Trends

Talk to me

Posted on by Razor

If I were to distill the role of a qualitative researcher into two words, I would probably go for ‘professional conversationalist’.

Having great conversations underpins everything we do – yet how many times have you had, or viewed, a conversation with consumers where ‘it’ just doesn’t happen?

You know what I mean…low energy, basic answers, dead-looking eyes and real boredom both in front, and behind, the glass. 

Like most quallies, I recently had such an experience and tried everything I could to get the conversation going – energisers, breaks, changing seating positions, challenging participants – all with no success. It was a dud.

Rather than deciding to just chalk the experience up to being ‘one of those groups’, I’ve been looking for solutions.

Drum roll please…

Allow me to introduce Celeste Headlee. She’s a veteran radio journalist who recently wrote the book We Need to Talk; How to Have Conversations That Matter. 

I cannot recommend this book highly enough to…well pretty much everyone – but especially to my fellow professional conversationalists. In her book, Celeste looks back on her career in journalism and shares what she’s learned to help her have great conversations – interviewing everyone from Pulitzer Prize-winning authors to truck drivers.

Rather than giving a long-winded review of the book, I’ll share three ideas it’s inspired me to try out:

  1. Showing consumers behind the curtain more
    According to Celeste, good conversations happen when everyone understands what the topic is and what the interviewer is expecting of them. I want to play with this insight in future consumer conversations and try being a little more honest; letting them know more about what we know, what our hunches are and – most importantly – what we want to understand from talking to them. Too often, we try and shield our conversation partners from the bigger picture to avoid biasing them and they leave slightly confused asking ‘I hope that was useful?’ with a puzzled look on their faces. I want less of that.

  2. Rehearsing conversations and developing lines of questions
    What comes across in this book is the sheer level of thinking that Celeste and her team put into the conversations they have – rehearsing and refining lines of questions and developing strategies for different potential avenues of discussion. Clearly, good conversation doesn’t just happen; it is crafted and planned. I want to put some of Celeste’s ideas into action and spend more time trying to pre-empt the conversations I have. I want to move beyond the discussion guide and think bigger.

  3. Shorter conversations for shorter attention spans
    One of the big themes in this book is that the art of conversation is disappearing. Celeste attributes this change, in part, to our shortening attention spans caused largely by technology. Incredibly, an academic test to measure attention spans has shown a fall from 3 minutes in 2004 to just 59 seconds in 2014. Knowing what we know about our attention spans, why are we surprised that when putting 6 strangers in a room for 2 hours to talk about something they were not prepared for, they’re likely to become bored and lose interest? It’s time to start doing things differently and I want to find new ways of having shorter bursts of meaningful conversations with consumers. I want to learn how journalists maximise their time.

I’m now off to do some professional conversationing. I’ll let you know how I get on…

Nowhere to hide

Posted on by Razor

Brands used to be in the power seat. And that seat was enclosed within a black box where they were able to carefully curate the image they promoted to the outside world – ultimately shaping consumer perceptions.

Trendwatching’s recent report on ‘Glass Box Brands’  makes for a thought-provoking read on how that power has shifted and what it means to be a brand in today’s world.

The rise of transparency, user-based journalism, social media – and consumers’ increasing need for connectivity – has led to the black paint being scrubbed away to reveal ‘glass box brands’. In this guise, everything a brand does – both externally and internally – has the potential to be visible to the hearts and minds of consumers, readily scrutinising everything they see and hear about what brands are up to.

The report calls for brands to think (if they haven’t already) about how to deal with this increased level of scrutiny, particularly in terms of increasing public interest in a brand’s internal culture.

Although we agree that brands would do well to take a more 360-degree approach to nurturing brand image, past and present events suggest that if a brand plays a fundamental value and convenience function in the lives of consumers then we (as consumers) will be more willing to turn a blind eye to any of their indiscretions. We may wrestle with how the likes of, say Amazon, Starbucks, and Uber operate, however we won’t always vote with our feet. 

