3. I N S I T E S C O N S U LT I N G
03
arketing used to be an edgy business. Back in the Mad
Men days, marketing was new and marketers were seen as the
creative superstars that would go beyond the obvious to move peo-
ple, brands and business. Watching the Mad Men series, one could
conclude marketers were living on the edge: there’s the drinking,
the smoking, the sex, the martini lunches and the big creative ideas
that wow the clients.
Back then, linearity ruled; linking the present with the past was a
winning trick. There is this famous Kodak projector scene, where
Don Draper (the lead character in the series) fills the slide projector
with old family pictures showcasing the device’s power to transport
people back in time and connect them with old memories. The ex-
ecutives are amazed and Don Draper ends up winning the account.
The same campaign thinking was used for the Twin Pop “take it,
break it, share it, love it” campaign where Peggy (Don Draper’s (first
female) copywriter) draws the nostalgia card - with great success -
by saying “When I was little, my mother would take a Twin Pop and
break it in half and give one to me and one to my sister”.
M
5. Since the ’60s, not only have we witnessed the first man on the moon,
women entering (all levels of) the workplace, the introduction of the
personal computer, the rise of digital media…; we also moved from a
world characterized by linearity, craftmanship and scarcity to a world
defined by acceleration, automation and abundance.
05
I N S I T E S C O N S U LT I N G
6. 06
In the past, paths were linear, change was predictable. By looking at
the past, you could craft the future, and successfully so. When growing
up, you could simply look in the rear-view mirror and copy-paste what
your parents had done before you. If your father was a doctor, there
was a fair chance you would follow in his footsteps. People copy-past-
ed what was done before, even in business. Marketing plans of year X
were often simply a copy of marketing plans of the year X-1 with some
minor adjustments.
FROM
LINEARITY TO
ACCELERATION
7. 07
I N S I T E S C O N S U LT I N G
This was how it worked; you would look at the past and slightly adjust it
for the future. And this copy-paste instinct correspondingly shaped con-
sumer brand loyalty, with people simply going back, repurchasing their
usual brand when in need of a replacement. Reason for our copy-paste
behavior: it brings people a feeling of security and peace of mind.
Yet today, copy-pasting from the past is no longer an option. We live
in exponential times. The speed of transformation is at its ultimate
high, with change no longer being linear nor predictable. Just consider
Moore’s law, defined in 1970 by Intel’s co-founder Gordon E. Moore,
stating that the overall processing power of computers would double
every year. While this was the rule in the past, this is no longer valid.
Due to the rapid rise of technology, CPU speed currently doubles every
year or less. Research by Adobe has revealed that 76% of marketing
professionals believe marketing has changed more in the past two
years than in the previous 50. The expiration date of brands is short-
ening, with products being copied faster than ever and these replicas
even outperforming the originals. In no time, new entrants can change
the rules of the game and disrupt the market. Just think of how Airbnb
has transformed the hotel business, how Waze disrupted the car nav-
igation market, how Facebook entered the marketplace business and
how Google started offering marketing research services.
8. 08
https://youtu.be/QOJsLcCQNyw
CASE
How Volvo is redefining car ownership
Alongside the launch of the 2018 Volvo XC40, the compact SUV by Volvo,
comes the new ‘Care by Volvo’subscription service. This smartphone style
subscription plan provides all the benefits of car ownership without the
administrative hassle. Focusing on access rather than ownership, this new
package is about to turn over the traditional roles of car dealerships, auto
finance firms and insurance operators. By paying a flat fee, everything from
insurance to maintenance and repair is covered by Volvo. The service will
allow users to replace their car every 24 months and taps into consumers’
changing needs by giving them the option to borrow a different Volvo model
(for example temporarily switching to a larger-sized vehicle when going on
holiday or on a road trip) when they want. Over time, customers will even
get access to a range of digital concierge services such as fuel and wash on
demand and in-car delivery.
9. 09
I N S I T E S C O N S U LT I N G
These industry challengers do not only change the trajectory of other
brands and of the market, but also of how consumers perceive brands.
Consumers have moved away from the once linear consumption track.
Today our choices in products and services are driven by context rather
than individual characteristics and the notion of brand loyalty is losing
power. Some even argue that brands will lose all their meaning over
time and this thinking is supported by research by Havas Media stating
that most people would not care if 74% of the brands they use every
day ceased to exist1
. Today, consumers are mixing brands to feed their
continuously changing needs, resulting in a true ‘catch me if you can’
story for brands to stay relevant.
This is even visible in marketing research, where we still wrongly
assume that people are sitting in front of their computer filling out
surveys (in total isolation). Instead, they are often surrounded by peo-
ple, exposed to a certain context occasion or on the go. The contextual
background consumers are in has an influence not only on purchase
behavior but also on (brand) perceptions and hence research results.
In these accelerating times, looking back and doing what you have
always done is no longer an option. Whereas in the past marketers
could steal from what was done before and use the past as their play-
book, today they have to embrace a fresh mindset to surf the wave of
change.
