Company Spotlight – Downs & St. Germain Research

Downs & St. Germain Research is a full-service market research firm located in Tallahassee, Florida specializing in developing marketing and strategic recommendations from survey results and focus groups.

Downs & St. Germain Research traces its roots to 1981 when Phillip Downs, Ph.D., and John Kerr, D.B.A., formed Kerr & Downs Research. The firm changed its name in 2015 to Downs & St. Germain Research.  Joseph St. Germain, Ph.D. joined the firm in 2007 and has been appointed President. Roger Formisano, Ph. D, joined the firm as an associate partner in 2005.

Downs & St. Germain Research’s main focus is on tourism research and currently works with 9 Domestic Marketing Organizations (DMOs) in the State of Florida, including Visit Tallahassee. Downs & St. Germain Research has conducted over 400 tourism and travel studies with 25 DMOs in Florida, Louisiana, Delaware and Kentucky.

Tourism studies provide insight on the demographics and geography of visitors, activities while in the destination, trip planning behaviors, satisfaction with the destination, spending behaviors, the importance of vacation attributes, and the best approach for attracting new visitors.

In addition to tourism, Downs & St. Germain Research’s areas of expertise include:

Branding Research: Branding studies test consumer reactions to logos, taglines, headlines, ad lobs, and television, radio and print advertisements. Consumers give their gut level reactions to the brand stimuli to determine the best logo, tagline, advertisement, etc. in an effort to find the stimuli that is the most attention-getting and resonates with the target audience.

Resident/Membership Research: Resident and membership surveys provide insight to the opinions and behaviors of residents and association members, quality of life ratings, ratings of services, communication preferences, and demographics. Results can be compared over time or to other municipalities/organizations. Results of these studies have been used to develop policy, inform strategic planning, increase citizen satisfaction, and increase membership recruitment, retention, and revenue.

Disaster Preparedness Studies: Downs & St. Germain Research has completed over 30 studies in coastal states from Texas to Massachusetts to assess hurricane preparedness and to model evacuation behavior in partnership with Dr. Jay Baker. With the results of these studies, emergency management officials can better predict evacuation patterns based on the location and severity of individual storms.