BUT we are seeing a shift…  

“The truth is that there is a high cost to a bad reputation.” Not our words, but the words of new Uber CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, in an open letter to his employees following the recent Transport for London ruling that denied them an operating licence.

What we’ve seen is Uber’s tone go from arrogance to humility. Khosrowshahi followed up with an open letter to London apologising and promising that his company will change. Music to consumers’ ears.

Michael O’Leary, CEO of RyanAir (notorious for his aggressive nature) also changed his tone in recent times. The airline ‘messed up’ their rosters and many flights were cancelled affecting more than 700,000 passengers. In comparison to his previous outbursts, he’s been uncharacteristically remourseful towards his passengers.

Is this a sign of things to come? Probably. It’s fine in consumers’ eyes to come along and shake things up. That’s what challenger brands do. However, when you’re successful and suddenly playing in the big leagues, things inevitably change. Consumers will scrutinise you and expect a decent level of customer service and ethics – in addition to the value and convenience you’ve been offering them. It would be absurd to disregard outsider opinion and expect no fallout. In Uber’s case, TfL pointed an uncomfortable spotlight in its face. If their response is anything to go by, we should eventually have more trust in them – not just in their reliable product but their reputation too.

Genuinely confusing

Posted on by Razor

‘Authenticity’ is one of those words. Marketers are obsessed with it. Consumers refer to it all the time…but what does it really mean?

Let’s start with the dictionary. Oxford defines it as, ‘of undisputed origin and not a copy; genuine’.

However, this doesn’t quite cover the full extent of its usage. Because, like charisma (that other indefinable quality), authenticity comes in many, and sometimes contradictory, guises. For example, a recipe can be said to be ‘authentic’ if it adheres to tradition, but so can an artisanal, ‘craft’ brewer tearing up the rule book. 

Confused? You’re not the only one.   

But if we track its many, and varied, guises we might come closer to understanding what it’s all about. So, like a Victorian naturalist surveying their butterfly collection, here’s a few choice specimens of ‘the authentic’.

The genuine article

Brands have been exploiting our desire for the ‘real thing’ for decades, either through design cues (official-looking stamps/crests, evocations of provenance etc.) or by, quite literally, telling us.

1990-Can-t-Beat-the-Real-Thing

The fruit of human labour

‘Handmade’, ‘handcrafted’ and even ‘handbaked’ (?!)… all signifiers that the product was made by an actual person. But why do we care? Yes, it implies a certain degree of quality – but the fact that it was touched by human hand is also used to suggest that it’s in some way more genuine, more real.

Bloom

The passion play

Many brands talk about how ‘passionate’ they are about what they do. However, this is where it all gets a bit problematic. Consumers frequently mistake the authenticity of the maker for the authenticity of the product, which is not the same thing; they may be genuinely passionate about what they do but that doesn’t mean that what they produce is authentic.

Nonetheless, brands have been profitably mining this confusion for years (and thereby entrenching it further): witness the amount of packaging telling you how much ‘love’ has gone into the product.   

Skoda

The honest approach

There are honest brands which quietly go about their work and then there are honest brands which actively make a virtue out of it. They come in strident, anti-bullshit form or through gentler appeals to transparency and integrity (Honest Tea). However, as in Oasis’ case (below), being honest is not the same as being genuine.

Oasis

This is really just the tip of the iceberg as far as authenticity in branding is concerned.

As I’ve hopefully shown, it’s not without its contradictions. The fact that authenticity applies differently to product (i.e. ‘made to the authentic recipe’) as it does to brand behaviour (e.g. tone of voice and personality) can make for a confused, if compelling, mess. 

But one that ultimately still proves winning with consumers.

Game of phones

Posted on by Razor

What a weird and wonderful 10 years it’s been. The iPhone was first released back in June 2007 and shaped the world of mobile as we now know it. Over 81% of people in the UK now has access to a smartphone device. The smartphone has shifted the way we interact with each other – and how businesses interact with us.

Whilst social media began on desktop, its transfer to mobile continues to rocket as more and more people own smartphones. Social media (in at least one form) is almost something the majority of us cannot live without. To put its rapid rise in perspective, Snapchat was born in 2011 and now has more than 20,000 snaps sent per SECOND by its users. That is over 1.7 billion per day!

