Methodology Synthetic Data Tracking Watch About Get in touch

Real voices.
Real insight.
No fieldwork.

DCA transforms millions of authentic online conversations into structured market intelligence — faster, deeper, and more cost-effective than conventional research.

“Not what people say when asked — what they say to each other.”

100%
Organic consumer voice
4
Stage methodology
10+
Sectors researched
AI
Guided by human judgement
The methodology

What is Digital Conversation Analysis?

DCA is a proprietary research methodology that uses AI to analyse large-scale datasets of authentic consumer conversations — scraped from social media, forums, and review platforms.

Unlike conventional social listening, which merely monitors brand mentions, DCA sifts, orders, and interrogates the data using qualitative research frameworks. The result is structured insight that reveals not just what people are saying, but how their experiences and attitudes are evolving.

Crucially, all promotional and influencer content is filtered out — leaving only the organic consumer voice. This is empirical research based exclusively on real customers, not synthetic personas or prompted responses.

From scattered posts to structured insight.

DCA bridges the gap between raw social data and actionable research. The output — personas, sentiment analysis, verbatim quote cards, and brand tracking — is indistinguishable from a conventional report. Except it costs less and delivers faster.

~100%
Organic on Mumsnet
~15%
Organic on Instagram
~36%
Organic on X
High
Reddit signal quality
How it works

The four-stage DCA process

Every DCA project follows the same rigorous methodology, adapted to the platform, category, and research objectives.

01

Platform selection

Identify the social media platforms and communities where authentic consumers of your category are most active and candid. The right source determines the quality of everything that follows.

02

Data extraction

Posts and conversations are scraped at scale using automated tools — capturing tens of thousands of records across multiple platforms for a wide, representative sample.

03

Filtering & analysis

All promotional, influencer, and spam content is removed. AI then analyses the clean dataset — sentiment analysis, thematic coding, persona development, verbatim extraction.

04

Insight & reporting

Findings are compiled into structured, client-ready reports including brand sentiment tables, consumer personas, verbatim quote cards, and concept testing results.

Service · Synthetic data

Survey the conversation, not a panel

Managed insight from real online discussion, powered by Digital Conversation Analysis.

Custom synthetic datasets built from real online conversation

You already know the questions you need answered. I know where the honest answers are: in the millions of unprompted conversations people have every day on Reddit and MoneySavingExpert. Send me your survey, and I run it against synthetic datasets built from those conversations — then hand you the findings, fully analysed.

Based on what people do, not what they say they do. A survey tells you how someone answers a question. This tells you what they say when no one’s asking — the real language, concerns and decisions people share with each other rather than with a researcher. It’s the difference between claimed behaviour and actual behaviour, and it’s where the honest signal lives.

Not all synthetic data is equal

Most synthetic data is built from survey panels — modelled on the answers of people who are paid to fill in questionnaires. That means it inherits every weakness of panel research: a small, self-selecting group of professional respondents, telling you what they think you want to hear, in the artificial setting of a survey. You end up with a synthetic version of claimed behaviour.

Mine is built from something better. Instead of modelling survey-takers, I model real conversation — millions of ordinary people discussing their money, their insurance and their health with each other, unprompted and unpaid. No incentive to perform, no panel to skew the picture, and language that’s real rather than rehearsed. It’s the difference between a synthetic survey and a synthetic population. And because it’s drawn from live conversation, it moves when your market moves — so you catch new concerns and emerging trends as they surface, not months later.

How it works

1
You share your questionsWhatever you’d put in a survey, brief or discussion guide.
2
I run them against the right datasetSynthetic data built from real conversation in your market — financial services, insurance or health & wellbeing.
3
You get decision-ready findingsSentiment, themes, verbatim language and clear recommendations — not a raw file to make sense of.

Ask anything, any way you like

This isn’t a fixed questionnaire. Because there’s no fieldwork to commission and no panel to recruit, you can ask whatever you need, however you need to — closed questions, open-ended ones, or a full discussion guide. Test one concept or twenty. See a result you didn’t expect, and probe deeper the same day. Change direction halfway through without starting again. There’s no cost-per-respondent meter running, so the only limit is your curiosity.