10. 10
What would set people apart was the skill set they mastered. Market-
ers were the creatives ones, the out-of-the-box thinkers, exploring the
edges to make people see, feel and hear their message. The basic
characteristics of media dominating the Mad Men times (i.e. print,
billboards and radio) and beyond required creatives to come up with
sticky slogans and designers to create catchy ads to attract people’s
attention. Advertising and marketing were all about creativity and craft-
manship. Similarly, marketing research could be considered as the art
FROM
CRAFTMANSHIP
TO AUTOMATION
11. 11
I N S I T E S C O N S U LT I N G
of asking the right questions. Yet over the past years, more and more
skills have been taken over by machines.
The rise of bots and Artificial Intelligence is at full speed, with the hu-
man brain being surpassed by smart machine-learning systems. Bots
and Artificial Intelligence systems are not only adopted in manufactur-
ing processes, customer support services and medical diagnosis2
, but
even in more creative and artistic tasks such as painting unique master
pieces and composing and performing music3,4
. Research by McKinsey
Global Institute projected that automation could raise productivity
growth by 0.8% to 1.4% annually, which is far more than what the
steam engine (0.3%) or the IT revolution (0.6%)5
generated. Further-
more, the report highlights that 30% of tasks and 60% of occupations
could be computerized.
Being outplaced by robots will soon be the new normal as machines
are firmly complementing and even replacing humans. According to a
study by Oxford University called The Future of Employment, there is
a 61% chance that marketers will be replaced by robots in the next 20
years6
. The same goes for the job of marketing research analyst.
“AI will replace workers, including many presently
highly-paid professionals, and it will provide a means
for new jobs. As always, adaptation is the key for sur-
vival and success.”
Janet Baker, founder of Dragon Systems7
12. 12
These days, marketing is driven more and more by funnel thinking, big
data and programmatic advertising, and a marketer’s job has shifted
from marketing strategy to operations. Your job might not be under
pressure at this very instant, but the increased automation surely does
already impact what we do and how we do our work today.
Similarly, marketing research has left the ‘art space’ and entered the
technology scene. New platforms and technologies have risen, pro-
viding research users with the flexibility to ask questions when, where
and how they want, by means of do-it-yourself solutions. These tools,
allowing anyone with or without a research background to easily collect
responses, might (and probably will) threaten the researchers’ role in
its current form. Although do-it-yourself drives speed and democra-
tizes market research, the question remains whether ‘just anybody’ is
qualified to set up research and whether this might lead to the devalu-
ation of research. Next, evolutions in technology and neuro-techniques
enable researchers to move away from solely using explicit measures,
uncovering a new research layer.
14. 14
Scarcity equals power, it is a natural given. In the past, people would
gain power by owning and growing scarce resources such as knowl-
edge and information. Those that stood out were the ones having
access to the right data, information and insights. Just think of how
teachers were more knowledgeable than their students because they
were more literate, or a manager opposed to a starter or politicians
compared to civilians. In a pre-Google era, one had to pay or know
the right people to access ‘the vase of knowledge’. However, over the
past years, information has transformed from being a scarce good to
FROM
SCARCITY TO
ABUNDANCE
15. 15
I N S I T E S C O N S U LT I N G
a commodity to even an abundance. We all have access to massive
amounts of information, resulting in students outsmarting their profes-
sors, starters challenging their managers and politicians being called
off by civilians.
We are thus becoming less valuable as for what we know and are.
Consumers are more knowledgeable than ever and the days are over
where marketers could say what they wanted, spreading false claims
about their products or services. We are living in a world of too much
data, where the true challenge now lies in handling, prioritizing and
making sense of it all.
Marketing research has changed from being a primary data source
to being part of the mix of multiple data streams available for de-
cision-making. In this data-rich insights-poor world, marketers and
(marketing) researchers are being challenged to connect the dots to
feed decision-making.
Walmart, for example, the US retailer with stores across the globe, is
currently building their ’data café’, the world’s largest private cloud, to
process all their data streams. This new system is built to make sense
of all the data collected across its more than 20,000 stores and to bet-
ter anticipate the needs of its 250 million weekly customers. The over
200 streams of internal and external data account for 2.5 petabytes
of data every hour, the equivalent of 167 times the books in America’s
Library of Congress8
.
16. 16
While the world has shifted to this opposite, marketing (research)
seems to be still holding on to the same old principles and values as
if nothing has changed. We are fooling ourselves in thinking we are
part of this transformation. Instead we are characterized by ignorance,
where we keep on chasing the same practices and repeating what we
have always done. Although its origins lie in feeding the (Mad Men)
creatives with insights to back up their campaign stories, the sole shift
characterizing the research industry was related to the medium, with
the shift from offline to online. Just think of how marketing research
is still holding on to the same processes, its long research cycles not
providing the speed and flexibility for fast decision-making. Or how
we are still fishing in the same pool of participants and holding on to
phony concepts like ‘representativity’. Or how we keep on bombarding
consumers with questions, squeezing them like lemons, rather than
to focus on smart data integration. Or how marketing and marketing
research are still silo-structured, with no ongoing conversation.
