InSites Blog

…the Mappiness iPhone App, created by George MacKerron and Susana Mourato of the Department of Geography & Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

The main aim of the application is to be able to link happiness to location. Concretely, the app ‘beeps’ you as a user once (or more) a day to ask how you feel, and additionally the people you’re with, and what you are doing. Using the GPS data from your iPhone, your happiness scores are linked to a location. Also, the noise level in your surroundings is measured by using the built-in microphone in your iPhone. All this data is then sent to the database for analysis by the researchers.

So why am I so enthusiastic about this?

• Because happiness and location are straightforward variables. They are easy to understand, and the ins & outs are explained in a fool-proof manner.
• Because I’d like to know this too! In the list of questions that have puzzled humanity for ages, the question “what makes one happy” is probably right on top. Every step in the direction of an answer is one I’d like to witness. Furthermore, knowing the answer on my individual level (what context makes me happy) is extremely relevant for me. This app provides me an experience, a very relevant issue for the market researcher of the future.
• Because they clearly explain what’s in it for them too. The communication on their website is top notch. These people are trying to take research about happiness forward, and give me a comfortable feeling about my privacy. I can get out whenever I want, and can even get my data erased upon request. The way they communicate on their website is an example for all research agencies.
• Because it’s easy data collection. Every single response is valid, as data is aggregated. Easy in, easy out, and every single piece of data is useful, unlike traditional research where a whole questionnaire needs to be completed before the respondent’s data is included.
• Because context is key. As stated in a previous post, context is an indispensable part of research in the future. This app shifts the balance almost completely from content to context; 1 key variable (happiness) with a lot of interesting context variables around it. I especially like the noise level idea.
• Because the possibilities for ‘upscaling’ this are endless. Once we know who people are with and where they are, why not ask which brands they interact with? What clothes they wear? What the weather is like? How much money they have in their wallet? …

To sum it up, this app is simple, relevant, credible, easy, gives contextual information and has a large potential for future growth. This is one application I will keep in mind when discussing observational research here at InSites Consulting.

Follow me on twitter via @eliasveris

Having almost three years of experience in offline qualitative research I have to say I was curious, but also a bit wary, to do focus groups online when I started working for InSites Consulting a few months ago.

Would the people that participated be as open?
Would the insights be as deep?
And would the client feel as satisfied with the output?

It came out that all these questions could be answered with a definite YES.

1. Participants appeared to be very open and spontaneous in their answers. Perhaps it’s the relaxed setting of being at home and the anonymity that causes people to really open up and share their views on things.
2. The depth of the learnings also doesn’t suffer by doing group discussions online. You can use exactly the same projective techniques and the same exercises to stimulate imagination and creativity. We use a special online platform that allows showing all kinds of visual stimuli to participants to enable these techniques. Next to that we work with 8 participants in each session which is surprisingly easy to manage online. This of course generates additional input.
3. Finally, as for the clients, I have been pleasantly surprised by their enthusiasm about our approach and our platform. They are able to follow the sessions from home and post additional questions to me to ask the participants if needed.

Is it then really such a success story? Well… I would say yes. In my opinion there is actually hardly any difference between offline and online research and next to that, all ages (young and old) can participate and geographical boundaries are crossed effortlessly.
Of course I cannot unravel facial expressions from consumers, but smiley’s appear to do the job just as well. I don’t have a flip chart to write on, but now I just use the white board for that purpose and to show all kinds of material.

For me it’s been a great experience so far, that’s why I’m planning to take online qualitative research forward…

Want to read more? Check out our ESOMAR award winning paper.

Innovations come about in several ways. The innovation process is often powered by technology. In other cases, marketers have sufficient knowledge and intuition to independently create new products. Occasionally, a good innovation is created by accident. Today’s active and empowered consumer is however prepared to innovate in cooperation with brands. Co-creation is the joint creation of innovations by customer and producer with the goal of better meeting customer needs. This is why co-creation is a very valuable, even necessary, supplement within the innovation process.

My Starbucks Idea is a good example of how co-creation based on consumer conversations can support the innovation process of a brand. The platform allows consumers to help think about new products. The ideas are shared with others who can vote for, and discuss, them. Platforms like these provide an open and honest opinion by the target group and demonstrate that the company values the opinions of customers. They do however remain marketing tools. The platform is open to anyone (as far as confidentiality permits) and it remains difficult to assess whether all suggestions should be examined. Companies also often underestimate the workload of such an initiative. Some consumers expect that precisely their idea will enter the market, and do not understand why they get no response, sometimes becoming quite upset. Support is needed in situations like these and this requires resources. The question, therefore, is how to apply ‘reverse engineering’ on My Starbucks Idea and translate it into a systematic and objective market research process of co-creation for innovation. This requires a specific approach with regard to target group and market research process.

