June 9, 2006Blogging from the Marketing Innovation Conference
Filed Under: Consumer Central , New Marketing
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Just arrived at the Columbia Faculty House for Corante's Marketing Innovation Conference (note to self: never walk from 116th Street Subway to Faculty House again...it's too far and I'm too lazy)
Right now, listening to a panel on Models for Innovation. One comment which really resonated was about talking to consumers with respect to marketing/innovation. The point was to find the right consumers to talk to...i.e. "innovative" consumers versus the rest/non-innovative customers.
This has strong implications with respect to focus groups.
Think about it for a moment. We pull "typical" consumers into a room. Average Joes. People that represent the mass. But it isn't the mass or "median consumer" that ultimately will be responsible for our success...it's the innovators/innovative ones; the opinion leaders etc.
Those are the consumers we need to be talking to (and obviously not behind a one way mirror either); the ones that are leaders and the ones who are able (as best as possible) to articulate and comprehend the abstract and conceptual.
That said, I often say that if you want to get the right answers, you need to ask the right questions. Think about "articulated needs" versus "unarticulated solutions" - consumers don't know what they don't know (that's a given); the problem is that we (the marketers) are stuck between a rock and a hard place with respect to darting backward and forwards between two extremes: marketer as King (as in "we know better" or "we'll only hear what we want to hear") and consumer as King (as in giving the consumer too much latitude and leverage)
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Comments
Joseph,
Here's a prediction. Adverstising is going to "discover" the innovation consultancies as well as the process that goes behind things like designing products and crafting experiences.
Do yourself a favor and immerse yourself here:
http://www.ideo.com/
http://www.designcontinuum.com/content/
http://www.ziba.com/
The advertising world is in for a rude awakening—even beyond the 30 second spot debacle. Tey'll also need to figure ot not just how to market—but to create, innovate and design.
Sound familiar??
Posted by: David Armano
Having been involved in the "experience design" community for a while, and that being the genesis of experiencecurve, i wholeheartedly agree with David. What designers have been learning about ethnographic research, and the process of innovation is leaps and bounds beyond what most businesses understand/practice.
I have a post from august that I titled "stop listening to your customers" and the point is basically, that listening to what customers say is on the lowest rung of the customer research ladder if you're looking for innovation.
http://blog.experiencecurve.com/archives/stop-listening-to-your-customers
Elizabeth Sanders PHd from http://sonicrim.com is a pioneer in this area.
Posted by: karl long
