See is a market research agency working with clients big and small, ranging from start-ups, such as Trussle, StepJockey and Farmdrop, to some of the UK’s biggest companies, including DFS, Twinings and Dairy Crest. It’s also lovely to work with those who were start-ups eight years ago when we began, and are now big and booming, like Zoopla, Funding Circle and Treatwell. Clients come to us to provide input from consumers and answer questions such as:

• Who’s our warmest target market and what do we need to say and do to attract them?
• How’s our advertising and other marketing activity performing?
• How’s it helping grow our brand and business?
• What do our customers think of us and what should we be doing to improve?

What has been your biggest success so far?

Probably Zoopla. They were one of our very first clients in 2011, when they were only a couple of years old. Over the last eight years we’ve conducted lots of research for them, which has provided them with guidance on:

• How consumers use the website, helping to hone the site and develop the most relevant functions
• How to position the brand vs competitors
• Developing advertising that sticks in people’s hearts and heads
• Understanding their clients, their needs and what they’d like from Zoopla Hopefully our research has played a part in growing the business from a start-up brand very few had heard of in 2011, to the second biggest in the market.

What project are you most excited about right now?

We’re working with Farmdrop, an ethical online grocer, trying to take on some big companies by delivering great tasting food straight from farmers and producers. We’ve conducted one piece of research that helped them to hone their target audience, their service, offering and messaging and we’re about to start measuring how awareness and interest in the service grows. I’m excited to see how the business develops and to be a part of their journey.

How has being a member of The Clubhouse contributed to the success of your business?

The Clubhouse gives us a great place to come together as a team. We’re often out with clients or conducting research, so The Clubhouse gives us the perfect flexibility and exactly the right sort of place for us to get together. It’s also a super-impressive place to meet our clients.

Where can members find you?

Our favourite place is the comfy sofas in The Clublounge at The Clubhouse, St James’s. Although, more often than not, we can be found talking to people in living rooms up and down the country!

 

Quick Fire Round:

Favourite place to go in London?

Stepping onto the tennis court at Highbury Fields, kidding myself I’m a long-lost Williams sister.

Who inspires you and why?

My mum. She never let what she was supposed to do limit what she actually did – including upping sticks and moving from Blackpool to Tangiers on her own aged 65.

Best bit of advice you’ve been given?

Don’t smoke – it gives you wrinkles.

If you were on a desert island, what would you bring?

Lots of paper and a pen so I could write that book.

Which super power would you like to have?

Time travel – I’d love to peek into the future and see what my children become (it might help me to stop nagging now).

What is the worst business ‘faux-pas’ you’ve committed?

So many to choose from! One was meeting up with my team in the reception at Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice to give a presentation … and realising we had all subconsciously dressed in purple.

For more about Monkey See visit their website: Monkey See

This article was originally featured in The Informer – March 2019. To read the full magazine please click here