As you close out this fiscal year and reflect on all that you know and have learned about your business and customer, we at SIVO have one question for you:
Do you understand what drives customer value for your brand and category?
Most teams have pieces of the answer: past studies, segmentations, trackers, performance data. But when it’s time to make real trade‑offs, what to improve, what to protect, and where to put that “$1 more or $1 less”, the picture often blurs.
That’s risky in a market where expectations and definitions of “value” are shifting faster than annual plans. Luckly, we are just heading into Q4 and there is still plenty of time to identify the Value Drivers for your consumer, to set you up for success in the year ahead.
At SIVO, we look at consumer value across four interconnected dimensions:
Most marketers understand the functional benefits for their brand. Far fewer have a clear, evidence‑based view of the emotional, life‑changing and social impact dimensions that increasingly drive choice, loyalty, and willingness to pay — and even fewer can say which specific value drivers matter most for their target consumer in their category today.
As planning ramps up, teams are asking:
Answering those questions requires more than a benefit list. You need a prioritized list of the Customer Value Drivers, that can guide your decisions.
SIVO uses a four‑step process to turn “consumer value” from an abstract concept into a practical decision tool:
Each step builds on what you already know and ends with clear direction for your teams.
We begin by mining and summarizing your organization’s existing information, not starting from scratch. We synthesize:
This clarifies what you already understand customer value drivers and where the gaps, contradictions, and blind spots are. The output is a summarized view of current understanding and a focused learning agenda.
Next, we Explore through qualitative, in‑depth interviews with your target consumers.
Our researchers:
This reveals the language consumers naturally use, the hidden tensions and trade‑offs they navigate, and what is truly non‑negotiable versus what simply delights or disappoints.
We then Quantify what we’ve heard, turning rich stories into a set of “potential value drivers” among category customers. We execute a quantitative survey to size and rank the importance of all potential value drivers within a category AND how well your brand and competitive brands perform on each driver.
The result is an evidence‑based view of which Value Drivers are critical to your brand vs your key competitors, and which are less important or not essential. You will see which value drivers are:
This becomes a shared “north star” and common language for how your brand creates or maintains value for your customers.
Finally, we activate through a facilitated workshop led by SIVO’s expert team.
We bring together cross‑functional stakeholders, typically insights, marketing, R&D, sales, and key agency partners, to:
This process gives you a unifying understanding of your target customers’ purchase drivers, must‑haves, and nice‑to‑haves — and a sharp view of how you stack up versus alternatives.
Most importantly, it gives your teams confidence and clarity: where to invest, where to hold, and where to trim, across innovation, marketing, and customer experience.
As you wrap this fiscal year and shape the next, let SIVO help you understand what your customers truly value so your team is ready to deliver it better than anyone else!
by Jennifer Dilley
What is a consumer insight? How do you know when you have found one? What does it look like?
These are questions that every marketer or consumer insights professional gets asked at some point. And while it might be useful to rattle off a definition in an elevator conversation, it is more important to internalize the definition so that when you are conducting consumer research you have a clear understanding of what you are looking for.
Definition of a Consumer Insight
So, what are we looking for? A consumer insight is an underlying motivation or need that explains why a consumer makes a certain decision or behaves in a certain way. But that is not all. When the underlying motivation is uncovered, it is only a consumer insight if it can be applied to a brand in an ownable way to unlock brand growth.
A consumer insight identifies consumers’ beliefs and values that drive their behavior. It provides a deeper understanding of why consumers purchase certain products and dismiss others.
Consumer Insights vs Facts
Be careful to distinguish an insight from a fact. There is a difference. A consumer fact is just a statement about a consumer behavior or the marketplace. Here are examples of facts:
These facts are interesting and might be relevant to a brand, but they don’t explain why people behave the way they do.
Consumer Insights Highlight Pain Points and Opportunities
Consumer Insights shed light on pain points for consumers and uncover potential opportunities for brands. As an example, an insight from the findings above could be articulated as, “People want a luxury car to signal their lifestyle and financial success.” This is an insight because it taps into consumers’ underlying motivation (often more emotional that functional) and a pain point, resulting in an opportunity.
Consumer Insights Must be Ownable
A consumer insight is only valuable if it is relevant and can be applied back to a brand in an ownable way. If competitive brands are already addressing a specific consumer need and motivation, then the insight is true but not necessarily ownable for a brand. A good insight will inspire ideas and communications that allow the brand team to communicate brand benefits in a unique way.
Note that an insight might link to a category benefit, but it can still be ownable by a brand, if it has not been adopted by the competition.
Consumer Insights Unlock Growth
The job of a consumer insight is to highlight the possibility for an emotional connection between a product/service and the consumer. It provides brand teams with the context that explains how the product can be relevant in consumers lives. Understanding the emotional connection between consumers motivations/needs and the brand benefits can fuel creative marketing ideas that will capture the attention and convert consumers along the marketing purchase funnel.
