Not a one-time thing

Editor's note: Dave Carruthers is the founder and CEO of Voxpopme. For questions or comments please e-mail christoph.trappe@voxpopme.com.

Over the last few years, even before the pandemic, companies across a range of industries have been in a fairly aggressive mode of transformation to react quickly to changing consumer trends and behaviors. Sometimes the reactions are short-term, in response to something in the market. Other times they are more lasting, reflecting the seismic impact of a broad cultural shift.

No matter the cause or the time frame, it is crucial for brands to understand what’s going on, why it’s going on and how it can affect them. More importantly, understanding the shifts in behaviors certainly helps companies understand the person behind the consumer.

As Megan Kehr, analytics insights associate manager at PepsiCo, mentioned on our podcast, “Reel Talk: The Customer Insights Show,” insights professionals have increasingly spoken about gaining a deeper sense of consumers’ lives. “For example, take somebody like me and not just seeing me as a Pepsi drinker … while my consumption behavior is part of who I am, I’m also a wife, a sister, a daughter, I’m a cat mom. There are all these other aspects of my life outside of the beverage I drink that make up who I am,” she said.

To truly understand our consumers, we certainly can’t just check in with them every few years; we have to build that ongoing relationship. And one way to do that is by making research an ongoing effort that spans company culture.

But how can we accomplish that? Let’s dive in.

The why

Market research can have the most impact on companies when it provides insights that can be acted upon and that offer something executives and stakeholders didn’t know before.

Many have used Henry Ford’s famous quote – “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” – in arguing against talking to consumers. People don’t know what they want, the thinking goes, so why ask them? But what if that’s the wrong argument?

“They would say ‘horses’ because they didn’t know cars existed,” said Nick Graham, global head of insights and analytics at Mondelez, on a “Reel Talk” episode. “But they could tell you they wanted to go faster. They could tell you some of the things they were comfortable with or not comfortable with. And you could have built the idea of a car from that.”

With so many choices for consumers today, asking them relevant questions, listening and genuinely understanding them on a consistent basis becomes essential. 

There are three main ways to integrate ongoing research into a company: always on; part of the process; and project-based.

Always on. When feedback mechanisms are always on, research is built directly into the customer experience. For example, think of the emoji buttons people can push after walking through airport security. (Would you give your experience a smiley face or a frowny face?) Easy-breezy. Or when customers call a company and there’s a survey at the end of the call. Or when purchasers can leave an immediate video response after buying a new product.

But don’t overdo it, said customer experience keynote speaker James Dodkins on “Reel Talk.” “Don’t try to get feedback at every little interaction along the way. I understand the logic behind it. I understand that they want that data to look at it and see where they can improve. But all you are doing is making the overall experience worse for the customer because you are badgering them every second,” he said.

Part of the process. Indeed, not all research initiatives can be added to the ongoing process, but some can. For example, let’s say a company is looking at the future of communications in car travel (to stick with the automobile theme a bit here) – that’s something that’s more likely to fall into the project-based category.

But a team that creates digital ads, TV programming and provides other ongoing customer experiences can certainly make feedback loops for the customer easy.

Of course, you can also use social listening as part of that process. Many consumers share opinions on social media about the shows they just watched or a snack they just consumed. You can gather that information and mine it for insights.

But also consider the downfalls of analyzing big data. “What can big data deliver as opposed to going out and eyeballing your customer?” asked Graham Kenny of Australia-based Strategic Factors on an episode of “Reel Talk.” “I think there’s a difference in what both can deliver. But relying on big data as the only way to do it is going to be a disaster.”

Added Jenn Vogel, Voxpopme vice president of marketing and “Reel Talk” host: “A mountain of data isn’t useful on its own. It’s useful when you can summarize some new insight into one sentence to say, ‘This is what this means to our business, our customer.’ That’s where the insights team can shine.”

