Mastering insighting to meet customers’ needs

Conclusion

Market research has been evolving to keep abreast of the impact of technology on consumer behavior, e.g. our willingness and eagerness to broadcast our thoughts, feelings, choices and our whole lives on social media, and the ubiquity and constancy of mobile devices.

Yet, market research needs to also focus on what does not change—that marketing should satisfy consumer needs. Understanding that as well as consumer truth and consumer friction constitutes genuine consumer insight.

In this conclusion of our conversation with TNS managing director Gary de Ocampo, he shares his views about two things—what changes and what does not change in market research.

Question: Can you have a good insight but a bad strategy?

Answer: Definitely, and, unfortunately, this happens very often.  While good insight is the inspiration for the development of a potentially good strategy, good consumer insight does not guarantee good strategy.

Good strategy has to do a lot more hard work beyond stumbling upon good consumer insight.  There is the critical importance of having a sober and brutally frank assessment of a brand or organization’s strengths and weaknesses.  You cannot immediately go for increasing market share when your biggest problem is as basic as grossly ineffective product or inefficient production facilities.   You have to know where you are coming from to know and plan for what it will take to get to where you are headed.

Translating a good insight into a value-adding product or service will require that the brand is able to leverage well its company capabilities (which Henry Mintzberg defined to comprise: resource (what to use) + processes (how to use) + priorities (why use); deep appreciation of the macro environment; and market dynamics (including an understanding of competition).

Another critical part of a good strategy is effective cascade of understanding and the actual implementation.  This part is probably even more difficult.  Many a strategy has fallen by the wayside in this phase.  I have lost count of clients who had eureka moments when they came face-to-face with inspiring consumer insights.  With renewed energy and excitement, they went on to cascade the new learning, even restructured their respective organizations only to be disappointed and disheartened later on by hugely embarrassing failures.  A usual cause of poor implementation is lack of common understanding of the consumer insight that is the basis for the business strategy.  This is because it is easy for proponents to make the fatal assumption that it will be as easy for the rest of the organization to understand the consumer insight and strategy as it has been for them.

Q: What are some simple and practical techniques anyone can try to generate insight?

A: Ethnography is one effective way to find consumer insights.  This is such a wonderful technique because the researcher immerses himself in the life of the consumer as he observes the latter over the course of a whole day or a number of days.  The context within which research learning is found always proves to be immensely powerful.

Aside from the usual focus group discussions, whose effectiveness greatly relies on the moderator’s expertise in drawing out useful responses, there is the growing use of social media chatter.  There is so much feedback being thrown out there unfettered, uncontrolled, unmoderated and with abandon onto the Internet by individuals who have found the liberating feeling of saying how they feel about anything without the fear of being ostracized or discriminated against.  It really sounds like one of the holy grails of market research!  The challenge, however, is daunting for the researcher to sift through the staggering amount of conversations to get to the insight gems.

This is one area where quantitative surveys continue to deliver value.  It can provide structure to social media chatter.  It can serve as a guide on how to organize and classify social media comments, and identify which has weight and which may be ignored and discarded.  It, of course, also helps us size up the importance of insights we get from, say, ethnography and FGDs.

In both qualitative and quantitative research, it is of utmost importance that the researcher knows what questions are most effective to ask because just any question that elicits just any answer will not do.  We have to circumvent the tendency of respondents—particularly Filipinos—to give courteous responses, which will only mislead marketers.  Rationalization and interview fatigue should be avoided at all cost.  In qualitative research, we have to get to the whys by asking questions that do not encourage respondents to be defensive about their answers.  In quantitative studies—where we usually do not have as much time to conduct the survey as we have in qualitative studies—it is a must to know exactly what questions give us valid answers so we can discard the rest, which are of no value anyway.  Shorter, smarter surveys are the way to go for quantitative research.

I mentioned earlier the holy grails of market research, one of which is complete candor in expressing experiences and motivations.  Another one is capturing sentiments at the “moments of truth”—that is, real time.  With almost everyone going mobile—most even leapfrogging the PC, doing quantitative surveys has also become possible.

So, what are these simple and practical techniques to generate insights?  Understand context via qualitative research.  Harness the power of social media.  Provide structure and measure size via quantitative research. Capture “moments of truth” via mobile.

How then do we make sure that the learning we get from these is really an insight?

At TNS, we force these findings to pass a litmus test that we call the “Insight Trinity” to help us screen and identify which of these may truly be called insights.

The first of the trinity is consumer truth.  This is the observed behavior of the consumer that is relevant to the product or service category being studied.  It is a simple fact about somebody’s life or usage of a specific product.  It is the objective part of an insight.

The second is consumer need.  What human need is demonstrated in the observed behavior?  This is the most important element of the insight.  Without it, the insight becomes bland, passive and prompts the response “what is this for?”

Finally, there is the consumer friction.  This is the consumer problem that the marketer should strive to give a solution to.  The friction makes the insight powerful, inspiring and active.  It represents the opportunity for a new product if you can offer a solution to the friction.

Our point of view is that all these 3 simple elements should be present before we call anything an insight.  One usual example that we give to illustrate this is the tanning lotion product:

Consumer truth: I like to look tanned…

Consumer need:  …because it gives me confidence…

Consumer friction:  …but I am scared of the damage the sun could cause to my skin.  Further, fake tan doesn’t look natural.

(JOSIAH GO is chairman of marketing training and advocacy company Mansmith and Fielders Inc. For complete interview as well as his interview with other though leaders, follow his blog at www.josiahgo.com.)