Test your communications before you spend on them

The same data will tell you not just what people think, but how they’re likely to react to what you’re about to say. Try your messaging, straplines, product descriptions and ad copy against the conversation and see what lands, what falls flat, and which objections come up — in your audience’s own words.

You can test creative too. Share an ad image or concept and get a grounded read on how it’s likely to be received, before a penny goes on media. It’s a fast, low-risk way to pressure-test communications while they’re still cheap to change.

Why managed

The data never leaves me, and neither does the method. You get the interpretation, the quality control and the context that turn a dataset into a decision — with the privacy risk engineered out, because synthetic data carries no tie to identifiable individuals.

Made for: FMCG brands, financial services and pharmaceuticals who need a fast, credible read on how people really feel — for tracking sentiment over time, testing communications, or getting early sight of an emerging trend.
Service · Regularly updated tracking

DCA in practice: tracking two of the most consequential issues of the decade

GLP-1 weight-loss medications and electric vehicles — two fast-moving markets, read from real, unprompted conversation and refreshed on a regular cadence.

Electric vehicles

MoneySavingExpert & Reddit

How EV owners and prospective buyers really talk about running costs, charging, insurance and the switch — the full DCA report plus an illustrated review of the wider evidence.

EV DCA Report — MoneySavingExpert & RedditOpen / download ↗
EV Illustrated Literature ReviewOpen / download ↗
Watch

Introduction to DCA on YouTube

Two short introductions to Digital Conversation Analysis — what it is, and how a project turns raw online conversation into decision-ready insight.

Watch

DCA In Practice

Four real-world examples of DCA applied to different categories — each one following the complete process from raw social data to consumer personas, ad concepts, and real-world testing.

Example 1

Example 1 of 4

What Are People Really Saying About Weight Loss Drugs?

Building the dataset — scraping and filtering authentic consumer conversations about weight loss drugs from Reddit and TikTok.

Example 2

Example 2 of 4

Who’s Really in Your Audience? Building Ad Personas From Real Conversations

Six empirically-grounded consumer personas built entirely from real social conversations — the Long-Hauler, the Food Noise Sufferer, the Transformation Celebrant and more.

Example 3

Example 3 of 4

Writing Ads From the Inside Out — What DCA Advertising Looks Like

How the six personas are translated into six distinct ad concepts, each grounded in the language and framing of real consumer conversations.

Example 4

Example 4 of 4

Does Your Ad Actually Land? Testing Concepts Against Real Conversation

The final phase — testing six ad concepts against the consumer dataset to assess resonance, authenticity, and real-world performance.

View YouTube channel →
About

Qualitative expertise. AI-powered scale.

John Habershon PhD

DCA is the proprietary methodology of Momentum Research, a London-based consultancy with deep roots in qualitative and quantitative market research — including non-verbal emotional coding, focus groups, and concept testing.

DCA was developed to bring the rigour of conventional research methods to the scale and speed that AI now makes possible. It is not a replacement for traditional research — it is a powerful, cost-effective complement to it.

Uniquely, DCA isolates the organic consumer voice — filtering out all promotional and influencer content before analysis begins. The result is insight grounded entirely in real, unprompted customer behaviour.

John Habershon PhDFounder. 25+ years in qualitative research, non-verbal emotional coding, and AI-assisted analysis.
10+ sectors researchedHealth, FMCG, footwear, automotive, financial services, food, beauty, women’s health, and more.
Multi-platform & multilingualUK and Chinese platforms including Douyin and Xiaohongshu — bilingual reporting available.
YouTube channelVideo walkthroughs and case studies — Using AI in Qualitative Research.
Get in touch

Commission a DCA project

Whether you’re a brand, agency, or research team — tell us what you want to understand, and we’ll explain how DCA can help.

johnhabershon@momentumresearch.co.uk

Tel: +44 7725 582093

We typically respond within one working day.