A new research consultancy has launched that challenges the widely held belief that consumer psychology determines brand and buying motivation.

Jump the Fence will work directly with marketers and agencies to deliver a more humanistic approach to research and provide more relevant insights and strategy for existing brands and new launches.

Founder Charlie Cochrane said: “The outdated assumption, reflected in the language and practice of marketing and market research is that psychology is what matters. Terms like ‘psychographics’, ‘brand-relationships’ and ‘motivational research’ reflect this assumption which remains largely unquestioned.

“But modern marketing has moved on. We now know people do many things because of habits and cultural norms which have little to do with individual motivation, yet much research being conducted for agencies and brands fails to reflect this.”

Leading researcher Cochrane has launched Jump the Fence to bring together his qualitative research business CCRP, which has been operating for 21 years and Ethnography Australia, which was the first specialist ethnographic consultancy in Australia and has been run by him for 11 years.

He added: “Ten years of developing ethnographic techniques alongside psychology based approaches have shown that to adequately explain consumer behaviour, marketers and advertisers must integrate cultural perspectives with individual motivations.”

Cochrane has extensive experience in market research and advertising planning both in Australia and the UK. He specialises in innovation and communications development and has worked with dozens of household names including Seven News, Colgate, Campbells, TAC, Nestle and Sara Lee.