If our processes and approaches are not adapted to this new reality,
how can we provide meaning to the business and stay relevant for
consumers? Is our market at a standstill? Are we creating our own
downfall? Have we lost our edge and how can we get it back?
19. I N S I T E S C O N S U LT I N G
19
The life expectancy of humans is growing year after year, yet
that of brands and companies is declining at an ever-increasing
rate. Research by Professor Richard Foster of Yale University
has confirmed that while the average lifespan of a company was
61 years in 1958, it is a mere 15 years today.
BRINGING
BACK THE EDGE
MARKETING
(RESEARCH)
DESERVES
20. 20
The days are over where big brands filled the bulk of consumers’
needs. Based on their personal value system, consumers are willing
to pay a premium price for certain products while at the same time
wanting to pay less for others. The traditional bell curve has taken on
a barbell shape, brands and marketers need to explore the edges as
growth opportunity has shifted to these extremes rather than the main-
stream mass.
“The Barbell effect occurs when entrenched, legacy
practices are disrupted by forces like new technolo-
gy, innovations, and shifts in demographic behavior.
Those industry players who fail to adapt to the shift
are forced to retreat into the contracting middle, the
bar. Those who adapt will prosper in the bell ends,
where most customers are going.”
Jim Blasingame, the Small Business Advocate9
21. 21
ENVISION
While these fluctuating times drive instant decision-making,
marketers and brands should never stop envisioning the bigger
picture in order to create sustainable relevance for both
consumers and their business.
I N S I T E S C O N S U LT I N G
22. 22
In this rat race of change, the need for a long-term ambition and
purpose is present more than ever. Considering McKinsey’s horizon
framework, a model for companies to assess growth opportunities,
brands should focus 70% on the present (horizon one), 20% on the
short-term future (horizon two) and 10% on the long-term future (hori-
zon three). Yet what we often see in businesses is a 90-10-0 distribu-
tion instead of the recommended 70-20-10 spread. Many organizations
still tend to focus most (if not all) of their efforts on the present (first
horizon) while in fact efforts should be made on all three horizons, not
leaving out the longer term.
HORIZON 1
HORIZON 2
TIME
VALUE
HORIZON 3
IDENTIFYING
A LONG-TERM
PURPOSE
23. 23
I N S I T E S C O N S U LT I N G
Rather than being led by an operation drive, marketing needs to culti-
vate more long-term strategic thinking. Marketing professionals have
grown the wrong habit of jumping on any trend bandwagon. Just think
of the Pokemon Go gravitational pull, where brands like Mercedes cre-
ated so-called ‘lure modules’ near ‘PokéStops’ to attract people playing
the game to their showrooms. Yet there is a clear difference between
attracting customers through micro-trends and proper targeting where
strategy drives tactics. With hypes and trends passing, envisioning a
brand’s long-term purpose and strategy is key. This starts with envi-
sioning what will change and, not unimportantly, what might not.
It may feel a bit counter-intuitive, yet in this era of volatility, part of
envisioning the future is to understand what will resist the ravages of
time. Although we are living, operating and doing business in a world
that is characterized by ongoing transformation, some things simply
don’t change (as fast as we think they do). In some ways life has not
changed our fundamental human nature, we are still colored by the
same underlying needs as our prehistoric ancestors. There is a lot of
discussion on whether the old Maslow pyramid thinking is valid - the
common argument being that needs are not hierarchical but rather
an interactive, dynamic system - yet the need for example for food,
shelter, safety, sex, belonging and trust is omni-present. Consumer
insights express these long-term consumer needs and frictions within a
particular product or service category.
24. 24
These deeply rooted, solid principles are what should form the foun-
dation of one’s purpose, the deeper human truth consumers can relate
with. These profound human insights should form the cornerstone of
brands and guide them in everything they do. Purpose forms the rea-
son for a company to exist and even shows to have a positive effect on
profits. Research by Harvard Business School Professors Kotter and
Kanter comparing 200 companies demonstrated that purpose-driven
businesses have 400% more revenues10
. This need for an underlying
insight is also essential in marketing research, where the pressure on
the now often leads to an ad-hoc focus. Research often falls in the trap
of time, delivering on short-term needs, leaving out any long-term-per-
spective thinking. Yet it is essential to envision what your research
should add up to, in line with a brand’s bigger purpose.
“It takes more than six, seven, twelve, fifty years for
human evolution to change the fundamental nature of
the way we think and the way we feel. The technology
and media change but the target him- or herself does
not.”
Mark Ritson
25. 25
I N S I T E S C O N S U LT I N G
CASE:
Unilever Axe altering definition of Masculinity11
Unilever is a true purpose brand, it’s been seven years since they installed the
Sustainable Living plan across the organization as well as its brand portfolio
which focusses on improving health and wellbeing, reducing environmental
impact and enhancing the lives of millions of people. As a brand, the mission
of Axe - or Lynx in certain parts of the world - is to help guys look, feel and
smell their most attractive. Yet over the past years, masculinity has evolved.