It’s not new news to us but, ultimately, this technology has changed the way we see/view advertisements. For instance, despite not having a TV set in my own home, I still get push notifications, forced ads on YouTube, sponsored ads on Insta, brand stories on snapchat…the list goes on.

Recently John Lewis became the first company within the UK to use Facebook 360 adverts to allow customers to view collections in full view. Whist browsing kitchens/rooms, customers can zoom, click-and-buy items easily. With the increase in popularity of live streaming, started by Periscope and growing with the introduction of Facebook and Instagram Live, I wonder how long it will take big brands to step into this marketing space too?

We are seeing smaller brands already using live video through social media platforms to their benefit, so it can’t be long ’til the big boys follow suit.

And while we are not there yet, virtual reality no doubt will continue to grow. Just think of the immersive experiences brands can deliver through this medium.

It’s impressive how far the smartphone has developed in the last 10 years and how brands have, and are, changing with them. I wonder what will happen in the next 10?

Don’t be afraid to take whisks

Posted on by Razor

Me: Will you be tuning into Bake Off, Chloë?
Chloë: Of course I will. I’m not one to hold a grudge.

We are, of course, referring to the latest series of The Great British Bake Off – which has now made its home in the colourful, advert and sponsorship-filled, bosom of Channel 4.

In contrast to Chloë, I do have a tendency to hold grudges. I’ve still not forgiven Mondelēz for ’rounding’ the famous block-shaped Cadbury Dairy Milk bars. (Apparently that move was to improve the ‘mouth feel’ of the chocolate – pfffffft.) And don’t even get me started on the fact that Nestlé ditched the foil and paper wrapping on Kit-Kats in favour of plastic. (It’s been 16 years, Gem. Let it go.)

But like all chocolate addicts, I grudgingly indulge in the above brands. And, grudgingly, I’ll give GBBO a whirl. 

My back is already up, however, because I know the episodes will be shorter to make up for all the sponsorship idents and ad breaks. It’s like when manufacturers make products smaller but still charge you the same price for them. We still end up going along with it despite feeling a little bit cheated on value.

There’s also the line-up change. We’ve all substituted ingredients in recipes before. Even some of our favourite foodie brands have had to make changes along the way. Sometimes the end product turns out even better than expected – not always, mind. 

I can just about cope with a lack of Mary Berry. Not to mention Mel and Sue. (Arrrrgh! This is really happening.) But, in the end, it will all come down to that key ingredient – the bakers. As long as the producers have found me somebody to love, the same way I fell in love with Selasi last year, we’ll be back in the old groove in no time. (And, yet again, I will feel a little bit dirty for being so fickle.)  

In praise of the periodical

Posted on by Razor

I suffered hoots of derision. HOOTS. Last bank holiday weekend, I hunkered down with a glossy new copy of Modern Farmer magazine. I simply can’t see why it was so funny.

I have a passion for periodicals.

I stopped buying books years ago because I’m now all about the Kindle. But I do love a periodical. To me, they’re in a different league to magazines (though I do have a penchant for Tatler). They’re beautiful. The cover is thicker, the paper is dense, they’re for keeps.

They’re a celebration of typography, graphic design, illustration and great writing. 

Little pockets of magical mystery knowledge that someone, cleverer and more creative than me, went off and just found. Just for the publishability of it.

A few favourites:

Ernest: a trove that purports to cover curious histories, workmanship, slow adventure, timeless style and wild food. Fair do’s, there’s almost nothing in my life that resembles a ramble, but I do crave a house full of hand-tooled hand tools.

Found: a trove of photography of the stuff people just find. 

And let’s not forget, Modern Farmer. There’s a lot more in there than just ads for tractors. But the best thing is, it has those too. You just never know when you’ll need one.

*In memoriam* Lucky Peach: food porn with smarts. No longer with us, may it rest in peace. 

Lucky Peach

Embrace failure!