Target group
Not every consumer is suitable for co-creation. This is nothing new in itself. Eric von Hippel already formulated the idea of leading edge users back in the 80s. Lead users have the same needs as the rest of the market, but much earlier than anyone else. These users are very interested in finding a solution to their needs. For innovation research, we can best approach consumers who are among the first within a specific product category to try new products and are willing to take a risk doing so. Based on theories from social psychology, the co-creation process of InSites Consulting adds a dimension to the innovation process: social independence versus interpersonal influence. We therefore approach two target groups:

• The socially independent innovators. These customers form their own opinion about an innovation based on their own personal experience, regardless of what is popular in their social context. In evaluating an innovation these consumers mainly consider the functional operation of a product; the social impact they achieve with it is secondary.
• The social influencers (influentials). This group of consumers view innovations from their immediate social environment. Influentials are regarded by their environment as a form of creative experts who easily see the benefits of innovations. Consequently, they are often asked for their opinion about certain innovations and the mainstream market follows them in terms of adoption behaviour. They enjoy being creative with products, they find it important that others approve the innovations they use and proactively talk about innovations. They are more concerned with the concrete benefits of an innovation than the technical features.

Process/method
In terms of research method, co-creation requires a different approach than traditional research. The methods must meet the intrinsic motivation and interest of consumers in a contemporary way. They include tools that allow participants to design and adapt ideas in a concrete manner.

To begin with, the right profiles are recruited: only innovators and influencers are considered. The first group are given access to a closed online platform where they generate ideas on an individual basis. All participants are regarded as “innovation-developers” here. The objective is to search for innovation in a targeted manner with a small group based on previously validated insights.

The second phase is one of cross-pollination. Innovators can evaluate the concept ideas of others, comment on them and in turn be inspired further.
During the third phase, the influentials discuss the ideas generated from a social point of view. They refine the concepts with the purpose of making the innovative concepts relevant, memorable and interesting. The influentials are instructed to adapt the ideas in such a way as to be memorable: they must be simple, credible, unexpected and concrete and contain sufficient emotion for people to talk about them with others. Concepts are also proposed as an endpoint from the perspective of the customer and innovators and influentials have tools available to adapt or tag concepts, or load audio-visual material.

Traditional qualitative techniques are intertwined with ethnographic observation methods and creative exercises throughout all phases to provide context and inspiration. All participants are given a clear briefing on what is and what is not sought as well as insights into previous research. It is of great importance that the end customer actively participates in the research conversation and provides feedback. This increases the involvement of participants and gives a face to the initiators. Our experience shows that such an approach truly works. Recognition is more important to consumers than a financial reward: managing the conversation for innovation is what keeps them going.

Results
Based on the methodology described, InSites Consulting has conducted extensive co-creation projects for Heinz, Kraft and Friesland Campina. That experience has led to the following conclusions:

1. Innovators and influentials are easy to identify for different product categories.
2. Both groups generate more and richer innovative ideas than the average consumer.
3. Besides a reality check, innovators generate other ideas than those developed using other methods (e.g. internally in the company).
4. The ideas developed by innovators are more relevant for the market after they have been reviewed and adapted by influentials.
5. The influentials assess innovations differently and identify innovations that are not recognised by the average consumer, but which do in fact have potential in the market.

Want to find out more about co-creation? Contact one of our experts: Tom De Ruyck, Tom Goderis or Prof. Dr. Niels Schillewaert

This article is also available in Marketing Driven (attachment of Pub Magazine – edition 24/06/10)

Social Media Nethnography, a set of groundbreaking research techniques for discovering and applying insights from social media, has received recognition and praise from IBM with the award of this year’s IBM SPSS Insight Award. But the results of InSites Consulting’s application of nethnography have attracted attention and praise across the entire marketing and research industry.

• The Dutch association MWG awarded the Hans du Chatinier-Prize at the AMMA Awards 2010.
• UK digital think tank eConsultancy gave the idea its Innovation Award in 2009.
• MOA (Dutch Market Research Association) recognized the innovation of the technique by awarding it the 2009 Feedback Innovation Award.
• And by applying the analysis of user-generated content in social media to improve life for the elderly, InSites Consulting’s Senior R&D Manager Annelies Verhaeghe won ESOMAR’s 2009 Young Researcher of the Year Award.