The rules of attraction have changed, having moved to connection rather than
conquest; the notion of beauty through individuality has grown. Although the
bigger need for men to feel and look attractive has not changed, the meaning
did. Axe connected with their audience to better understand this changing
dynamic in order to keep serving their purpose with meaning.
26. 26
One of the key characteristics of a good insight is that it is steady in
nature, resisting the test of time. Whilst a need or insights does not
change much over time, the actualization (i.e. how the need can be ful-
filled) may well alter due to changing consumer and market dynamics.
Therefore, brands need to embrace an adaptive attitude in the exe-
cution in order to keep servicing the same need relevantly. More than
ever brands need to keep a finger on the pulse of what drives their
market and their consumers, making the need for ongoing consumer
understanding very real. Yet, instead of relying on input coming directly
from consumers, marketers tend to primarily depend on their own gut
feeling, talks with colleagues or advice from experts on the matter.
A CEB study with nearly 800 marketers at Fortune 1000 companies
shows that the customer’s voice is only incorporated in 11% of market-
ing decisions12
. Truth is, if brands wish to stay in business, they need to
invest in an ongoing consumer connection.
BUILDING
STRUCTURAL
CONSUMER
CONNECTIONS
27. 27
I N S I T E S C O N S U LT I N G
Installing a structural consumer connection can be done in several
ways, from launching a Facebook page where you exchange thoughts
with your target audience to engaging interesting and interested con-
sumers in structural research projects. Interesting refers to those that
can bring relevant and valuable input to your organization. In marketing
research, we tend to focus on ‘national representativity’ as a key criteri-
on for research validity. Instead of focusing on having a mirrored distri-
bution on age, gender or product usage, it might be more interesting to
learn from those not using or heavily using your brand and product or
from those having a certain affinity with the category. Interested refers
to those wanting to share their opinion, those that want to help a brand
further, help it grow.
Although many agree that consumers form the heart of their business,
marketing professionals often lose track of the real consumer reality.
Yet to stay relevant, brands need to have a real feel of what is driving
consumers and of the market on the long and short term. This can be
reached by going ‘gemba’. Gemba is Japanese for ‘the real place’. For
marketers, gemba is where your consumers are, real consumer immer-
sion. It is the act of submerging internal stakeholders in the consumer
reality. In marketing research, this can be reached through contextual
and ethnographic research, where you have consumers provide you
feedback when they are in relevant context occasions.
28. 28
CASE
How SkyPriority goes ‘gemba’
As an association of twenty airlines, SkyTeam’s mission is to create a seamless
travel experience through operational excellence while maintaining a customer
focus. To become truly customer-centric, a network of high-value custom-
ers provide real-time feedback via a proprietary mobile application. Using
geo-location technology, feedback is prompted at relevant occasions (e.g.
when customers enter an airport), allowing passengers to review each journey
touchpoint (e.g. check-in, boarding…). Next to completing these short sur-
veys, passengers can report their experience through pictures and bottom-up
comments, ensuring feedback is always embedded in a real-life context. Rath-
er than the traditional feedback loop of days, weeks or months, all SkyPriority
managers can access a customized online dashboard with real-time response
data - survey figures, stories and photos - allowing them to continuously have
a finger on the pulse of their high-value customers. A back-end system notifies
relevant stakeholders of critical incidents, allowing them to address these im-
mediately. By embedding these continuous feedback loops, SkyTeam moved
from a ‘push’ to a ‘pull’ approach, with 83% of the SkyTeam managers stating
the program allows them to better understand their customers’ needs.
29. 29
I N S I T E S C O N S U LT I N G
But this ongoing, structural character should also be present within the
company walls, where you create a habit of consumer listening across
all company stakeholders. This must go beyond the traditional research
sphere, where a consumer connection is only set up when the business
shows to have a direct research need. Instead, consumer centricity
means involving the consumers’ voice in everything you do. We often
box all consumer collaboration requests as ‘consumer research’ where-
as the need to interact with consumers also occurs outside the classic
research funnel. Just think of when you are having a discussion with
your colleague and you would like to quickly check your hypothesis or
run something by your consumers. Or when you are preparing a pitch
for a new product and you would benefit from that one statistic to sup-
port your business case. Or when you are about to enter an ideation
brainstorm and would like to get some consumer inspiration. Consumer
centricity exceeds classic research projects, it is about installing an
ongoing consumer connection.
By building these structural connections, brands, marketers and other
stakeholders get a closer feel of the reality beyond the company walls,
allowing decision-making to be fed by the consumers’ voice whilst
keeping track and envisioning the greater need and purpose it serves.
