Source: iStock | jacoblund
Do Brands Need To Be More ‘People-Obsessed?’
Wednesday morning of the Retail Innovation Conference & Expo in Chicago kicked off with a compelling presentation by Nikkia Reveillac, director of consumer insights at Netflix.
Ms. Reveillac emphasized the importance of being “people-obsessed” in ensuring brands exceed their goals, a value she connected to her past work at Colgate-Palmolive and Twitter before joining Netflix’s “insights engine.”
While at Colgate-Palmolive, Ms. Reveillac and her team were tasked with gaining market share in communities where teeth brushing simply wasn’t as core to the “get ready for the day or night” habit as it is known to be in some places. Understanding that messaging tied to an irrelevant habit wouldn’t work, she set out to highlight the calcium content in the Colgate product – a quality much more in alignment with the target market’s concerns.
Ms. Reveillac’s Colgate-Palmolive career illuminated the significance of leveraging behavioral science to make sense of the occasionally irrational-seeming tendencies of consumers. Once consumers’ motivations and frustrations are fully understood, she explained, brands can begin developing products and designing customer experiences that will resonate with and excite consumers.
The process of moving from “observing to intuiting,” as described by Ms. Reveillac, requires organizations’ leaders to make research a priority. Research teams must, in turn, avoid common “traps” along the way to transform data into an actionable story for brands to innovate and improve around.
Ms. Reveillac identified three typical hurdles that organizations face when moving from insights to innovation:
- Having too many ideas that cause brands to become paralyzed;
- Facing overwhelming pressure to take an idea to market before the quality is there, and;
- The perception that the research reaches maturity, versus acknowledging that it should be iterative and evolve.
Ms. Reveillac discussed insights uncovered through social listening conducted by Twitter and Netflix that go beyond listening to consumers via ethnographies, surveys and focus groups. She underscored just how valuable it is for brands to comb social media to unearth ways they are both disappointing and delighting consumers so that they can perpetually improve relationships.
While two of the three brands Ms. Reveillac discussed fell under the media, entertainment and technology categories, the lessons she shared had a clear connection to the work she did at Colgate-Palmolive. This is crucial for retailers, as many would do well to study their consumers in ways brands do outside of their immediate space.
Discussion Questions
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: What additional traps would you add to the list of obstacles brands and retailers face when rolling out new products, services, store formats, etc.? How else can retailers learn from the media, entertainment and tech space?
Poll
Loading …BrainTrust
Katie Riddle
Global Retail Strategist, Verizon
David Spear
VP, Professional Services, Retail, NCR
The biggest obstacle that companies have in rolling out new products and services is getting through the bureaucracy of organizations. CEOs need to be ok with taking a strategic leap of faith and be able to get the c-suite aligned. Great ideas will always fail if they are not supported.
I believe in hearing and reacting to the voice of the customer. But in order to hear the voice of the customer, you have to actually stop and listen. For instance, most retailers set a planogram and forget it, so they’re missing the feedback they would get if they adjusted to how people were interacting with the products on the shelves.
So, how do you get insights into how they make that split-second buying decision at the moment of truth? Well, now there are sensors for that, and they’re “privacy-safe,” too. The key is to take the time to analyze the behavior you capture, and make wise business decisions from the data. We call it the 5th P (People) that goes along with Place, Product, Price and Promotion.
This is design thinking 101. The customer is always at the heart of the business, so having a robust user insights function is essential. User journeys, UX feedback, ethnographies…these aren’t feel-good throw-aways. If operationalized, they lead to the development of products and services people actually want (or didn’t know they wanted), rather than the typical “develop a product and throw it over the fence” model.
Siloed organizations will have the biggest challenges. Only by uniting the different functions, goals and vantage points in a company can the right data be gathered and interpreted in a way that produces effective and successful outcomes. Too many retailers today have departmental teams that compete with each other for budget dollars, making it almost impossible to get an accurate read of how and why products, store designs or other elements are connecting with the customer.
The desire to launch an offering vs. launch and have people love it are two different things. Invite your dream customers into the development process. Listening to candid social media feedback, data insights and end user testing can remove go-to-market blindspots.
Like media and tech firms, retailers could welcome reviews as a real-time scorecard for performance and satisfaction.
Yes, and especially in the era of AI. While AI tools are great, it’s important to remember the human connection. In the early days of automated phone directories and assistants, customers were frustrated that they were forced to endure selecting from a narrow list of options to precede through every step. In the world of automated chatbots and LLMs, let’s not make the same mistakes. Customer journeys need to be personalized and flexible based on real customer data.
How many times do we see new products launch with great fanfare and then fade fast? All the time, right? Much of this failure can be attributed to a lack of consumer insights, consumer pain points, obstacles, corporate silo’s, etc. I wholeheartedly agree with Katie Riddle about the importance of design thinking in the product development phase. Understanding the user’s desires, wants and needs are paramount, how she interacts with the product, what problems are solved, where are the dependencies, what value is derived. There’s a lot more to this, but these are table stakes for understanding the basics of what Ms. Reveillac defines as people-obsession.
