Agencies are the engine behind many of the most important decisions businesses make from launching a product to repositioning a brand. But in Africa, the road to those decisions is rarely smooth. The continent is diverse not just in language and culture, but in infrastructure, access, and consumer behavior. And while Africa is often viewed as a growth frontier, poor research can turn opportunity into disaster.

We have seen what happens when local realities are ignored: sample groups that don’t reflect real consumers, surveys mistranslated and misunderstood, or insights gathered in urban centers being used to make decisions about rural markets. To contextualise this, a 2018 study published in the British Journal of Anaesthesia found that much of the research conducted in Africa is externally driven, often with little involvement from local investigators. As a result, studies frequently overlook the very health priorities African researchers identify as most urgent. That’s not just a data issue, it’s a strategic risk. Doing research right in Africa takes more than a good questionnaire. It takes cultural fluency, language familiarity, infrastructural adaptability, and, above all, trust. That’s where we come in.

Why agencies trust Looka

There’s a reason global research agencies keep coming back to LOOKA especially when the project is complex and the market is tough to crack. If you've ever tried to run a study in places like Northern Nigeria, Egypt, or rural South Africa, you know how quickly things can spiral. Language becomes a barrier. Infrastructure gets in the way. In Egypt, for instance, recruiting participants can stall for days because of dialect differences or simply not knowing where to start. In South Africa, load shedding can interrupt interviews mid-session, throwing timelines off track and frustrating both clients and participants. And in regions where trust in formal research is low, responses tend to be surface-level at best.

We built our systems for exactly these kinds of environments. Participant recruitment isn’t something we try to do, it’s something we’ve mastered. When we ran studies in North Africa, for example, we didn’t just translate surveys, we had Arabic-speaking researchers on the ground who knew how to navigate neighborhoods, engage participants respectfully, and gather honest insights. When South Africa’s power grid failed, we had backup comms and offline-ready tools to keep the study moving. At the end of the day, it’s about understanding how delays, poor data, or mismatched samples can completely derail your project, and taking those risks seriously from the beginning.

We get what it’s like on the agency side from tight timelines, shifting client demands to the pressure to deliver flawless results with zero room for error. That’s why we’ve designed our operations to be predictable, responsive, and genuinely supportive, so you are not left chasing partners when things get complicated. We build for consistency through our transparent pricing with no region-based markups and our edge is the fact that we live in the regions we study, or how our support team actually works with your workflow, not against it. We don’t stop at delivery. From onboarding to last-mile support, our team is available when you need us whether it's syncing with your research timeline, helping your team adapt to local realities, or troubleshooting in real time. We tailor our support to fit how you work, not the other way around. 

Once the project is done, we’re still in your corner through joint marketing, case studies, and collaborations that help you showcase your impact and win the next brief. So, yes, agencies trust us. But not because we say the right things. Because we’ve shown we can deliver fast research, even in places deemed hard.

Let’s partner up

We know agencies are under pressure to deliver fast, actionable insights in increasingly complex environments. We are here to make that easier, faster, and more reliable. If you're looking to scale your research in Africa, or simply want to offer more value to your clients without increasing your overhead, click here to join our agency program. Let’s build something brilliant together