30. 30
DIGEST
In this increased acceleration, automation and abundance,
the true challenge is to derive meaning. We are living in a world of
too much data and too few insights. In order to make sense of it all,
digestibility is key, on the one hand by dealing with different, smaller,
bite-size challenges and embracing iterative and consecutive learning
and on the other hand by taking a step back to derive meaning by
including different perspectives.
31. 31
I N S I T E S C O N S U LT I N G
To increase digestibility, many refer to the notion of agile marketing (re-
search). Agile is buzzing, with words like scrum, backlogs and sprints
increasingly being part of a marketer’s and even a marketing research-
er’s glossary. Yet agile is often merely linked to speedy processes,
while in fact it goes beyond adopting a scrum approach. In order to
embrace digestible thinking, marketers should be ‘kaizen’.
Kaizen is a Japanese business philosophy and originates from the
words ‘kai’ meaning ‘change’ and ‘zen’ which is ‘good’, literally meaning
‘change for the better’ or ‘continuous improvement’. Basically, it means
marketers need to step away from the classic, rigid marketing plans
and embrace a constant learning mindset. Instead of thinking big cam-
paigns, large innovation funnels or extensive brand planning, it is about
incorporating a more adaptive and experimental approach. Crucial in
this incremental thinking is to approach change starting from a ‘minimal
valuable product’, by dealing with a business challenge in small steps:
you try something on a small scale, you learn from the experience,
results and feedback and only then do you develop the next version.
SURFING THE
RIVER OF TINY
INSIGHTS
32. 32
In marketing research, this means moving away from a plan-set-op-
timize-launch-learn research approach to a more ongoing do-learn
mentality, by working in short iterative cycles and incorporating instant
feedback to deliver fitting solutions. Rather than defining a whole
research track upfront, you work iteratively, where you start a project
with a few questions and move towards the next loop based on
learnings or additional questions from the previous loop. Applying this
more adaptive and experimental approach in marketing research will
allow organizations to react to instant inspiration and validation needs
on both tactical and more strategical business challenges. This way,
research is fueled by what drives the organization at certain moments.
Next, the agile mindset shortens the (traditionally long) research
cycles, allowing to fuel fast decision-making. Yet the benefit also lies
at the participant side, where an iterative approach forces marketers
and researchers to let go of the omnibus mentality where they bombard
research participants with questions to capture all their research needs.
Organizing change through small strokes and surfing the river of tiny
insights gives brands and marketers the opportunity to organize
research at the pace of the business and digest and incorporate the
direct result of their actions. This would result in increased consumer
centricity where the voice of the consumer is embedded in market-
ing decisions beyond the classic research funnel. Yet this iterative
approach can come with a certain side effect; there is a danger that
this emphasis on the now could result in a single-shot focus. When
33. 33
I N S I T E S C O N S U LT I N G
concentrating too much on tactical executions, one stops creating
insights. This can be countered by building a learning plan, where
internal stakeholders define what they want to learn throughout all their
research activities. These learning needs should be taken along in all
projects, where you analyze results while taking this bigger scope into
account. By connecting the learnings from all research pieces, one can
define meta learnings and build intelligence. Researchers and market-
ers thus need to avoid falling into the ‘agile trap’ by keeping track of the
greater purpose and ambition.
Digest also means making room to take a step back and look at things
from a different perspective. It’s about taking a helicopter view, where
you maximize interpretation by looking at your data from all possible
angles.
As people, we tend to see the world through our own lenses, and rarely
do we see more than our mind allows for. It’s in our nature, our brain is
programmed to recognize familiarities. This programmed filter allows
to easily pick up and digest signals from our surroundings, yet it also
forms a great bias. Just think of visiting a beautiful place on holiday;
TAKING A
STEP BACK
34. 34
you can take a mental shot of the surroundings, yet nothing beats a
picture to capture it forever. And the interesting fact is, when looking
at the picture later on, you might spot things you didn’t see when you
were there. This mental bias is present in everything we do, also when
interpreting results, brainstorming on new ideas, developing a new
brand strategy, defining new usage moments… yet it can be countered
by taking a step back and interpreting things from a meta perspective.
You can do so by taking a helicopter view and considering the men-
tal model your brand uses. Depending on whether you are following
the classic, penetration, influencer or relationship branding religion,
you will digest things from a different perspective (see Brand Religion
paper). But this is also done by involving different people with different
roles and backgrounds. By making research and insights available to
all stakeholders, you will get a more complete, 360° view of reality, as
everyone will look at things from their own perspective, through their
own lenses.
35. 35
GLUE
Whilst an iterative approach involving different
perspectives helps increase digestibility, it also leads to more
insights and data points. Combining these with the abundance
of data sources available, one might get lost in translation.
Only by gluing data and people can we generate
connected wisdom.
I N S I T E S C O N S U LT I N G
36. 36
In the past, primary research formed the core source of consumer and
market insights, yet today it is just the tip of the iceberg and a minor
part of the data mix surrounding us. Only by connecting the dots be-
tween the diverse streams of data can marketing (research) reach the
augmented view essential for future-proof decision-making.