Consumer Insights May Not be Overtly Articulated by Consumers
Note that consumer insights are deeper motivations that are quite often subconscious. In fact, a good consumer insight is often described as an “Aha moment.” Good insights tend to be simple human truths that we don’t discuss, but are still there, right under our noses. Because of this, specialized consumer learning techniques are needed. Ethnography, in-context observation, consumer diaries, and projective techniques like mood boards and semiotics, are required to dig beneath the surface of what consumers say to uncover their actual motivations. This may also require us to look beyond consumers values and lifestyle to macro trends – demographic, economic, pop culture, health, and technology trends that are also influencing consumer behavior.
Tying back to the luxury car example, consumer perceptions are also influenced by economic and geo-political fluctuations such as, inflation, higher gas prices, climate change and the transition to electric vehicles. This can subconsciously change consumer beliefs and behaviors, leading to new consumer insights.
Consumer Insights Summary
The best consumer insights:
✔ Explain WHY? By identifying and articulating an underlying motivation, need or belief that is driving consumer behavior
✔ Address a pain point or point of tension
✔ Are ownable when applied to a brand/product/service
✔ Unlock opportunities, inspiring creative marketing ideas that fuel business growth
To discuss consumer insights with experts from SIVO, please reach out to our team at Contact@SIVOInsights.com
SIVO Interview with Mary McIlrath, Children and Family Market Research Expert
By Kerry Juhl
Recently, SIVO, Inc. was lucky enough to have Mary McIlrath join our expanding team. Mary has amassed a wealth of experience in Children and Family market research. She is a recognized expert in the generations space, having established a successful Generation Z and Generation Alpha research practice in her past role. She has taught MBA courses in Qualitative Research at the University of Wisconsin and Quantitative Research at the University of Illinois and lectured at Northwestern University.
I recently sat down with Mary to discuss her experience with studying families and generational differences.
Question: Mary, you have been studying families and generational differences for most of your career. How did you become a subject matter expert on this topic?
Mary: I have always been fascinated by understanding generational differences and family dynamics. I come from both industry and academic perspectives—it’s common for former academics to work in industry, but it’s rare birds like me who keep a foot in both disciplines over a career. I’ve been able to harvest the best of both worlds. For example, my academic experience instilled a mindset that respondents should benefit as much or more than the researcher. This is particularly important when working with children and adolescents. Their needs come first; when they are met, the client also benefits. Industry experience has helped me be effective and efficient in conducting research. My dual expertise gives me a deep toolbox of constructs and methods to help my clients achieve their business objectives, with the well-being of the family at center stage.
Question: Mary, what does a typical U.S. family look like today?
Mary: It’s something in continuous flux. Sometimes it’s single-parent households. Sometimes it’s families with two dads. Sometimes it’s blended homes containing multiple generations. What has gradually become less common is the Norman Rockwellian image of two opposite-gender people raising a gaggle of kids with traditional gender roles. For instance, in 1968, 85% of children under 18 yrs. old lived with two parents (regardless of marital status) but that number has dropped to 70% in 2020. About 25% of children live with a single parent in the household.*
Question: How are manufacturers and marketers responding to the needs of today’s children and families?
Mary: It’s a sea change from how brands thought about families in the early days of youth research in the 1980s and 1990s. Those who used to make simple toys, TV shows, or food and beverages for kids are now thinking of how to stay relevant with their offerings and communication in the Metaverse. They are thinking about what is to come in Augmented Reality (AR) since Pokemon Go flipped the script. They are brainstorming what Virtual Reality (VR) will look like. That’s no small task, especially since children’s sense of balance and depth are still developing and putting them outside 3D spaces risks hampering their natural brain development.
Question: What is the latest regulatory environment for marketing and advertising to youth and families?
Mary: If you work on kid brands, it is critical to understand global ethics around marketing and advertising to children and families. Countries around the world have differing laws about when it is acceptable to advertise to young people. Those in the U.S. are the least restrictive because of industry self-established watchdogs like CARU (Children’s Advertising Review Unit). This organization does regular and thorough audits of marketing campaigns to children and calls out/suggests changes to anything that seems unfair.
Question: How does this impact conducting market research with kids and families?
Mary: In the U.S. it’s allowable to do research directly with children with a parent’s consent. It’s “cleaner” data coming straight from children rather than filtered through parents who mistakenly think they know what their kids truly want.
Question: What are a few of your best practices for conducting market research with kids and families?
Mary: Here are a few tips from my experience:
SIVO is excited for Mary to join our team and strengthen our Children and Family market research capabilities. To learn about how kids and families interact with and think about your brand, please reach out to us at Contact@SIVOInsights.com.
