YouthSight Founder Marks Launches Electrify Research

Ben Marks, the founder and former CEO of London-based youth insight and panel business YouthSight, has set up a new MR agency called Electrify Research, aiming to improve understanding of home-owner decisions on heat pumps, EVs, rooftop solar and other green home options.

Marks (pictured) founded YouthSight in 2004, to offer research focused on Millennials, and later Gen Z. During this time he oversaw a team of more than 25 specialist researchers and developed five tracking studies for the higher education market, plus youth culture tracker State of the Youth Nation. In 2021 he sold the business to Next15's data and insights group Savanta.

His new agency will operate a quarterly international tracking survey, which was launched in June 2023 and has already completed two waves of 4,000 interviews each. This will help subscribers understand the views and intentions of homeowners on home heating and insulation, car ownership, rooftop solar and battery storage. The survey measures trends, compares markets and reveals what will impede or encourage faster adoption of new, non-hydrocarbon technologies. Subscribers are provided with a dashboard, through which they can compare the views of homeowners in the UK, USA, France and Germany (1,000 interviews per country).

Marks explains: 'Although based on a largely quant approach, our tracker in also informed by qual insights too, insofar as we've included a large number of open-ended questions which we're analysing in detail, using both human coders and new AI tools. The tracking also offers benchmarking and context around the speed and intent of home electrification. And, over time, subscribers will be able to see how changes in government policy, public information and network effects will filter through into homeowner attitudes'.

Web site: www.electrifyresearch.co.uk .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.