These prizes follow several other awards for InSites Consulting (ESOMAR, AMA, ARF and MOA).

Social Media Nethnography combines InSites Consulting’s method, software and techniques with IBM’s predictive analytics to gather and analyse unstructured conversations and feedback from social media. Such insights can be fed back into product development, services and entertainment, and the results of changes can easily be measured.

Why study content of online conversations?

According to Annelies Verhaeghe, Senior R&D Manager, there are several reasons why market research should study the content of online conversations.

‘First of all in contrast to traditional market research where individual answers are not public, comments on social media can be read by everyone. Whether companies like it or not, social media are nowadays a full element of communication and advertising that influence people in their buying decision process. Secondly, at a time where response rates in traditional research are declining, these spontaneous answers are a welcome source of information.
And finally online buzz contains new, high quality information which is not easily available via traditional research. It creates the ability to go back in time, gives a glimpse of the moment of truth and makes it possible to discover blind spots which could lead to new market insights.’

Over the last two days, I attended the SPSS Directions Conference in Rome (IT). As a speaker, I was invited to bring a case study on using text analytics on social media data and eager to learn what others were doing on this domain. Moreover, since SPSS was recently acquired by IBM, I was curious to see what the future would bring. So I headed to Rome…

SPSS is typically associated with number crunching. One theme that however kept on coming back was the importance of qualitative and contextual data. I was truly amazed by the number of speakers on text analytics. With about 80-90% of company data that are unstructured, it is no surprise that this analysis technology is taking up. Especially in the area of customer satisfaction research, more and more people are using open questions in surveys to explain the “why” behind the numbers. The usage of text in predictive analytics is augmenting and so far, text seems to add quite a lot in the predictive power of models.

Many presentations also stressed the importance of the context in data collection. People are less rational than we often assume. In order to predict behavior, we have therefore to make more use of data collected at the heat of the moment. Particularly interesting was the speech of Ravi Dhar, Director of Yale center for customer insights. With some vivid examples, he stressed the importance of integrating context variables in your survey. For example, in a study with P&G (the measurement of the most effective communication for washing powder). The results revealed that on TV, it is better to the cleanness of your laundry whereas on the shopping floor ‘colors’ were a more decisive element.

A final session that drew my attention was organized by Mark Jeffries on soft skills. Many statisticians prefer to stick to the safe environment of their computer. However, we also need to sell projects and present the results of studies in an impactful way. Here are some tips & tricks to make this process more smooth:

• Whenever you get a business card, do not immediately put it away. It is the story of the person in front of you. Instead make a remark about it. Everybody likes to hear about oneself.
• If you want to get a ‘yes’, start already nodding with your head when you are asking the favor. There is a big chance that the other person will mirror your behavior and you will get what you want.
• In networking events, have a look at the feet of the person you are talking to. If his feet point too much in the other direction than where you are standing, he probably finds the conversation boring.
• The power of three: make sure that you always mention 3 reasons if you want to make a point. People have a tendency to believe you more.

It was the first time that I attended the SPSS conference and I must say that I was pleasantly surprised by its content. It seems that quantitative analysis is embracing qualitative data. At InSites Consulting, we believe in the fusion of methods and I can only consider it as a positive signal that companies like SPSS and IBM place this so high on the agenda.

However the industry needs to take even more steps. I wonder why there were no presentations where text analytics was applied on data from qualitative research. It seems that concepts like research communities, online discussion groups, blog research have not yet penetrated in this audience. Secondly, I appeared to be the only speaker who really showed how to embrace text analytics for nethnography. People were enthusiastic about the topic and I received the IBM- SPSS Insight Award 2010 for my submission. I hope this might inspire other researchers for next year’s conference! More information on the award will follow soon.

Two weeks ago Tom De Ruyck & I attended The Next Web conference in Amsterdam (NL), a conference inviting thought leaders and Internet entrepreneurs from all around the world to share their views on the future of the web.

On the first day Tom was invited for a Pecha Kucha presentation about brands & emotions, entitled ‘The Time is Now’:

The Next Web: Tom De Ruyck Pecha Kucha presentation – The Time is NOW! from Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten on Vimeo.

During the conference, we saw several other insightful presentations making clear that context is indeed the new king.

1. The context of data: Joe Stump, CTO of SimpleGeo, on the combination of ‘location’ & ‘real time’.

We are collectively producing massive amounts of data on the Web: according to Joe Stump data is currently following Moore’s law. Moreover, more and more data is shared in real time.

