Curio Research Quarterly Vol. 31
Happy New Year, Curio Fans! I hope you enjoyed your holidays. I’d like to start by expressing gratitude to all of the clients I worked with in 2025. I worked as a subcontractor on projects for Kalamuna, Suzy, SAGO, and SixtyTwo. I was also a direct consultant for the BC Unclaimed Property Society, Anchor Marketing, and sixzero. These are the projects that kept the gears turning here at Curio Research, but to be honest, it was a slower year. We could have taken on much more work, so I hope to name more happy clients in 2026. We’re already off to a good start with a subcontracting project for CMB in January.
What were you grateful for in 2025, and what are your hopes for 2026?
Business
Work
Last quarter, I delivered a quantitative benchmarking public opinion study for the BC Unclaimed Property Society and Anchor Marketing. We measured their brand awareness in the province of British Columbia and people’s feelings towards their service and nonprofit business model, gauging support for changing provincial laws to make their organization the default holder of unclaimed assets, also known as escheat. The good news was that, while awareness was low (as expected), citizens held an overwhelmingly positive opinion of their business model, with a majority supporting at least some change to the current legislation to make using BC Unclaimed the default.
They even gave me a glowing review for my work:
“Curio Research was recommended to us by our marketing consultant, and we so appreciated the referral. Lauren quickly learned our business and understood our goals. She was responsive, and we developed and launched our survey very quickly and were pleased with the results. We expect to survey regularly now that we have baseline results and will look to Curio for support again.”
Sherry MacLennan
Executive Director, BC Unclaimed Property Society
After that, I delivered the Summer Survey report for the municipal political party I’ve been volunteering with. They had let the survey run past the summer to get more responses, and I had also been preoccupied with paying clients. Despite the delay, I was proud of the insights the report provided. The nominating and communication committees were left with data on what their supporters prioritize in terms of issues, what they favor regarding much-needed new housing developments, their mayoral candidate quality preferences, and what they think is wrong with Vancouver’s current elected officials. The party now has direction on the types of candidates they should qualify for nomination, how to communicate their platform best, and what talking points they should focus on in their oppositional messaging.
I recommended that they conduct messaging focus groups in the spring and a general population survey in the summer to understand how supporters and non-supporters view their platform before the October election. Stay tuned.
Now I’m working on a qualitative branding and positioning study for a company known for helping build enterprise websites that is moving into an AI-supported service space for in-house marketers. I’ll be doing 25 interviews with marketing professionals of various stripes, asking them about their impressions of the client and its competitors, and how they see these new AI offerings fitting into their current workflows.
I’ll have room to take on new qualitative projects mid-February, and I might be able to work on new quantitative projects sooner. Let me know if you’d like to work together.
Conferences
As promised, I attended the Sustainable Brands and Trellis Impact conferences in October and had a blast. It was so inspiring to hear from and connect with professionals working on green products and services from both marketing and technical perspectives. I made so many connections during both events and am now working with someone I met at Sustainable Brands to curate a panel for their next conference in June.
On a professional development note, I’m sad that I’ll be missing the QRCA’s annual conference in San Antonio in February. I wish I could be there to absorb all of the latest qualitative research tools and techniques from my peers. Still, I encourage you to attend if you’re interested in qualitative research or are an experienced professional. There’s no other conference quite like it.
Speaking
The QRCA’s Professional Development committee finally nudged me into doing an online talk on the sustainability market, how qualitative research can help these green companies gain market share, and what we as researchers can do to be more sustainable and “walk the walk.” I learned a lot about what more I can do to lower the carbon footprint of my professional services beyond what I already do. I’ll likely start auditing my practices in the near future.
Business and Sustainability
If you haven’t heard the term “regenerative agriculture” before, allow me to be the first to introduce you to what will likely be a familiar concept in the near future. According to Wikipedia, regenerative agriculture is a conservation and rehabilitation approach to food and farming systems. It focuses on topsoil regeneration, increasing biodiversity, improving the water cycle, enhancing ecosystem services, supporting biosequestration, increasing resilience to climate change, and strengthening the health and vitality of farm soil. This practice is becoming widely utilized because, as a sustainable sourcing manager for a cotton textile company said, “it’s more about what you can do [as a farmer or rancher], than what you can’t.” This additive and positive approach is easier for producers to adopt.
A 300-year-old Japanese sake brewery, Niida Honke, brewed its Yamamori 2025 sake using regenerative practices. From the rice grown on their farm to the cedar trees they cultivate for barrels, the health and longevity of the land were taken into account at every step, and Patagonia Japan took notice. In an effort to encourage other agricultural producers to adopt regenerative practices, it partnered with and supported Niida Honke’s regenerative release by lending its brand to the sake. This partnership shows the values Patagonia stands for, going beyond outdoor gear into the everyday lives of ordinary people.
What are ways your brand can show its values? An innovation trend scan and a consumer co-creation study can help your team communicate through a medium more tangible than a YouTube preroll. Let’s talk about how.
Personal
Travel
My husband and I decided not to go to the States for US Thanksgiving this year. Instead, we headed to Tofino, BC, a tourist-heavy surf town on the western coast of Vancouver Island, for a week of beach combing and relaxation. While we were there, we ate well, enjoyed a few rainy hikes along the coast, hung out with friends, rented ebikes, and cycled about 80 kilometers to a neighbouring town and back.
I’m not sure what’s next on the travel agenda. We’re discussing Europe in the spring, but that’s still a ways away.
Media
NPR published its list of the top movies and TV shows of 2025, and I’ve seen most of them. All bangers. Here are a few I’ve watched since our last newsletter:
The Lowdown - This is Sterlin Harjo’s, creator of Reservation Dogs, latest project featuring Ethan Hawke. Hawke plays an investigative journalist looking into the death of a prominent politician’s brother and can’t get out of his own way. It reminded me of the Chevy Chase Fletch movies, but he’s more of a dirtbag.
Train Dreams - Sometimes movies are more poetry than story. Based on an award-winning novella of the same name, Train Dreams follows a quiet man leading a quiet life in the woods of the Pacific Northwest. It doesn’t sound like much, but I’ve always found the simple poems to be the most impactful.
Jay Kelly - Much the opposite of Train Dreams, Jay Kelly is an examination of fame, self-centeredness, loneliness, and the people who get caught in the wake. What happens when the result of what you gave your life to isn’t what you wanted or deserved?
Pluribus - This is Vince Gilligan’s, creator of Breaking Bad, metaphor on the impact of AI on culture and society. Does individuality have value? When all of the world’s content is consumed and repackaged, where will the unique creative output come from?
Giving Back
2025 was a slow business year for me and many of my colleagues. This meant I wasn’t able to make the donations I usually would outside of my 1% for the Planet membership fees, but I tried to make up for it with volunteer work. I spent a few Saturdays over the summer removing invasive plant species with the Stanley Park Ecology Society. I offered my professional services to OneCity Vancouver to help them make data-informed decisions on how to best connect with voters for a successful 2026 campaign.
Let’s hope 2026 will fare better for us all, so I’ll be able to share good news about all the wonderful environmental charities my clients enabled me to support.
That’s all for now. Get out there and do some good.
You can sign up to get our newsletter delivered directly to your inbox. As fresh as it gets.