Samantha Loggenberg on why South Africa isn’t one market, why “yes” can mean no, and where AI helps and hurts qualitative research.

In this episode, Cynthia talks to Samantha Loggenberg, founder of Insights Edge in South Africa. She has spent more than 30 years doing qualitative research across Africa and more than 40 other countries.

Episode Highlights:

• South Africa is not one market. Samantha explains why sampling and segmentation have to account for race, socioeconomic level, culture and language at the same time, and why treating the country (or the continent) as a single, uniform market is the biggest mistake researchers make.
• When global campaigns get lost in translation. Two cautionary tales: a yogurt brand’s “chilled” message in Mozambique that translated as “dead,” and a streaming service in Ethiopia that mistook rising connectivity data for market readiness, missing entirely how people actually lived and used their phones.
• “Yes” does not always mean yes. Samantha describes “passive resistance,” where respondents give polite, positive answers out of respect while their body language says the opposite, and why rating scales behave differently in South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria and Brazil.
• The case for an insider-outsider approach. Why local partners who can read the room and provide cultural context are essential, even for a researcher with 30 years of experience across more than 40 countries.
• AI’s real strengths, and its real risks, in qualitative research. Samantha values AI for speed and synthesis but is wary of it on source and truth, arguing for “bothism” — judicious, project-by-project use — over an all-or-nothing stance.
• A widening gap in insights talent. How AI is changing the way junior researchers are trained, and Samantha’s concern that shortcuts around fieldwork could cost the next generation the ability to judge what is true rather than merely plausible.

About the Guest

Samantha Loggenberg, based in South Africa, is the founder of Insights Edge and has more than 30 years of experience in qualitative research across more than 40 countries.

Her work spans South Africa and the wider African continent, with a focus on staying close to consumers through immersions, in-depth interviews and group discussions.

She contributed to a book on qualitative research in Africa by Mpho Mpofu and is writing her own book on projective and enabling techniques used across the continent.