Posted on by Razor

Last month, the world’s first museum dedicated to failure, opened its doors in Helsingborg, Sweden. Rather than ridiculing its innovators and their ideas, the space explores reasons for failure and sees these mistakes as learning opportunities.

Working in the world of innovation research for the past decade, we recognise the importance our clients put on crafting winning concepts and getting these to market as quickly as possible. As we know, corporations place emphasis on speed – but how does this allow for any time for meaningful reflection? Launches that fail to make targets are quickly delisted or disbanded, and brand managers fired or moved swiftly onto the next big thing. Rather than covering up mistakes, companies should encourage a culture where small failures are noted before they become much larger.

One reason why innovations exhibited at the Museum of Failure didn’t make the cut was a refusal to accept that the market or category would change. Be it the world’s first digital camera by Kodak launched in 1995 – the board deemed that their corporation was in the business of film photography and that they underestimated the role for online photo sharing. Or conversely, Blockbusters that went bust in 2010 because it refused to acknowledge or accept the death of movie cassettes unlike Netflix that posted movies to people’s homes before investing in streaming. How the story might have been different for these two companies, had they allowed an innovation unit to flourish, challenged with the mantra to obliterate or transform their current business. In fact, that’s exactly how we see start-ups and kick-starter projects rise to success so quickly. These companies need to take the challenger stance, so why can’t big corporations do the same?

The companies that we see winning in the innovation space are those that allow themselves to make mistakes and aren’t shy in sharing these with their team. They see the process of innovation as iterative, and are always evolving. Sometimes it’s just one element that needs tweaking. Too often early ideas that fail in research are discarded but with a little more reflection and bravery, they could flourish.

Find ways to inject a bit of healthy competition within your business to learn from failure. Next time you embark on a piece of innovation, consider multiple work streams that vie against each other with significantly, different approaches. Rather than worrying about the competition, look internally at how you can transform your business to reset the parameters of consumption and experience.

For more information on how Razor Research can transform your business, or aid your innovation research, contact me at lesley@razorresearch.co.uk.

Strong and stable recruitment

Posted on by Razor

Earlier this year, James Diggle of Dig Fieldcraft came to us with a cracking idea for a training project. 

The idea: A mock short-term online community with freelance market research recruiters acting as participants.
The plan: By seeing the process through the eyes of a participant, recruiters should have more empathy for participants – along with a better understanding of the recruitment/research experience.
The end goal: Higher quality recruitment for online communities.

And so the Razor-Dig dream team was born! James rounded up the troops while we focussed on the research design and community structure. We ran the community for 3 days, with everything set up as if it were a real FMCG project for a client – including tasks that real community participants would have to complete. 

At the end we gave them an open-ended questionnaire to complete. This gave us rich insight into a) what recruiters understand the purpose of online communities to be, b) common issues they face when recruiting this methodology, and c) new learnings that emerged from having taken part in a community themselves.

From this feedback we created a ‘best practice’ checklist for online community recruiters to bear in mind and submitted a joint paper to the AQR – who then invited us to speak at this year’s AQR Conference as part of a panel focussing on recruitment issues!  

Ta-da!
And here are our seven tips from recruiters for successful online communities:

1. Know your timings
It’s easy to misjudge timings when creating task-based projects for participants to complete independently. It’s also tempting to downplay task length and how long you think it might take a respondent to complete one of your exercises.

Takeaway: Think harder (and longer) about how long your tasks will take. Overestimate where possible.   

2. Be mindful of potentially controversial tasks (i.e. selfie videos)
Auto-ethnography is such a valuable asset to have in our toolkit. But without a skilled moderator there ‘in the flesh’ to help build trust, participants might become uncomfortable by tasks involving selfie videos for example. 

Takeaway: Participants should be told beforehand if they will be required to take photos and videos of themselves.

3. Beware of undeclared extras
Exercises that involve buying something, any kind of excursion, spending time with or taking photos of friends/family almost always mean additional time, strain, and cost for participants.