Traditionally, research focusses on a single-method approach to gain
consumer understanding. Yet this method focus often results in a uni-
fied, often depthless, perspective. Thinking in terms of activities rather
than methods and adopting a solution focus, however, allows to gain a
deeper understanding of the underlying question or business need. And
only by complementing this solution focus with existing data streams
can one get a comprehensive picture. In the end, great insights do not
only come from what you ask people.
We should thus leverage the data abundance (e.g. behavioral and so-
cial data) surrounding us. Researchers and marketers should become
smart connectors that uncover better and stronger insights by linking
different data streams (e.g. survey or research data, social media data,
behavioral data) and connecting the dots. In that sense, marketers and
researchers are like bartenders: you select the right ingredients and
shake or stir them wisely to create the perfect cocktail in order to fully
GLUING
THE DOTS
37. 37
I N S I T E S C O N S U LT I N G
grasp the consumer and market reality. There are no real limits any-
more, the only limit is your own ability and creativity to smartly connect
all the tools and data that are available.
“Consumers are like clouds, they are unique and elu-
sive, constantly changing and unpredictable. Looking
at a cloud, from the ground up, it is hard to define its
shape. To measure clouds, it is not sufficient to look at
them directly, you need to take different perspectives
to fully understand them. In fact, it is by looking at the
shadow it creates, that one can reveal its shape. The
same goes for understanding consumers.”
Tony Costella, Consumer Insights Director at Heineken
CASE
How Philips uncovered the digital footprint of online shopping
Philips Lighting is a global market leader with recognized expertise in the
development, manufacturing and application of innovative (LED) lighting
solutions. Philips Lighting aspires to optimize their online sales of lighting
bulbs, luminaires and connected lights by improving traffic to and conver-
sion on Philips-branded web pages on e-tailer properties. This is typically
done through customer journey mapping and touchpoint analysis. Yet what
people say they do is often not in line with their actual behavior. Hence,
38. 38
to identify and map the consumer journey in all its aspects, a multiple-data
approach was used. A usage and attitude survey mapped ‘what people think
they do’, while a shopper mission revealed ‘what people really do’, using
passive metering technology. The latter yielded in a full digital footprint of
the online purchase behavior (e.g. website visits, search terms used and app
usage). Combining these different perspectives allowed to reveal discrep-
ancies between stated and actual behavior, ultimately leading to a more
profound understanding of the shopper mission. The research revealed for
example that although 44% of shoppers claim reviews are their main driver
for purchase, only 7% actually read them; it also uncovered that reviews
rather serve as a driver for where to shop rather than the purchase itself.
39. 39
I N S I T E S C O N S U LT I N G
But things go beyond connecting the consumer and the data. The
silo mentality is also present within and across organizations. Far too
often, clients and agencies work alongside each other, as two separate
entities, not keeping the other one in the loop except when a research
need occurs. Yet working ‘kaizen’ (i.e. in long-term, iterative loops)
requires an ongoing conversation between agency and clients. Clients
need to keep the agency in the loop on potential projects that might
enter the pipeline, while agencies in their turn need to feed back any
results or insights as soon as they become available (cf. supra: bite-
size reporting). This continuous flow of communication will stimulate
stakeholders to adopt a continuous learning mindset enabling fast
decision-making.
Yet it does not end there. To answer the need for speed from the busi-
ness, both agencies and clients need to reorganize themselves and
remove any internal silo structures.
Insight Managers need to position themselves as a structural business
partner for all internal stakeholders requesting consumer inspiration
or validation. At the same time, they should function as a doorkeeper,
connecting the internal business with the agency side. The latter must
also reorganize themselves to serve all client needs agilely. Tradi-
tional research teams consist of people each with a particular set of
GLUING
TEAMS
40. 40
skills and involved in a subset of tasks. Yet if wanting to cope with the
need for speed and taking on a ‘kaizen’ approach, it is important that
team members are trained to adopt T-shaped skills, i.e. to be involved
in every step of the way or that expert roles are grouped in small
cross-functional teams. This requires a new organizational structure,
beyond moving from traditional hierarchy to flat-management alterna-
tives. Some companies, such as Freitag and Zappos, found the answer
in ‘holacracy’, a framework where the processes are organized in
circles and sub-circles with people taking on different roles and tasks.
In this structure, employees are empowered to take a leadership role
and make meaningful decisions, feeding organizational agility when a
request comes in from the client side.
Removing the silos both within and across organizations will allow
research to follow the pace of the business. At the client side, it will
furthermore remove any need for internal stakeholders to do things
themselves. This will eventually lead to more connected research,
where the business can learn as a whole, thus avoiding any research
overlap and also guaranteeing consistent research quality.
42. 42
EARN
Traditional marketing was all about buying media and buying
attention. Yet today, consumers are bombarded with commercial
messages, with between 4,000 and 10,000 brand and advertisement
cues reaching us on a daily basis (ads, brand logos,
product placement…). Only a small minority of all this gets absorbed.
