Companies are preaching that they are consumer centric. Listening to their consumers is the most important business driver. This was recently confirmed by the PWC study “What the Top Innovators get right”. All of the survey respondents indicated they value deep customer and consumer insights in their innovation programs. They ranked consumer and client insights as the most important capability during the ideation stage.
But when consumer insights (CI) is the most important business driver, and a strategic CI function adds business value, why do we see that CI-departments are under pressure?
- Companies have an enormous demand for speed and costs savings. Since Insights departments can have difficulties in delivering on time, stakeholders are taking decisions without consumer understanding or are bypassing the CI-departments.
- The upheaval of more agile business project management and the application of design thinking, working with scrums and sprints which require fast decision making and more frequent decision moments. This implies shorter and faster feedback, wherein marketing is often required to do the CI-role.
- The growing power of digital marketing / e-commerce departments within companies. These digital departments began several years ago, especially in FMCG-companies, as separate units. They were tasked with operating independently, with no formal line to marketing or collaboration with CI. They would, for example, develop their own taglines, and do some A/B testing. These departments have gradually been integrated within marketing teams, but a separate way of working from CI continued.
- Increase of available data sources which are owned by other departments. CI is not the first window for information any more.
The main driver in the above is speed. How can Insight Departments generate speed?
Exploit what you already know
- Shape an infrastructure which enables exploiting what already is known. This contains a knowledge management structure (research repository) as well as data household structures in which all the marketing information sources are accessible.
- Collaboration with other departments to exploit relevant databases that they “own”. CI needs to demonstrate that, with their skills, these sources are better exploited in the interests of the business. This will be smoother when the next point has been implemented.
- Be able to connect the dots between different sources and generate business recommendations. The data sources that have become available are too numerous to be completely analysed (and especially interlinked) by human beings; automated analysis is needed. Artificial Intelligence can support us in this area. This will generate augmented intelligence which is Artificial Intelligence combined with human intelligence. AI will support the analysis, will generate insights and content, but the human intelligence is needed to provide the relevant business context. The CI-department is the driving force since it will be able to exploit the available information sources in a fast and cheap way. It will be cost effective as well avoiding “unnecessary research”.
Standardize
- You can apply tools that measure the minimum number of KPI’s needed for decision making, creating the opportunity to standardize tools for repetitive research projects (e.g. pre-testing of commercials or taste testing). If you are measuring the same KPI’s, have the same reporting and sampling, this process can be standardized and automated, and the standardized tools can enable automated briefing by marketing.
- The insights team is responsible for the process, sampling, tooling and formulation of the right conclusions and recommendations, but this implies a clear agreement with the marketing team that has to commit to standardized samples, no additional questions and limited diagnostics. These issues could be tackled in qualitative e.g for pre-testing.
Accelerate Feedback
Agile business projects need faster feedback per milestone and here are some available tools:
- Quantitative: DIY Tools (like Survey Monkey with targetable respondents) and global consumer panel suppliers (e.g. Toluna, Dynata) have DIY self-service tools with fast turn-around (1-2 weeks). Users construct their own surveys and send them out to a targeted, quota-ed sample of consumers. These suppliers host concept/idea screeners and ad hoc surveys.
- Micro-surveys/mobile technology (including at the Point of Sale): Provide internal clients with fast, cheap ‘snippets of quantitative insight’. Usually sample targeting is possible. You can pre-code around three questions at a time. Visual and film stimulus is also possible. Top-lines are often available within 24-hours but sometimes minutes.
- Qualitative: On-demand online communities for fast indicative feedback or consecutive opinions/tasks. These consumers are highly involved in the category and can be a good sounding board. Several suppliers offer this service, including self-moderation.
- DIY self-moderation for fast feedback: you can also conduct online interviews with consumers in the short term. This is possible, for example, via a video platform for online interviewing like Discuss.IO which offers global coverage, recruitment of respondents and a fast approach; this is a great solution especially for multinationals.
- DIY consumer immersion means you will interact with consumers, meeting them in their daily lives and rituals. You can observe, interview or participate in a real-life situations.
However, be aware that fast feedback research is not necessary for every business decision, and an accumulation of small research projects can generate too much cost. Speed does not mean shallow, so questions should be correctly formulated and the sample sufficient for proper decision taking. Furthermore, it is ultimately better suited for tactical and executional decisions than strategic decisions.
DIY research can be time consuming, especially the moderation of an online community. Plus, a distinction should be made between indicative/hypothesis/ideas generating research like immersion and proper feedback useful for evaluation/adjustments.
An Insights manager participating in an agile business project team could be optimal if they understand the business decision to be taken, can challenge at an early stage if research is needed, can act quickly, and avoid marketeers approving their own concepts.
SOME Conclusions
- Generating faster and cheaper solutions has clear implications for Insights departments which need to shape an infrastructure to exploit what is already known. For Insight managers with a strong project-by-project management background, this might be challenging.
- In addition, collaboration with other departments might be needed to exploit relevant databases that they “own”.
- Augmented Intelligence (AI for fast, automated analysis, and human intelligence) might put the CI-departments back in the driving seat again.
- There must be clear agreement and commitment with the stakeholders (marketing) on automated and standardized research projects.
- And finally, there must be a trade-off between business risks, speed, quality and time consumption for agile research projects.
