7
STEPS
to unlocking what your business already knows
7 STEPS TO UNLOCKING WHAT YOUR BUSINESS ALREADY KNOWS
Why do less consumer research? There is a lot of buzz at the moment about the potential of Big Data, the explosion of consumer information online and from social media. But the reality is that most global brands haven’t even tapped the full potential of existing knowledge sources within their business.
Unlocking existing knowledge is not easy. Like any discipline, it takes experience and know-how to do it well. The sheer quantity and diversity of information sources can make tackling a challenge this way a daunting task. And while many of the obstacles are technical and analytical in nature, it is the human side of the challenge that can often be a barrier to success. So not just finding the answers but landing them in fragmented global teams.
Name any challenge faced by brands today and the chances are that the key to unlocking the answer exists already: in databases, in presentations, in people’s heads or is easily available in the world around us.
Every challenge is different and there is no one-size-fits-all solution to unlocking the potential of what your business already knows. But there are steps you can follow that maximise your chance of success.
It’s not that we don’t value consumer research; in fact it’s just the opposite. We prize it so highly we don’t like to see it go to waste.
So why do brands so often turn to commissioning expensive and lengthy research when the answers they seek are already so close to hand? Commissioning new consumer research has become the automatic response.
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7 STEPS TO UNLOCKING WHAT YOUR BUSINESS ALREADY KNOWS
1.
Turn challenges into killer questions If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than 5 minutes.
Albert Einstein
Most brands have a good understanding of their challenges, but time isn’t always taken to translate these into the right questions. There is little value in wading into existing information sources with just an end-goal in mind, expecting answers to leap off the page. It’s like orienteering without a destination, or a creative session without a brief. Articulating the right questions can help you crystallise your understanding of a brand challenge and give focus to your analysis. And questioning is an iterative process that builds as the analysis progresses, sharpening and refining your approach. One question will naturally lead to another and another, tracing a pathway to greater understanding.
Articulating the right questions can help you crystallise your understanding of a brand challenge and give focus to your analysis.
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7 STEPS TO UNLOCKING WHAT YOUR BUSINESS ALREADY KNOWS
2.
Understand and engage with your internal audiences We have to compete just as fiercely for our internal audience’s attention as we do for our external customers’. Our thinking needs to be shared with, and influence, a diverse team scattered across the globe. These audiences will be busy negotiating back-to-back meetings, training courses and workshops, an overflowing email inbox and a never-ending to-do list. We need to do all we can to engage them and understand the world from their point of view.
We have to compete just as fiercely for our internal audience’s attention as we do for our external customers’.
We have to compete just as fiercely for our So what are their burning issues and their internal audience’s expectations? How will the thinking and ideas we attention as we develop be used and what barriers to engagement will we needdo to overcome? when we have for ourOnly external this audience insight can we prioritise our efforts customers’. in the right places and bring our thinking together in the best way to land it successfully. Exploring these issues will also give us the opportunity to engage our audiences emotionally at the start of the process and capture their imagination. Teaser videos for example can be a cost-effective yet impactful way of doing this.
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7 STEPS TO UNLOCKING WHAT YOUR BUSINESS ALREADY KNOWS
3.
Define & explore lenses for analysis There are many different ways we can look at a challenge - lenses through which we can see the world. It’s a bit like looking at different maps. The shape of the land is familiar, but each map reveals a new layer of insight: weather, roads, topography, population… To get answers to our questions we need to understand which lenses will best help us answer our questions and solve our challenges. This means building layer upon layer of understanding which opens up new routes to interesting places and fresh perspectives. Our lenses help us sift through mountains of information, so we focus on relevant materials, knowing when to condense, combine and simplify to bring clarity. Our lenses can be demographics, attitudes, motivations, behaviours, insights, cultural codes and trends. Or they can be based around issues more specific to the task at hand. Or we can combine information sources to build richer dimensions of understanding. For example; combine consumer segmentation with trends and you can identify ‘tribes’ - future facing typologies that help to shape strategy, not just capture the dynamics of today; combine occasion data with ethnographic learning and build a rich picture of the rituals that are the key to unlocking behaviour change; combine category needs with inspiring cultural codes and you uncover white space for innovation that’s rooted in the motivational drivers of today.
Ultimately lenses help us to take what can seem a huge and impenetrable mass of information and make it more approachable, providing our analysis with a sense of purpose and structure.
Ultimately lenses help us to take what can seem a huge and impenetrable mass of information and make it more approachable, providing our analysis with a sense of purpose and structure. pg. 4
7 STEPS TO UNLOCKING WHAT YOUR BUSINESS ALREADY KNOWS
4.