The commercial overdose has resulted in consumers filtering out this
commercial layer, making it a great challenge for brands to stand out
and break through the clutter. The days where brands could yell for
attention are over; today, you have to earn it.
43. 43
I N S I T E S C O N S U LT I N G
Researchers and marketers must (re)consider the lifetime value of
consumers. We need to earn their attention. Throughout the years, the
research industry, just like the marketing world, has taken this for grant-
ed, with disastrous consequences. We continue to approach consum-
ers with long and boring questionnaires, causing not only drop-out and
low survey quality but also the risk to dry out consumer panels in the
long run. Instead, we should invest in engagement in the long term, for
example by adapting our research formats to the snappy reality.
This goes beyond what the industry labels wrongly as ’earned media’,
the clicks, shares and eyeballs on your pages are not earned at all.
With the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) coming in place
in May 2018, the doors to consumers will be locked for good, making
it more important than ever to earn their attention and engagement.
Because ultimately, if you earn the consumers, you earn the data and if
you earn the data, you earn the future.
EARNING
THROUGH
ENGAGEMENT
44. 44
Consumers are forced to make continuous trade-offs on how to
spend their time. The new generation has grown up using visual and
ephemeral communication, resulting in different expectations of how
and when they want to connect with brands (See NextGen Research
paper).
In order to stay relevant, we need to move towards more natural
consumer connections, by working with iterations of short research
challenges at moments which are relevant for people to give their
opinion about; for example, during idle times, when people take a
break or have some time left or at moments where they just had a
certain product or service experience and want to share their feedback.
Yet increased naturalness also means embracing more contemporary
channels of communication. When looking at how people are using the
variety of communication channels available, we can see that the most
popular online communication is ‘simple chat’. Over 2.5 billion people
have installed at least one messaging app, with WhatsApp, Facebook
Messenger and WeChat leading the pack. With people using more
and more chat-based communication like WhatsApp and Messenger,
research should also incorporate these more natural communication
settings.
45. 45
I N S I T E S C O N S U LT I N G
Next, it is important to consider why consumers want to help us, con-
nect with us and share their opinion. It is key to identify what consum-
ers expect in return. We cannot keep taking without giving back in any
way.
Consumer connections come with a responsibility. It is common to fall into
a ‘speed trap’, where the fast decision-making forces you to keep going
forward. Yet it will become increasingly more important to take a step
back and feed back to consumers what you have done with their input.
This implies a form of mutual trust. Marketers and researchers need
to earn the consumers’ trust. This will be even more important once
the new privacy legislation is in place. It will become impossible to use
consumer data without the consumers’ explicit consent. Nevertheless,
this also brings a huge opportunity, because if you earn the consumers,
you earn the data.
EARNING
BY TAKING
RESPONSIBILITY
“Move from marketing to consumers,
to mattering to people.”
David Jones, Former CEO Havas Media
46. 46
The Mad Men days are over and this is probably for the better. None-
theless, we can undoubtedly learn a few things from Don Draper and
his colleagues. Consider one of his famous quotes, “The day you sign
a client is the day you start losing him”, which is the plain truth for con-
sumers and research participants as well. The days are over when you
could take clients/ consumers/ participants/ people for granted; they
are the beating heart of any business. In order to stay relevant in these
accelerating, automated and abundant times, we need to retrieve the
edge marketing (research) needs and deserves.
This starts with envisioning the bigger purpose and cultivating long-
term strategic thinking, whilst embracing an adaptive attitude by build-
ing structural consumer connections. Next, in this world of too much
data and too few insights, we need to increase digestibility by embrac-
ing iterative and consecutive learning as well as by incorporating a he-
licopter view. Next, it is about generating connected wisdom by gluing
data and people. Lastly, we need to ditch the ‘own’ mentality and start
thinking about how we can earn consumer attention and closeness.
The mad (wo)men of the future are those marketers and researchers
that embrace today’s future through edgy thinking.
47. 47
I N S I T E S C O N S U LT I N G
REFERENCES
1
Bolloré, Y. (2017). Welcome to meaningful brands®
2017. Retrieved from http://dk.havas.com/
wp-content/uploads/sites/37/2017/02/mb17_brochure_final_web.pdf
2
UEG Press release (2017, October 30). UEG Week: Artificial intelligence: is this the future of
early colorectal cancer detection? Retrieved from https://www.ueg.eu/press/releases/
ueg-press-release/article/ueg-week-artificial-intelligence-is-this-the-future-of-early-colorectal-
cancer-detection/
3
Seo, S.H. and Young, J.E. (2017). Picassnake: the painting robot. Retrieved from http://hci.
cs.umanitoba.ca/projects-and-research/details/picassnake-the-painting-robot
4
Dvorsky, G. (2017, June 14). This Artificially Intelligent Robot Composes and Performs Its
Own Music. Retrieved from https://gizmodo.com/this-artificially-intelligent-robot-composes-
and-perfor-17960930825
5
Manyika, J.; Chui, M.; Miremadi, M.; Bughin, J.; George, K.; Willmott, P. and Dewhurst, M.