Takeaway: If you have any unusual extras in your tasks, set your expectations with participants beforehand! It’s only fair that they’re aware of the level of contribution expected from them.

4. Be tech savvy
Not all participants will have laptops, webcams, or mobiles with the latest operating system. Recruiters occasionally find out – after participants have been recruited – that the project cannot go ahead without specific technical requirements like this. 

Takeaway: Find out about the technical requirements of the platform(s) you’ll be using and communicate it clearly to field and potential recruits.

5. Plan for spam
Email spam systems are an easily forgotten vulnerability for logistical hiccups. All sorts of problems could occur if participants are not appropriately warned about what emails to expect and how to appropriately manipulate their spam settings.

Takeaway: Understand the notification system of the platform you’re using and teach participants how to add the email address to their email provider’s ‘white list’.

6. It’s good to talk
With many modern recruitment techniques, it is possible to get through much of the process online. Due to all the potential controversies mentioned above, we must be extra careful that participants have actually read the description and are fully happy and prepared to take part in projects.

Takeaway: Always have a thorough screening call with potential participants to ensure we have their full, informed consent.

7. Provide a clear definition of an online community
‘Online community’ is a relatively new and very nebulous term. It can mean a variety of different techniques and has a variety of uses within research. If we don’t explain to recruiters what it is we really mean by it, they may struggle describing this to potential recruits. (And the recruiters told us that they are rarely provided with such an explanation.)

Takeaway: Give recruiters a couple of sentences which they can use to succinctly explain, to potential participants, what an online community is.








(A summary of Razor & Dig Fieldcraft’s submission to the AQR Conference 2017: 7 Tips from recruiters for successful online communities.)

Future focusing

Posted on by Razor

As qualitative researchers, we are always looking for new techniques and ways of thinking to help us get to the heart of the research in question with consumers. So we read, with great interest, an article in The New York Times entitled ‘We Aren’t Built to Live in the Moment’ by Martin E. P. Seligman & John Tierney.

The article is based on a paper written by Seligman and colleagues called Homo Prospectus which introduces an emerging field of study called ‘Prospective Psychology’. The field aims to explore our unique ability as human beings to engage in ‘prospection: the mental simulation of future possibilities’.  Essentially, it’s a form of day-dreaming.

Put simply (because I’m no academic!), the article argues that we aren’t simply creatures of habit as we often tend to believe. Rather that we are constantly, and actively, seeking information from our environment and experiences to develop our own set of possible future actions and resulting outcomes – which ultimately help us to decide how to behave. And we do all of this in no time at all – often at a subconscious level!

I think the easiest way that the authors explain their position is in terms of mental health disorders and potential treatment. They posit that those suffering from depression, for example, struggle to recover not necessarily because they are dogged by past experiences, but that they could actually struggle to imagine a different outcome in the future and thus the types of behaviours that would lead to that outcome.

So why is this interesting for us and our clients?

Well, much like psychology, qualitative research typically focuses on past or present experiences to understand consumer behaviour; in many instances asking consumers to recount a previous or current purchase/brand experience. So the focus is always, ‘What did you do, why did you do it and how could the brand do better?’. While this approach works well for some types of research, it can pose limitations when trying to understand how to disrupt consumer behaviour and encourage switching (i.e. to another brand/service provider).

What if we changed how we asked our questions to try and get consumers to think from a future-focused perspective to uncover the more subconscious perceptions, expectations and other influencers that might impact their motivations and barriers towards a particular brand?

For example, when exploring customer journeys, the focus tends to be on understanding recent experience and pain points. But what if we asked consumers to imagine ‘what could happen’ when they interact with a particular brand and ‘what could the steps in the journey look like to create the best experience?’

Or, when understanding how to disrupt consumer behaviour, why not change the outcome for them and get them to imagine how they would have got there? I.e. ‘Imagine that you’ve just purchased X from X brand and are feeling good about your experience. Talk us through what would have to happen to get you to that brand and how your interaction would go.’.

