Research

Driverless – or headless?

Criticising research is rather like shooting fish in the barrel nowadays: it’s an easy target. In the corporate world, such criticism is often used to demonstrate the new and innovative thinking of today’s marketeer. No more the focus group. No more the 20 minute quantitative survey. We will be like Apple! We will trust our instinct and back our hunches! The future of driving is driverless!

Yet the headlining grabbing abilities surrounding driverless car efforts underline why knowing your consumer is so important. If nothing else, it underlines why having a clear knowledge of motivations for different sorts of drivers is crucial. Putting aside the ethical and moral questions that surrounds apportioning blame should accidents occur, the real issue in driverless cars is, well, just that – the car becomes driver less. A point which seems to have been missed in the rush to the prize.

Driverless I don’t know about you but I like driving. I enjoy the freedom behind the wheel. I cherish – always have – the independence of owning a car – just as the pioneers of the American West cherished their horse and later, their Harley. It’s partially about the driving but it’s also about a whole host of other emotions: freedom, thrill, at times, security. Oh, I’ll be curious about driverless cars: I’ll be interested in the tech both with the cars and the infrastructure, but I’m not ready to forgo that deep, almost primeval feeling that driving can give me.

For others, driverless cars could be a relief – long schleps on motorways. Stuck in the middle lane with rabbit-like nervousness because of the lorries on the inside and the hustling Execs on the outside. In busy, nose to tail traffic, perhaps when driving to unfamiliar places (although there’s another emotion I love about driving – discovery). Perhaps, even an extension to ‘reverse park assist’ in urban environments. Yep, I get the rational logic. It’s the irrationality of driving, what it means, how it makes you feel, that’s been missed in all this. I’d rather the development money went into a car that runs on tap water or air – then we’d be making real progress. And chatting to a few drivers (heaven forbid, in research perhaps!) may – just may – be quite revealing.

Mining for confusion

It was a point of real frustration, what psychologists call a ‘trigger point’. A client pushing for ever deeper insights. “We need to mine for them, reveal the hidden beliefs and the unconscious needs”, she said.

“But what about all the blindingly observations and truths about your consumer? The ones you already have and have been consistently ignoring for the past two years?”, I retorted, in my head.

The conversation rolled on: how research moderators let their own biases or poor questioning distance themselves from the real truth, failing to uncover the deeper needs. They would prove to be the key that unlocks the door to future prosperity, apparently.

Yet here was a business posting mid single digit volume and profit declines with unrelenting consistency, with fragile to no brand momentum and struggling to create a meaningful vision, a meaningful agenda for their categories. And they want to dig deeper?

A related story. I was once involved in an Ethnographic research project when ethnography was the ‘new news’. A drinks client, dissatisfied with existing research techniques and wanting to be at the bleeding edge to discover deeper, more profound insights. £140,000 later and what we in fact discover is that what consumers really look for in this particular type of (cold) drink…. is that it’s always chilled. Bleeding edge? Bleeding something, right enough. Here was a business that wanted to distract itself from the hard work of doing the basics brilliantly – right outlets, right experience; right serve – to chase the fancy dream of a White Knight in Shining Armour*

Understanding of your target market can come from all sorts of directions – not just down.

I mean, yes, it is possible to find unconscious needs: through gaming or role-playing, through well purposed ethnography and longitudinal studies, through metaphor and story telling. There are ways. But the question at the end of it all is: will it be usable by my brand? Will I be able to plan stuff off it that builds my brand? All too often, seemingly profound ‘insights’ are unusable, and therefore of no value.

Me? I like shrewd observation. I like accompanying harassed parents as they go shopping with their kids, or chatting to a Grandmum about the pressures of feeding their grandchildren ‘the right things’ in the short window of opportunity between nursery finishing and Mum getting home to check. Or talking to a Big Issue seller about their journey from homelessness, from being bereft of hope and opportunity, to seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Of sitting alongside someone sifting through their e-mails and all the requests to give or buy. Or the businessman in a forecourt shop balancing a wallet and loyalty card in one hand, with his keys and a bottle of pop in the other, whilst the Assistant asks him if he would like to fill in a customer survey to win a Grand.

And I like collision. Of throwing the observations together. Of seeing what crashes out of the carnage. Of seeing where the ensuing conversation reveals about what we really think, truly believe. The juxtaposition does this: ‘you may think I’m a bit well, weird, behaving like this…but look at them, they use twigs’. Of feeling the energy that arises when apparently conflicting ideas are forced together.

And challenging beliefs. To feel the nervous energy as someone realises that their belief is more of a doctrine and really isn’t supported by fact. But hell, they’re going to believe it anyway and what are you going to do it about Mr Researcher?