(2017, January). Harnessing automation for a future that works. Retrieved from https://www.
mckinsey.com/global-themes/digital-disruption/harnessing-automation-for-a-future-that-works
6
Beiner, F. (2015, May). Will “Marketer” be Replaced By Robots? Retrieved from https://www.
replacedbyrobot.info/3819/marketer
7
TED Guest author (2014, May 17). We asked 3 experts: How will AI change our lives in the
near future? Retrieved from https://blog.ted.com/we-asked-3-experts-how-will-ai-change-our-
lives-in-the-near-future/
8
Marr, B. (2017, January 23). Really Big Data At Walmart: Real-Time Insights From Their 40+
Petabyte Data Cloud. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2017/01/23/
really-big-data-at-walmart-real-time-insights-from-their-40-petabyte-data-cloud/
#22caf1b56c10
9
Danziger, P.N. (2017, October 24). How Can P&G Be So Clueless About What Consumers
Want? Retrieved from https://www-forbes-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.forbes.com/sites/
pamdanziger/2017/10/24/can-pg-be-so-clueless-about-what-customers-want/amp/
10
Brand Language Design (2017, March 27). The relation between Brand Purpose and Brand
Profit. Retrieved from http://www.agbrandlanguagedesign.com/relation-between-brand-
purpose-and-brand-profit
11
Unilever. AXE. Retrieved from https://www.unilever.com/brands/our-brands/axe.html
12
Spenner, P. and Bird, A. (2012, August 16). Marketers Flunk the Big Data Test. Retrieved
from https://hbr.org/2012/08/marketers-flunk-the-big-data-test
13
Softpedia®
News. Fire Drill Gone Bad Shuts Down An ING Bank Data Center for Ten Hours.
Retrieved from http://news.softpedia.com/news/fire-drill-gone-bad-shuts-down-one-of-ing-s-
data-centers-for-ten-hours-508189.shtml
48. 48
Katia Pallini
Content Impact Manager
Katia is part of the ForwaR&D Lab and
Marketing team at InSites Consulting, where
her focus lies on research innovation and
content marketing. Her areas of expertise
are branding, implicit research and making
research NextGen-proof.
Katia@insites-consulting.com
@KPallini
@annaliezze
annelies.verhaeghe@insites-consulting.com
Annelies Verhaeghe
Managing Partner & Head of Research Innovation
Annelies is Managing Partner at InSites Consulting.
She has an interest in consumer insight activation
and neo-observational research techniques, such
as consumer-led ethnography, and is intrigued by
how to get fresh insights out of social media data.
Annelies won the ESOMAR Young Researcher of
the Year Award in 2009 and has been a regular
speaker at market research events in addition to
having several publications in academic and trade
journals. She is also in charge of the daily operations
at the research hub of InSites Consulting in Romania
and has a passion for the region.
49. Kristof@insites-consulting.com
@kristofdewulf
Kristof De Wulf
CEO InSites Consulting
With over 20 years of relevant experience with
world-leading FMCG brands, Kristof helps global
brands to unlock the consulting potential that
resides in ordinary consumers. He is co-author
of the book The Consumer Consulting Board,
has been awarded with the MOAward for Agency
Researcher of the year 2010 and is a regular
speaker at various research and marketing events
worldwide.
49
Tom De Ruyck
Managing Partner
Tom is Managing Partner and global expert in
consumer & employee collaboration, supporting
InSites Consulting’s efforts to make companies
more consumer-connected. He loves leading
in-depth workshops and chairing events, and has
given more than 500 speeches all around the
world. Next to that he is Adjunct Professor at the
IESEG School of Management.
Tom@insites-consulting.com
@tomderuyck
50. ack in the Mad Men days, marketers were creative superstars that
lived on the edge to move people, brands and businesses. Since the ‘60s,
we moved from a world characterized by linearity, craftmanship and scarcity
to one defined by acceleration, automation and abundance. While we shift-
ed to this opposite, marketing (research) seems to be still holding on to the
same old principles and values as if nothing has changed. We are fooling
ourselves in thinking we are part of this transformation. Instead we are char-
acterized by ignorance, where we keep on chasing the same practices. Is
our market at a standstill? Have we lost our edge? This paper will highlight a
framework to bring back the edge marketing (research) deserves.
By Annelies Verhaeghe (Managing Partner & Head of Research Innova-
tion), Katia Pallini (Content Impact Manager), Kristof De Wulf (CEO) and
Tom De Ruyck (Managing Partner).
ABOUT INSITES CONSULTING
From the start of InSites Consulting in 1997 until
today, there has been only one constant: we are
continuously pushing the boundaries of marketing
research. With a team of academic visionaries,
passionate marketers and research innovators, we
empower people to create the future of brands. As
one of the top 3 most innovative market research
agencies in the world (GRIT), we help our clients
connect with consumers all over the world.
www.insites-consulting.com
B
