Specialized research depends on credibility. When research is among product engineers, physicians or patients navigating complex treatment decisions, the researcher has to understand the terminology, earn trust and engage in conversation that gets past the surface answer. The kind of depth required has to be genuine.
After 20 years and hundreds of studies, these are the areas where we go deepest — where the right researcher makes all the difference.
An inside-out perspective on innovation, from someone who's been on both sides of it.
Kevin Nobles began his career as a new product developer at Procter & Gamble, one of the world's most demanding environments for product innovation. He holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Florida and an MBA in Marketing from the University of Cincinnati.
When you bring a new concept to Nobles Research, you're working with someone who has lived the innovation pipeline from the inside. He understands the organizational pressures, the technical constraints, and the specific questions that separate a promising concept from one that will actually reach the market.
For Hispanic and Asian community research, we partner with experienced moderators who share the cultural background of the audiences being studied, ensuring authentic representation at every stage, not just in recruitment.
Cultural fluency isn't a feature of our research. It's the foundation of it.
There's a meaningful difference between research that simply includes diverse participants and research that's designed from the ground up to understand how those participants actually experience the world. Nobles Research has spent over 20 years doing just this.
Kevin Nobles has spent his entire career conducting research with and for Black American consumers and communities. It is a specialization built through lived experience and work across industries including healthcare, financial services, consumer products, retail, nonprofit, and education.
What this specialization looks like in practice: research designed to illuminate how Black Americans make decisions, think and feel about issues, form beliefs and engage with brands.
Understanding your audience isn't just about knowing their job title. It's about knowing their world.
Research with product developers, R&D scientists, procurement professionals, physicians, and other credentialed experts requires someone who can walk in, demonstrate immediate fluency in their domain, and earn credibility before the first substantive question is asked.
Nobles Research has extensive experience conducting research with technical and professional audiences across multiple industries. Kevin's background in chemical engineering and new product development at Procter & Gamble gives him a working knowledge of the professional contexts these respondents inhabit: the organizational structures, the technical vocabulary, and the pressures that shape how decisions actually get made.
Some research only works if people trust you enough to tell you the truth.
There is a category of research where the outcome depends on how the discussion guide is structured and whether respondents feel safe enough, respected enough, and understood enough to go past the surface answer. These subjects demand exceptional moderator skill and respondent trust. An awkward probe or a poorly calibrated facilitator can close the conversation entirely, and the insight you needed most never comes to light.
Respondent trust in sensitive research isn't something you manufacture through a warm opening exercise. It comes from how the research is designed: from screeners that don't inadvertently signal judgment, to discussion environments that feel genuinely safe, to a facilitator whose tone and presence communicates that nothing the respondent says will surprise or embarrass them.
I have worked with Kevin for several years, and consider him a 'go-to' qualitative researcher. His approaches are well-designed, and his reporting of insights is top quality. The insights we've uncovered have driven solid strategic recommendations.
We hired Kevin to work on a particularly thorny project with lots of ambiguity and a high level of leadership scrutiny. Despite the challenges, Kevin fit in seamlessly with our team, did quick, efficient, and excellent work for us, and was a great moderator, too.
You don't need to have the research design figured out. Tell us the business question you're trying to answer, and we'll tell you how we'd approach it.
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