This data-explosion makes it hard to find really ‘relevant data’: ‘As the production of data increases, its inherent value decreases’. Hence context becomes crucial: knowing where, when & by whom the data is produced is vital. ‘Content is no longer king, context is king’

Location information is the first logical step in adding meta-layers of information to raw data. Foursquare and Gowalla are doing a great job, but according to Joe Stump we need to take it forward, we are just at the front-end: ‘We need to move beyond the ‘check-in’ which is just a broadcast of presence. We need to start building a cohesive experience on top of that.’

For market research this implies that we will need to include more data-sources in the near future in order to get a profound 360 degree view on consumers.

Read the article in Wired to get inspired by what McLaren is already doing in this area.

2. The contextual framework: Robert Cailliau, Belgian scientist & one of the founders of the WWW, on the history & future of the World Wide Web.

Just like Joe Stump, Rober Cailliau, referred to the huge expansion of the web, increasing on a scale of X to the power X, rising faster than any exponential function, a scale never seen before in nature.

It was actually quite exciting to listen live to one of the founders of the World Wide Web. Robert Cailliau developed the Web together with Sir Tim Berners Lee at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, now 21 years ago.

And with the age of 21 come certain responsibilities. In his speech Robert Cailliau stated that it’s time to think about the way we are dealing with personal data, especially in the social scene on the Web.

‘The Internet has given us a lot of freedom, but with freedom comes responsibility, and we haven’t worked that much on this part.’

For market research this implies that we also have the responsibility to think about the way we are dealing with peoples data. BAQMaR recently started a discussion on this subject as a part of its 10 challenges for the research industry.

3. The human context: Mark Earls, author of The Herd, with an interesting talk on human behavior.

During his presentation, Mark Earls shared 3 interesting viewpoints that form the foundations of the ‘social scene’ on the Web:

• Everything is social: absolute individual human behavior is very scarce; almost all human actions are basically ‘reactions’ on other people in our environment.
• Copying rules: since the day we are born we try to copy everything we see around us. It’s hence more correct to rename our species to the Homo mimicus (as opposed to “sapiens” – the wise one).
• Sailing on social soup: ‘abnormal’ behavior is not really appreciated in our society. People tend to conform and sail on the social soup that is surrounding them.

For market research this implies that methods like Ethnography & Community research are an important add-on to the toolbox of market researchers in order to fully grasp the ‘social context’ in which consumer behavior & consumer decisions are taking place.

It’s clear by now that this conference is not only a place for the pizza-eating IT guys, beautiful PR ladies and business men in white suits, but that it’s also the place to be for next gen market researchers who really care about the future of our industry. Hopefully we can meet up at the Next Web conference 2011!

Connect with us on Twitter via @matsjombo & @tomderuyck to share your thoughts.

All over the web, consumers are collaborating with brands in an exciting new approach to innovation. Websites like MyStarbucksIdea are platforms for conversations in which customers can express their needs and opinions directly and shape the development of new products.

InSites Consulting has developed a philosophy of guided co-creation and has put it into practice with companies like Heinz and Kraft. Our experience of running communities in real life tells us that participants for co-creation need to be chosen carefully to include innovators and gatekeepers. Innovators bring the ideas thanks to their deep knowledge of the product category. Gatekeepers know what sticks and what the mass market will like, so their role is to evaluate new ideas qualitatively and fine tune them for the market.

We’d love to share our experience with you. So if you’re interested in an in-company presentation about our co-creation communities, contact Tom De Ruyck.

The ARF Great Mind Awards recognize and celebrate individuals who are making research great today. They are awarded for research innovation, rising stars, outstanding ARF member contributions and lifetime achievement within the industry.

Niels Schillewaert, Managing Partner at InSites Consulting has been nominated for an ARF Great Mind Award in the Innovation Category. Awards will be given out at the end of March during the ARF Annual Convention.

While writing this blog post, I’m sitting on the train to Belgium. I’m on my way back from Amsterdam, where I attended the kick off of the ‘Givolution’-campaign of Ben & Jerry’s, the legendary ice cream brand.