Project-based. Sometimes, a project-based approach is the clearest option. That includes when we want to find out something very specific or have a request from a stakeholder to test a new idea that doesn’t fit into the day-to-day product or ad-testing process.

But good research often leads to more research: What is the next set of questions that needs to be addressed based on what we just learned? From there, companies can start making product and marketing decisions. I see this concept come to life just about every week when we publish results from a consumer study on our blog. For example, one study looked at whether consumers prefer to exercise at home or at the gym. We found that over 50 percent of respondents prefer the home workout.

The research allowed us to learn some of the overarching preferences of the different groups. Once we understood that, we could break it down and dive into the consumer group that exercises at home further: Why aren’t they using equipment while working out at home? How do they choose what to do? Are they feeling good about their workouts?

Increases in efficiency 

Many researchers are now asked to do more with less. That can be stressful and once we recognize the stress and decide to make the process better, implementing ongoing research can help. And as you gain more experience, you should see increases in efficiency (once a process is in place and gets used it can become more efficient), effectiveness (making the process simpler and less cumbersome), reliability, volume and timing.

That last point is key. “Market research needs to accelerate timelines and get user feedback to stakeholders in a much more user-friendly way than is done today,” said Rick Kelly, chief product officer at Fuel Cycle, on a “Reel Talk” episode. “If I need feedback from customers, I can’t wait four to six weeks for a survey or a focus group to get done. I need to know something right away so we can prioritize it in the development process.”

See the value

Life is about relationships and that includes our relationships with stakeholders and leaders. That means pulling in the right people at the right time and making sure they see the value in the relationship. They should recognize the problem you can help them solve and also that their thoughts are appreciated.

“Here’s one piece of the puzzle and I know that my colleague here has another piece of the puzzle and our other colleague has the third piece of the puzzle,” said Brenna Ivey, associate director of strategy and insights at Policygenius, during a “Reel Talk” conversation. “Let’s work with them together to see what the answer is. That, I think, is the best way to get credibility.”

Understand stakeholders

Of course, to get buy-in we have to understand our stakeholders and that includes their personalities, goals and even limitations of their roles. 

Further, every brand has guardrails of what is possible and what won’t be pursued. If you know you won’t do specific things with your products, why ask about those things? If you will never use pink packaging, why even bring it up?

And, make sure the questions you do ask can actually lead to insights that you or your stakeholders have the authority to act on. Don’t ask about packaging if you aren’t working with the team responsible for the packaging, for example.

Establishing the right workflows

Some of us have probably been on teams where workflows were just not efficient enough or didn’t work for ongoing participation.

Sometimes, it’s the mind-set or culture. For example, Joanna Lepore, now strategic foresight lead at Mars Wrigley, said on “Reel Talk” that she had been in situations before where certain teams didn’t collaborate. “The insights team was like, ‘You are not allowed to do that. Go back into marketing,’” she said, adding that the right workflow also creates an avenue for meaningful collaboration.

Melina Palmer, host of “The Brainy Business” podcast, likened process implementation to driving a car: When you learn how to drive a car, there’s a lot to think about. There’s also a lot the new driver doesn’t know, yet. But that process gets easier over time and even automatic to an extent.

“The last time you drove your car it was probably really easy and you didn’t have to think about it at all,” she said on “Reel Talk.” “That’s because it has moved into that subconscious processing space. It doesn’t need to clog up your conscious processing because your brain knows to check your mirrors and how to press the gas.”

The same holds true for an integrated market research process. We have to make it part of the automatic process. Have a product idea or eureka moment about packaging? Run a quick market research check to see what insights can be gathered before going too far down the rabbit hole. 

On a final note about ongoing market research, I want to stress the importance of accessibility and inclusivity. That includes making sure you ask the right demographic questions and ensuring people with disabilities can participate.

So beneficial

The right research processes, integrations and ongoing efforts can be so beneficial to companies. Market research needs to go beyond being a box that gets checked. It should be a box that gets checked because it can help companies understand their consumers and make products and services better and more valuable for them.