*source: 2020 Census Bureau's Current Population Survey
by Julie Rose
Did somebody say recession? Unfortunately, recessions are a normal part of the business cycle. There are periods of economic growth and periods of economic slowdown. During a recession, the economy slows, companies struggle with sales, people lose their jobs, and the stock market suffers. The point where the economy officially falls into a recession depends on multiple factors, but many experts indicate that two consecutive quarters of decline in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a sign of recession. The recession in 2020 occurred when the pandemic impacted our economy. The Great Recession in 2008 was caused by the collapse of the housing market. We are seeing signs for the next recession too, with some experts predicting late 2022 or early 2023. According to the Washington Post, the economy contracted in the first three months of 2022, by shrinking at a 1.4 percent pace.
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/05/19/recession-economy-markets/
One common result of recession is that unemployment rises. Companies sometimes employ “hiring freezes” to maintain profits, while they wait for the economy to stabilize. This puts stress on the rest of the workforce so companies must look for ways to protect their current employees from burnout while also ensuring the most critical work gets done.
It’s common for businesses today to look for creative ways to expand their bandwidth to continue to achieve short and long-term goals. For companies that don’t want to make the long-term commitment of hiring full-time employees or are trying to conserve budgets, hiring temporary or “on demand” professionals is a low-risk, cost-effective option.
Recession-Proof Insights Talent from SIVO On Demand Talent
SIVO On Demand Talent can help with skilled Consumer Insight and Market Research Professionals that ease your team’s workload and help you achieve your business goals while also relieving you of the financial risk that is common during a recession.
We offer flexible solutions, like short or long-term assignments for fill-in roles or finite projects. Additionally, we can serve as an extension of your internal Consumer Insights Team, what we like to call your “back-pocket” consultants. For some clients, our talent serves as the virtual CI team, supporting initiatives in a cost-effective way while also ensuring high quality insights.
SIVO On Demand Talent offers far more flexibility than full-time employee expansion. Plus, you don’t have to spend your valuable time searching for, hiring, and training talent. We take care of it all for you, freeing you from the burden of a lengthy process.
Let SIVO help you manage through the ‘hiring freeze” by temporarily meeting your Insights, Analytics or Market Research talent needs.
Reach out to ondemandtalent@sivoinsights.com for a consultation.
Bringing you innovative performance marketing and
real-time digital shopper insights.
SIVO strives to be on the forefront of new technology and innovations in the insights industry. That is how we discovered Pear Commerce, a brilliant technology company that is on-pace to be the largest provider of shoppable media by the end of 2022!
In 2018, Pear Commerce was founded by two talented serial tech entrepreneurs, Eric Martell and Alex Wyler, bringing their tech expertise to the world of retail.
What is Shoppable Media?
Shoppable media in retail means connecting any media (e.g. free and paid social, digital display, content, influencer, email, owned webpages, etc) to retailers with add-to-cart (ATC) functionality that is just “a click away”.
What are the benefits to Consumers?
Pear provides an industry-leading technology making shoppers online path to purchase frictionless which has been a leading reservation for consumers to shop online. Whether through a digital ad or your brand’s website, Pear uniquely gives consumers a “where to buy” choice, based on real time stock inventory checks and connects them to over 2,000 retail chains across the U.S. That is a clear point of difference.
What are the benefits to Marketing Teams?
A unique way-in to performance marketing. This revolution of advanced technology provides more data and less work for brand teams with real results. At the foundation, Pear provides full funnel click-to-conversion data which improves digital marketing performance while campaigns are in-market. They help marketers with:
What are the benefits to Insights Teams?
At this point you might be thinking, “That’s great, but isn’t SIVO an insights company?” The answer is, “Yes!” SIVO is all about understanding people and in this case, Pear’s technology helps SIVO and our clients better understand consumer preferences and consumers’ digital shopping behavior through real-time, in-market experimentation, such as:
As an example, Pear was able to help a CPG client create a data-driven approach to managing their digital marketing campaigns while also helping them to understand and optimize the plan based on shopper and retailer behavior.
The results were fantastic! Pear created custom audiences for the brand using the client’s own 1st party conversion data and saw 5x add-to-cart (ATC) rates compared to 3rd party audiences and 20x ATC rates compared to the client’s website visitor audience. During the process, Pear scanned over 2,000 retailer’s digital shelves for real-time inventory to help shoppers purchase at their retailer of choice while also helping them avoid hitting out-of-stocks. The client also received valuable digital path to purchase insights and A/B testing results on different creative options to help optimize their digital campaign along the way.
Through our partnership with Pear Commerce, SIVO can now help you achieve strong digital marketing results and new insights via performance marketing and real-time digital experimentation. To learn more about Pear Commerce and SIVO Market Intelligence solutions, please contact our SIVO team at Contact@SIVOInsights.com.
SIVO Insights brings together research, talent, and intelligent technology to help organizations navigate complexity with confidence. Have a business challenge? Let's talk!
We bring together research, talent, and intelligent technology to help organizations navigate complexity with confidence