Although it’s very cloudy and rainy outside, I’m feeling excited. It has been an epic day, and this is how it all started:

Last week I got a call from Kristof De Wulf, one of our Managing Partners, asking me if I could make it to a Ben & Jerry’s event in the Netherlands. Apparently we got invited by the people at Unilever, as an introduction for an upcoming research project we’ll be doing in the coming months. I was about to mention my holiday plans when I heard Kristof say:

Kristof: The event is planned on Monday afternoon and euhm… Mr. Ben & Mr. Jerry will be joining the event in person!
Dado: Like, really BEN & JERRY? The original founders of the brand ??
Kristof: Yes, I know it’s hard to believe!

I immediately postponed my planned holidays. I mean, how much more can you ‘feel’ and ‘experience’ a brand, especially as a market researcher? This had to be the best project kick-off ever!

Ben & Jerry were coming to the Netherlands to set up their campaign called ‘The Givolution’ (www.givolution.nl). The goal: give away 100 free ice creams in the hope that the receivers will give away something else to other people. This way Ben and Jerry hope to establish a true ‘give-away’ chain. And last but not least: they were about to announce that all Ben & Jerry’s flavors will be Fair Trade Certified by the end of 2013.

After two days of nervous excitement I took the train to Amsterdam on Monday morning, without any idea about what was going to happen. I was just going to go with the flow. I arrived in Amsterdam around 11 am. In the morning the press was invited to the Lloyd Hotel, located just near the Central station, where Ben & Jerry would give personal interviews. On my arrival in the hotel, I met one of the brand managers of Ben & Jerry’s, who seemed to be very, I mean very, excited. Let’s face it, meeting the founders of the brand you’re working for is a once in a lifetime opportunity.

I looked around in the crowded room and was about to sit down when I suddenly spotted Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield in the corner of the room. No glamorous stars but just two ordinary, easy going guys with a big smile on their faces. They truly embody their brand…

During lunchtime I met one of the attending journalists who interviewed Ben and Jerry earlier on in the morning. I asked her how it went and she replied:
“I was really amazed: two super friendly men with an enormous passion for what they do. While we were talking about typical Dutch food they suddenly started brainstorming together on how they could use typical Dutch ingredients in one of their ice creams…”
Just what I hoped to hear…

Half an hour later, right after lunch, we headed to the centre where Ben and Jerry would hop on a wagon that would take them to the many invited fans, who were impatiently waiting. To my pleasant surprise, I was invited to the wagon as well! Suddenly Ben and Jerry were standing almost just next to me! This was clearly going to be a moment to remember J Off we went, destination: Scoopshop, Leideseplein.

When we arrived minutes later at the Scoopshop, hundreds of fans were standing in line in front of the shop, yelling out loud and applauding for their ‘idols’. It was overwhelming, especially when several photographers & cameras were gathering around the wagon. While leaving the wagon Ben and Jerry immediately started shaking hands with their fans. Again, very low profile and with a big smile for everyone.

Shortly afterwards Ben and Jerry were standing behind the counter of the shop, greeting the shop assistants and asking them to tell more about their experiences. In the mean time people of the team were preparing the necessary for the meet and greet with the fans. Everyone had the opportunity to shake hands with them and a professional photographer made sure it was a moment to cherish. A mythical moment for many fans.

While listening to one of the many interviews that Ben and Jerry gave after the meet & greet, I heard a guy, who was standing just behind me, say to his friend: “Ben & Jerry’s is not a brand, it’s an experience”. After this day I can only agree with that man…

Just before Ben and Jerry left the shop, I took a shot and asked someone to take a picture of me and my new heroes. The cherry on the cake

Both from a personal as from a market research point of view this was truly an amazing day. Being able to meet the original founders of what has become a legendary inspiring brand (or should I say experience) is unforgettable.

In the last interview Ben and Jerry were asked to give their advice to beginning entrepreneurs:
1. Start small
2. Be very passionate about what you do
3. Earn money while doing things ‘right’
“We measure success by how much money we made + how we contributed to the community”

Viva la Givolution! Viva Ben & Jerry’s !

Read the whole story behind Ben & Jerry’s via:

http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_&_Jerry%27s
http://www.inc.com/30years/articles/ben-and-jerry.html

Last week I attended the IIR congress ‘Front End of Innovation’ in Amsterdam. As a market researcher with a passion for innovation, and as an employee of a company which fosters innovation in everything we do in order to take research forward, I really looked forward to this event. I was there to be inspired, to hear things I did not know yet and to meet interesting people who shared interest in a common topic: passion for innovation.