Getting real insights is like active listening. Proper listening is hard. To switch off (or at least turn the volume right down) of the voice in your head, and concentrating on what the other person is saying. Of checking their meaning, not challenging. Of listening to the words, not developing counter arguments. Getting real insight is like that: it’s like being a detective or policeman. You’re looking for the things that aren’t said, that aren’t done as well as those things that are. It’s about setting up hypotheses and working through them. And when you’ve found the cause, prosecuting the hell out of it.

Because more than anything else, a good insight is only ‘good’ if it is usable by your brand or your company. If it allows you to do and plan something, not just now, but for a few years at least. How ever you find your insight, if you can’t act on it, or are not willing to, save your time and your money and do something else.

*The armour has to shine, not sure why.

**I don’t, you’re quite normal, trust me

David Preston is founder of The Crow Flies, a research, strategy and innovation company that discovers and maps the direct route to success for categories and brands. david@thecrowflies.co.uk; +44 (0) 1889 725670

Expectation Gap

Sainsbury’s results last week seem to be more evidence that the food retailing bigwigs are feeling the pressure to change their paradigm. Netto entering into a joint venture with Sainsbury’s themselves; the continued growth of Aldi and Lidl, both through expansion and new sites and organic growth – attracting those ‘middle ground’ shoppers who traditionally would go to solely one of the big 4. The day after their results, Sainsbury’s announce that because it’s getting tough out there, they will invest a further £150m in price discounts: £150m lost in the fight to defend their distinctiveness, their differentiation.

Of course the price we pay for our food is a major concern. But moving retail strategies towards a price orientation demonstrates the lack of confidence leaders have in their brands – and shines a light on the real problem that needs fixing.

The experience a retailer offers is part of their customer’s value equation, even if research reports say otherwise. Take dairy: this is a category full of rich and evocative pastoral images. In a recent project, we built a mental collage with consumers of what dairy meant to them. Here was the picture that was constructed: standing at the top of a verdant green hill, the leaves of an oak tree overhanging, you look down into the gentle ‘V’ of interlocking hills and there, nestled in the distance is a farmhouse, with smoke gently drifting up from its log fire. A farmer slowly chugs across a field into a vintage tractor, and cows, ready for milking, amble through the farmyard. The farmer’s wife calls to her children who are catching butterflies in a nearby field.

Utter fantasy of course, yet…not. Consumers think of dairy as full of goodness, heavenly food in fact, enjoyable eating, reminding them of good times and nutritious. Yes, they are aware of the high fat content and equally aware they shouldn’t over indulge, but these concerns are not sufficient to impact negatively on their positive dairy world-view.

Look at dairy in retail though: it couldn’t be more different. White packs, plastic and shrink wrap packaging everywhere, glaring red POS pronouncing BOGOFs and price slashes, all cheddar beiges, and goats-milk whites. This is a shopping experience that, rather than being full of warmth and happiness, is emotionally and physically cold. This is a shopping experience where the potential of premium pricing through premium experience is lost.

In fact, this is a shopping experience typical of where food retail is heading; it’s happening throughout the major supermarkets as they wrestle with the no frills approach of the discounters. In turn, the retailers pressure their suppliers for a category growth agenda because they don’t know what to do. The truth is, to not understand how the brand or category exists in the consumers minds is a major risk – commoditising the shopping experience puts you at peril. It is no surprise that at the premium end of the market the retailers are more confident in their approach. Waitrose is the oft cited example, but another, smaller retailer embodies this consumer understanding more than most. Up in the north, with stores in places like Milnthorpe and Garstang, you possibly wouldn’t expect a retailer to be thriving with this approach, but Booths is.

I recently went to their Windermere store in the old railway station and it was a delight. This isn’t just a retailer who operates the hackneyed old stereotypes like ‘get fresh near the front’ or wafting the smells of fresh bread throughout. It does these things of course, but with thought and panache. Artisan breads were laid out on a table, with short descriptions of what they contained, how they were baked, what they’re good with. The delicatessen didn’t just feature bowls of olives but also great northern standards – a pie range to die for, more sausages you could shake a pig at, it catered for everyone not just middle class Mediterranean-diet wannabes. Beer wasn’t laid out by type, but by region, with a big focus on local. Local suppliers were the hero everywhere in fact – Goosnargh Ducks, Mrs Kirkham’s Lancashire Cheese and inevitably crafty crisps featured with point of sale showing, who made them, where, when and why. This was a food retail experience much closer to being romanced like in a luxury car showroom, the Apple Store or a great bookstore. This was a retail experience where more clearly than any other there seemed to be a partnership between supplier and store. And oh, look, they’re doing very nicely thank you.

Commoditising price is one thing, but commoditising experience? Well, that’s a trap you’ll never get out of.

David Preston is founder of The Crow Flies, a research, strategy and innovation company that works with shoppers and consumers to help brands find a direct route to long lasting success. david@thecrowflies.co.uk; +44 (0) 1889 725670; www.thecrowflies.co.uk; @crowflieshigh.