Create a
framework
for focus and shared understanding It’s not enough that one person or team benefits from this new thinking, it needs to be shared and embedded across global teams and with partner agencies to lend focus and really drive change. Great frameworks provide us with simple models that are repeatable across geography and situation. They help us navigate challenges, identify areas of growth and opportunity and give us a common language to discuss issues and share thinking across teams and geographies. So another person on the other side of the world can take the framework and use it to employ the same logic and insights to reach similar conclusions about their brand and strategy. There are many different models for mapping categories, markets and opportunities for growth, and they should be tailored to suit the challenge and the needs of the audience. But regardless of the model chosen any good strategy should be robustly validated, insightful and simple enough to explain on a single page and navigate intuitively.
Another person on the other side of the world can take the framework and use it to employ the same logic and insights to reach similar conclusions about their brand and strategy.
And the advantage of building these frameworks is that they can adapt and evolve over time as new learning comes in. They can be used to solve fresh challenges beyond the scope of a single project, without having to build answers from scratch, making decision-making quicker, simpler, more consistent and cost effective over time. pg. 5
7 STEPS TO UNLOCKING WHAT YOUR BUSINESS ALREADY KNOWS
5.
Collide sources for ideas & creative leaps
This creative leap happens when learning from different information sources is collided together. It’s not a gentle melding of facts and figures; it’s a high energy and creative process.
Ultimately we are looking to drive change, getting to new and exciting places in innovation, positioning, portfolio planning or brand activation. And our learning needs to play an active role in the creative process. This creative leap happens when learning from different information sources is collided together. It’s not a gentle melding of facts and figures; it’s a high energy and creative process. We can ‘Triangulate’ insights, a creative and collaborative approach to generating opportunity platforms. And we can apply a range of creative techniques to translating evidence-based insights into stimulus for high-impact idea generation. It’s not about facts overwhelming creativity; it’s about preserving the right blend of magic and logic to get to stronger ideas with robust commercial foundations. So whatever the approach, the end should be the same - breakthrough ideas that have a clear line of sight back to their knowledgebased foundation.
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7 STEPS TO UNLOCKING WHAT YOUR BUSINESS ALREADY KNOWS
6.
Bridge the engagement gap with
stories
The ‘engagement gap’ describes an important distinction between people who have travelled the journey to new thinking and ideas, and those who come to it afresh. Those heavily involved in the challenge, who were immersed in the detailed analysis and who helped shape the thinking and idea creation, are naturally more engaged. For those coming to the thinking and ideas afresh, the logic might be sound but they need a means to connect and internalise what is being shared. They need to buy in on an emotional level. And that’s why we need stories; to turn facts into narratives and take our audiences on an emotionally engaging journey. Stories are more than a sequence of facts or events. They set out a goal or ambition and plot the journey to success, harnessing a sense of drama and tension along the way.
For those coming to the thinking and ideas afresh, the logic might be sound but they need a means to connect and internalise what is being shared. They need to buy in on an emotional level. pg. 7
7 STEPS TO UNLOCKING WHAT YOUR BUSINESS ALREADY KNOWS
7.
Land thinking through internal communication With the constant pressure of workloads and deadlines, audiences are looking for help in shortening their ‘to-do’ lists, not adding to them. PowerPoint presentations are designed to fit a certain purpose sharing and discussing thinking in a debrief situation. But beyond this they become a chore for people to wade through, a mountain of information to climb to get what they really need. We should go beyond presentations and approach landing our thinking as a communications challenge. It’s helpful to consider audience ‘use-cases’, understanding where thinking and ideas will be used and designing communication and tools to fit these occasions and make our audience’s lives simpler. And we need to engage people with ideas and stories in the same ways they experience them in their dayto-day lives. This means combining different tools & media (physical totems, digital toolkits, video, websites and mobile) to create richer experiences. The world of research, analysis and strategic thinking needs to harness the same tools as the world of entertainment and advertising if we are to compete for our audience’s time and attention on a level playing field.
It’s helpful to consider audience ‘use-cases’, understanding where thinking and ideas will be used and designing communication and tools to fit these occasions and make our audience’s lives simpler.
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7 STEPS TO UNLOCKING WHAT YOUR BUSINESS ALREADY KNOWS
It takes a concerted effort to unlock the potential of what your business already knows. But when you do, the benefits are greater speed, better value for money and stronger thinking & ideas that are shared and landed across global teams to drive change and stimulate growth. Surely that has to make doing less research worthwhile.
By Jonathan Williams
+44 (0)7734 563 541 jonathanw@mash.uk.com www.mash.uk.com Jonathan Williams is a Co-founding Director of Mash and works with global brands to help unlock the potential of what their business already knows.