I must admit that I returned from this conference with a puzzled mind and mixed feelings. Here are my key take-aways from the congress:

1. Innovation is a serious matter: Probably it was a wrong assumption, but I expected to meet a diverse audience, young at heart and bubbling with energy. Upon my arrival on Monday night, I was surprised about the profile of the attendees: mainly seriously looking men dressed in equally serious suits and ties. Obviously, dresscode should not be a key gauge for ones attitude towards innovation, but I clearly got off on the wrong foot. As a side note, it was interesting to see how dress code was used as a driver for networking: during the breaks, groups of suits and ties and groups with informally dressed people could be observed.

2. Technology comes first: First to speak was Adrian van Hooydonk, Director design from the BMW group. Adrian gave us an exclusive preview of BMW’s new concept car which was developed behind the concept ‘future sustainability and the joy of mobility’. Great car, great design, great technology, all of which was enthusiastically applauded by the audience. Clearly a good kick-off for the congress, men in suits like cars! This was a good example of how future vision can lead to interesting innovations. However, is this the end point? I was pleasantly surprised about one question that was raised by the audience. Concept cars definitely serve a purpose and some elements that were integrated in the concept car will be transferred in the cars we will drive in the future.

Still, this concept car does not break with the rules as it is still a car (4 wheels, a steering wheel, it needs a road, …). What about taking innovation in the car industry one step further by completely rethinking the concept of mobility? Will the concept of a road, 2 lanes, a box on 4 wheels be sustainable in the long run? And what about the joy of mobility? Is mobility really fun in our current world? Interesting food for thought which I reconsidered while driving back from Amsterdam to Ghent on Wednesday… it took me almost 5 hours to drive 220km. Joy of mobility?

3. From pyramids to pancakes: The congress started strongly on Tuesday morning. Josephine Green, Senior Director Trends and Strategy at Philips Design, talked about how to engage with the future differently. During her presentation, Josephine talked about how modern society has changed and how these changes will inevitably impact (i) the way we connect with consumers, (ii) build professional organizations and (iii) go about the innovation process.

In the 20th century, innovation used to be a funnel process that was conducted with a linear mindset: it started with the fuzzy front end where consumer insights and ideas were generated, then it moved to the middle of the funnel where winning ideas were shaped further and ended up by launching the ideas that survived their trip through the innovation funnel. Throughout this process, consumers were mainly passive creatures, who were supplied with new technology and who simply bought the products that met their needs. This approach has been successful for a long time, no doubt about it. Josephine made clear that, in order for this funnel approach to work, organizations require a pyramid structure, with clear hierarchy and sub-divided responsibilities. Leadership within this structure requires planning, budgeting, measuring, evaluating, structuring, controlling. In other words: command and control. This should sound familiar to all of us who have been professionally active in the 20th century.

Things are changing, however. Consumers are increasingly non-passive and did come out of their boxes during the past few years. Innovation has become a circular process – it is happening all the time. Not only we as innovation professionals are involved, but consumers have also taken their role of innovators seriously. In fact, consumers have moved from the back end to the front end of innovation. We have stepped into the century of social innovation, which will demand a very different way of thinking on how we must innovate. We have moved away from the pyramid structure to a flat innovation platform – a pancake – where manufacturers of consumer goods products and consumers are at equal level. As a result, we must reconsider the structured funnel approach of innovation and move towards a circular process that allows strong engagement with the consumer at all times. This is the only way to develop solutions (services and products) WITH consumers instead of FOR consumers. And importantly, also the well established leadership role will have to change. Leadership in the pancake world requires questioning, dreaming, imagining, experimenting, learning, enabling. In other words, we will have to learn to let go and listen to the consumer more intensely.

4. Market research is dead. LONG LIVE MARKET RESEARCH! Apart from the many other interesting speakers – I learned about how sustainability can be a key driver for innovation, how team work and a never-give-up attitude has led to the development of the MP3 technology, that disruptive innovation comes from focusing on the extremes (i.e. people who love your brand and people who hate your brand) rather than looking at the averages, … – there was one provocative statement made on the last congress day that was really eye-opening and divided the audience in 2 groups: “Market research at the early stages of innovation is, at best, useless. At worst, it will be counterproductive”. In other words, you have to develop a vision based on technological capabilities, graft your innovation process on that vision en develop new products against it. No consumers are involved at all.

It should not come as a surprise that I, as a market researcher, strongly disagreed with this statement. In fact, it is directly opposed to the vision of Josephine that was shared earlier on. What about first listening to consumers, understand them inside out, and then develop an innovation vision by using that knowledge. Isn’t this the best approach for developing consumer relevant innovations?

I think I prefer pancakes over pyramids.