Could this change in approach help us to uncover unmet needs and expectations and help our clients develop strategies that are more aligned with future behaviour? Watch this space…

The most Danish lager in the world…

Posted on by Razor

When I say the word ‘probably’, I’d wager that a good proportion of you reading this would think of Carlsberg. ‘Probably the best lager in the world’ is one of the most famous, and most often quoted, brand slogans of our times. Truth be told however, Carlsberg has had a tough time of it of late. With a seemingly endless array of exotic world and craft beers arriving on the scene, it’s been struggling to live up to such a bold claim.

Something needed to be done in order to reignite interest in this great brand. Something that would rekindle the love we’ve all had for it over the years and re-build its credibility. In short, something that encouraged consumers to believe, once again, that Carlsberg is the best lager in the world…probably! 

That’s where Razor came in. Working closely with Carlsberg – and with their creative agencies (branding, design, and comms) over an 18-month time period – we embarked on a collective mission to help consumers fall back in love with Carlsberg. Pivotal to this was the need to create a more authentic and relevant brand story.

As luck would have it, there’s recently been a huge appetite and intrigue in all things Scandi in the UK. The Danish concept of hygge for example has been everywhere – in bookshops, in newspaper supplements, coffee houses and fashion stores up and down the country. But back when it was a mere glint in the eye of publishing editors, we were busy exploring what it meant to consumers – together with the other aspects of ‘Danishness’. 

So, we had ‘Scandimania’ sweeping the nation and we had a Danish beer brand currently not well known for its Danish roots. It wasn’t too difficult to join the dots and see the opportunity. Consumer research firmly validated the enormous potential for a provenance-based platform for Carlsberg. The question was…how could we best activate it?

We decided to run a ‘cultural intelligence session’. This involved bringing together a group of Danes based in London – people with enough experience of both cultures – to help enrich our understanding of the Danish way of life and, importantly, how it compares and contrasts to life in the UK. This was an informal workshop session which included clients and agency folk over a few beers (and gluten-free Danish snacks). Not only was the workshop immensely illuminating, throwing up dimensions of Danish-ness we’d not even conceived, but we also got to hang out with a bunch of cool people! If you’ve never met one, the Danish are thoroughly, thoroughly nice people!

Next up was a further round of consumer research in the UK. Turns out that most Brits struggle to tell the difference between Denmark and Sweden, can’t tell you what Denmark’s landscape looks like (clue: it isn’t mountainous), nor what culture they’ve exported to the world (no Lars von Tier, no Vinterberg). That said, the UK has a very positive view of Scandi people; smart, well educated, happy, forthright, and stylish. In fact, two phrases that really hit the spot when trying to sum them up were ‘effortlessly stylish’ and ‘refreshingly direct’; both of which were deemed to have potential for aligning with Carlsberg.   

Once the Scandi platform was confirmed, it was agreed that Carlsberg Export would be the best vehicle for the new positioning. Despite falling off the radar somewhat with consumers, it was still seen as a premium brand with a known Danish backstory (derived from historic advertising). It commands a great deal of respect in terms of product and consistently outperforms many of its rivals in blind taste tests. This ‘diamond in the rough’ was therefore felt to be the perfect solution to leverage the provenance story most effectively.

It was clear that if Carlsberg Export and the Carlsberg brand stood any chance of being reappraised, it would need a radically new visual identity and comms platform for the brand. Research involved us testing various executions of font, bottle, and glassware evoking the minimalist beauty and style of Scandinavia (using various iterations of wood, wood-effects, pure white backdrops, brushed steel etc). This led to the creation of a final design route that has gone way beyond expectations in terms of delivering authenticity and quality cues, whilst carving out a truly differentiated positioning for the brand. In tandem with this, Carlsberg also developed a launch advertising campaign.

As the Carlsberg team prepares to introduce its new Danish positioning, we at Razor are immensely proud to have had a hand in the development of its new identity. We’ve used research creatively and flexibly throughout the journey, listening carefully to consumers and applying insights sensitively.   

We’re really hoping the Danish positioning will re-ignite some love for the brand. In fact, we think it’s a winner. Probably.

Carlsberg-TVC-Stills-6.1