Josh Pearce, the former head of brand performance at THG, has launched Red Onion, a Leeds-based customer intelligence business that has already secured enterprise clients across sport, betting and gaming, retail and wellness.
The independently funded company combines consumer research, data analytics and marketing expertise to help brands identify new growth opportunities, and is now targeting growth in the beauty and FMCG sectors. The company did not give a launch date.
Its early projects include work for a Premier League football club and for a major US sports commerce business.
Mr Pearce said: “Brands have more customer data than ever, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they understand their customers.”
From THG to Red Onion
Mr Pearce founded Red Onion after a decade working in data, analytics and marketing. He spent more than five years at Boots before joining THG in 2021, where he became head of brand performance and worked across brands including Myprotein and Lookfantastic. He has also been chief product officer at consumer insights company Triyit.
What the business does
Red Onion’s core service brings together continuous consumer research, market mapping, audience segmentation, brand measurement, pricing analysis and in-channel incrementality testing. It uses established global research panels, which the company says give it access to more than 250 million consumers across over 100 countries.
Rather than relying only on transactional data or conventional brand tracking, the company says it looks at consumer motivations, perceptions and purchasing behaviour across the wider market, including people who buy from competitors. Its brand measurement approach examines salience, uniqueness and meaning separately, and it has built analytical tools to assess pricing power and future growth potential. An analyst works with each client to interpret the findings and produce a prioritised action plan.
Mr Pearce added: “Your existing customer database only tells you about the people who have already chosen your brand. It doesn’t explain why someone bought from a competitor or what would persuade them to switch.”
The company plans to expand its research into other consumer categories, including FMCG, sports nutrition and retail, as it builds its client base.
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