Another hurdle is the obsession with innovation for innovation’s sake – particularly line extensions that should be limited time products, not presented as evergreen, and “me too” products to compete with competitors.
Brands could do a better job of focusing on what their consumers expect and what from them specifically and move away from push marketing, making the process (including new items) mutual.
Well before my time, there was a wonderful cookie, OREO. Introduced in 1912, I was still enjoying it in my childhood. Then someone thought of line extensions. Today, Oreos take up the largest portion of the cookie aisle, with Oreos of every imaginable combination of cookie and cream. Of course, let’s not forget the ice cream, yogurt, and things I can’t think of.
A line extension is simple and essentially risk-free. The payout is quick and easy to execute. Real innovation is a risk for the largest companies without that quick payout.
Many of Oreos flavors are, in fact, limited time products – not on shelf permanently. They’ve figured out how to make this work with retailers and other brands could benefit from doing the same as flavor trends come and go quickly. And even line extensions are not risk free – many have launched and had a lot put behind them and still failed, there is no guaranteed payout. There’s inherent risk, whether it’s losing shelf space or losing consumers.
Ah, yes. Halloween Orange. Christmas red. Valentine’s Day pink. In China, the flavors are even more interesting. Green Tea, Red Bean, Lychee, and Spicy Pepper.
Unless retailers offer even greater convenience, more technology-based experiences and enhanced joy in shopping, obstacles abound. Lots of new products fail and not necessarily because they are not good. Retailers should understand (as in the calcium example) what it takes to motivate their shoppers. However, the most important component of the rolling out process is to communicate effectively. Knowing what language to use, where to place the communication and tracking the outcome so adjustments can be made in a timely manner are key ingredients to successful new products. Resurrecting failed products that should not have failed can be doomed from the start. Consumers’ memories are excellent when it comes to acknowledging brand equity or dismissing an unsuccessful product.
Once upon a time, people didn’t brush their teeth. YIKES! Really! Even when the first kinds of toothpaste were introduced, they were not a big hit. They weren’t even a small hit.
Then Pepsodent changed everything. Pepsodent’s real secret to creating regular use was its added mint flavor. Unlike its peers, Pepsodent created a craving in consumers for the tingly feeling that brushing their teeth gave. Did the tingling from the mint create a better toothpaste? No. The tingling gave the impression that the toothpaste was doing something wonderful to their mouth.
I believe Ms. Reveillas would appreciate this story. Maybe she already knows it.
It feels beyond obvious that brands aimed at consumers (i.e. “people”) should be “people-obsessed.” Otherwise, what’s the point of bringing goods and services to the marketplace?
How to achieve that understanding of the consumer, especially before a product launch, is the real challenge. Data-driven insights are invaluable, whether generated by consumer panels or existing sales information — but sometimes understanding what the customer wants takes the courage of one’s convictions.
According to Steve Jobs: “People don’t know what they want until you show it to them. That’s why I never rely on market research. Our task it to read things that aren’t yet on the page.”
If your brand is not “people-obsessed” (with both customers and employees) beware! Your competition will be! Keep this in mind. As you think about what you’re doing for your customers, consider how this impacts employees. For example, you may come up with a better system or process that is customer friendly, but it may force employees to take extra steps. For employees, that can cause frustration.
They can shop their stores. Regularly. Observe what others are doing, how they are interacting with the associates and the merchandise, and come up with their own insights based on their store experience. Does the “tip window” on the display annoy? Are the bathrooms clean? How easy is it to get help when you need it? And so on.
Recently the Starbucks CEO made a point that he was going to work in a store once a month or something like that–this is exactly what others should be doing. Who needs focus groups when you are watching intently how things are going first hand?
Too frequently brands launch products based on internal dialogue, and don’t keep the voice of the customer front-and-center. Often research is not done on an on-going basis and becomes stale, and/or is done in select geographies, missing subtleties of individual markets, cohorts.
Yes, brands need to be more “people-obsessed.” Successful brands need to know what consumers want, BUT it is perhaps more important to know what consumers don’t want. Example: Bud Light.
Additional traps and obstacles become more obvious when brands and retailers extend themselves, as too many things to too many people. Traps are far fewer when brands and retailers stick to a well defined north star, share it often, and embrace a customer-driven focus in all they do. This is how they find alignment driving decisions.
CEO’s and leadership teams will find greater direction if they commit to these principles. All future studies, social listening efforts are automatically more focused, where it’s easier to wall off shiny objects and distractions.
I don’t know that the retail environment can learn or emulate the media, entertainment, and tech space, because the differences are tremendous. When rolling out new products, services, and formats, retailers need to have the right people in the right places, employ true expertise, create a thoughtful plan, and work the plan, with Plan B, always in mind.