By Brett Townsend, SVP of Strategy at Quester and Author of Insights on the Brink
When you ask business professionals and even many in the consumer insights industry, “What is the purpose of consumer insights?” many will answer with “do research,” “be the voice of the consumer,” or “answer questions.” All of these are true but still dances around the real purpose—to make companies money. Many in the consumer insights industry forget this as they go about their day-to-day jobs and define their role as doing research. But make no mistake, this industry is about making companies money and the fact that consumer insights is so easily cut at the first sign of economic trouble or during restructuring shows that senior leaders don’t feel their insights are helping them make money. If they did, they would never dream of cutting off that well of revenue.
This is also evident in the way most companies traditionally classify the consumer insights budget as non-working dollars. They view the money given to consumer insights the same as agency fees, legal approvals, and employee costs. This is usually done by default, following the business playbook of the past 50 years but it also speaks to the way many companies view consumer insights. If they truly felt consumer insights were leading directly to sales, they would gladly move the budget to working dollars; especially since most companies are looking to cut their non-working dollars.
So how do we ensure consumer insights is a profit generating asset? There are many steps, but I’ll address three of them. The first step is very simple but not always easy: whenever you are about to embark on a research study, honestly ask if that study provides a path to sales. This forces us to really be honest with ourselves. We initiate a lot of studies that are interesting to us or that could even be fun to work on, and that can be an exciting part of our jobs. But we need to only do work that leads to sales. It may not be immediate sales (like in the case of product development or innovation), but there is still an eventual path. If the answer is no, it won’t lead to sales, then we don’t do it, or we change the focus so it does.
Saying no can be the one of the hardest things we can do as CI professionals, but it’s a skill we must master if we’re to be the best at our jobs. It doesn’t need to be a “hard no” or a “nonnegotiable no,” but many times it can be a “no, but…” We can show we’re open to options to improve what’s suggested to us while maintaining the stance that we won’t waste resources on bad research that doesn’t lead to sales. There are projects we just simply shouldn’t do, but many projects just need a little redirection or refocus to make them effective.
It’s not only starting with a focus on the sales outcome but revisiting that focus throughout the entire process. It lives throughout the design, the execution, and the analytics and comes to life in development of the strategy. This is a critical component of the agency’s role—it’s not just to focus on execution. It requires a partnership between agency and corporate clients to keep focus on the sales outcome. This is when the industry is viewed as strategic consultants, not market researchers.
Secondly, consumer insights can also help drive sales within our organizations by developing better business acumen and learning the business cold. For years, the criticisms of CI and its partners were that we work in silos, don’t understand the business, do research in a vacuum, and therefore bring recommendations (when we actually bring recommendations) that don’t help the business. The most effective corporate leaders are the ones who understand a lot about the entire business, not just their own functional area. The most powerful insights we can deliver are ones that take into consideration product development issues, technological limitations, implementation barriers, financial impact, supply chain implications, and sell-in stumbling blocks, just to name a few.
To do this, we must all be an active part of the entire business—CI internally and agency partners. Not only should we be working hand in hand with cross-functional partners, but we should also take the time to learn their parts of the business. Not only does consumer insights work hand in hand with cross-functional partners but should also take the time to learn their parts of the business. Embed yourselves within the brand, retail, and innovation teams by attending their team meetings and monthly business reviews, work side by side with major business presentations like AOP and SBR.
Doing this allows us to be proactive insights partners who see the entire picture, then propose the most impactful insights projects that would benefit the entire business rather than be told what research to do. It takes our industry out of the order-taker position to prescribing the best insights needs for the business. It also removes the stigma of being “just insights people” because we have proven our business acumen. That allows us to take advantage of opportunities within our companies that we would not otherwise qualify for because we understand marketing, product development, and retail strategy. Many talented CI professionals have used their business acumen to rise to senior positions in marketing, innovation, product development, and executive leadership.
Lastly, we need to deliver presentations that help get decisions made. To do this, we must know our audience. We generally prepare one report that we share throughout the organization, regardless of department or level within the company. Keep in mind the saying “I don’t need to know everything you know, I just need to know what I need to know” when preparing presentations. Product development doesn’t need details on the best way to message and market the finished product just like marketing doesn’t need to know details about the best technical specs. We should build a couple of versions of our reports depending on to whom we will be presenting and tailor the insights to them. This doesn’t need to take lots of extra time because it’s mostly discerning which slides you already have need to be shown to whom.
Regardless of the audience, each presentation should include the three “whats”: “what”, “so what,” and “now what.” Our industry is very good at the “what,” sometimes good at the “so what,” and historically bad at the “now what.” But it’s the “now what” that helps leaders make decisions. That’s what the consulting companies deliver on a consistent basis and why they’re taking insights projects away from the insights industry.
There is no H in the three whats. The H stands for “how,” which means methodology. Many times, we only get thirty minutes to present results, and when we get more time than that, it’s usually filled with questions and discussions about the three whats. When we get the chance to present to senior executives, it’s usually quick and to the point. Almost no one cares about methodology, and if they do, they can ask. Have a slide or two prepared at the end of the presentation in case it comes up, but don’t spend any of the little valuable time you have talking about the how.
And the “what” doesn’t mean just presenting data. The “what” should be in the form of a story because that’s how things get sold. When we talk about our favorite marketing and/or advertising that has an impact on us, we don’t talk about ones with stats, prices, purchase locations, flavors, etc. We talk about the ones that connect with us as humans. We should be building brand stories right alongside our marketing friends. All of us, in one form or another, are working with a brand—large or small, high or low awareness, high or low frequency usage—it doesn’t matter. A major part of our jobs should be to build the brands we work with, work with marketing to tell unique and relevant brand stories that resonate with our target customer, and influence the behavioral change we want, which is the “now what.” We need to bring it home with actionable directions on what to do about it.
Brett Townsend is SVP of Strategy at Quester Strategy and Insights and has had a successful career of generating sizable revenue on both the corporate and agency sides of consumer insights. Along with Tim Hoskins, he is also co-author of the upcoming book “Insights on the Brink.”
The convergence of tech and brands 