How Social Truth™ Is Made.

Every Bakamo engagement runs in two phases. The first phase reads reality. The second phase measures it. Below: how the work is done.

Discovery first. Measurement second.

Most quantitative studies are preceded by qualitative work - focus groups, depth interviews, ethnographies. The intent is right: understand before you measure. The execution carries the same blind spot the survey will inherit. Whoever wrote the discussion guide, recruited the participants, and moderated the room was operating inside the brief. The participants knew they were in a study. Someone was paying them to talk. A researcher was in the room.

The result is qualitative material shaped by the same assumptions the survey is about to encode. The constructs to explore were chosen in advance. The recruit was built around hypotheses the team already held. The conversation happened on the industry's terms, not the consumer's. Useful, often. Sufficient, rarely.

We reverse the order differently. Before any question is written and before any participant is recruited, we read what the category is already saying - in places where no brand is present, no question has been asked, and no consumer is performing for a researcher. The discovery phase tells us what the survey should measure. The survey then measures it.

The two phases.

Phase One

Discovery

We identify the platforms, communities, and conversations where the category actually lives. Reddit threads, patient forums, TikTok comment sections, YouTube discussions, niche Discord servers, professional communities. We collect unprompted discourse to the point of qualitative saturation - when new sources stop producing new patterns.

Human analysts read the material. AI assists with pattern recognition, language clustering, and surfacing volume. Interpretation stays with the researcher. We map the constructs consumers actually use, the tensions they carry, the decision drivers that organize their behavior, the language they reach for, and the things the conversation has already stopped debating.

The output of Phase One is an architecture: the variables, constructs, segments, and vocabulary that the survey should be built around. We compare this architecture against the original brief and assumptions. The gap between them is where the most important findings already are.

Phase Two

Measurement

The survey instrument is built from the Phase One architecture. Constructs reflect how consumers actually organize the category. Question wording mirrors consumer language. Variables include the ones discovery surfaced and exclude the ones discovery showed were absent from the conversation.

The survey is fielded against the appropriate consumer audience. Analysis is conducted with the discovery architecture in mind - so the quantitative findings are interpreted against the qualitative reality that produced the instrument.

The output of Phase Two is a complete quantitative study: validated, statistically robust, and grounded in what consumers actually live - not what the industry assumed they live.

The deliverables.

A complete written report. A presentation to your team. The discovery architecture document, which functions as a strategic asset in its own right. The full quantitative dataset with cuts you can return to. Sandra is available for follow-up sessions as findings are interpreted into action.

Two ways to engage.

The Full Social Truth Study.

End-to-end engagement, Discovery through Measurement, led by the Bakamo team.

Better Surveys for Your Team.

Discovery phase only, delivered as an instrument-design input for your in-house or agency quant work.

See the Atlas of Social Truths →

Build your next study on reality.

Start the conversation