Is your organization hungry for strategic intent?

We are living and working in an environment that is full of volatility and change.  Many organizations are hungry for strategic intent, a term used to describe the intended direction, purpose, and plans that leaders put in place to achieve their organization’s vision.

Setting and Communicating StrongStrategic Intent Pays Off in Many Ways:

• Drives alignment across the organization
• Illuminates new opportunities for growth
• Creates excitement and engagement 
• Builds onto existing brand equity

SIVO Insights helps organizations set their strategic intent, by leading and facilitating the strategic planning process. This strategic planning  process can be summarized into three steps. Leaders must: 

1. Assess, 

2. Align 

3. Articulate

STEP 1:  ASSESS

Leaders must gather and assess relevant trends, consumer insights, market intelligence and institutional knowledge to answer critical questions across the 5C’s Assessment Framework.

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STEP 2:  ALIGN

With this knowledge in hand, leaders participate in a facilitated strategic planning session to review their assessment of the 5C’s, to ideate, prioritize and most importantly, to align on the mission, vision, and values that will carry the organization into the future.

STEP 3:  ARTICULATE

Lastly, leaders need to articulate their strategic intent—the vision, mission and values as well as the plan—to employees, collaborators, stakeholders, and in some cases to consumers and customers. This communication needs to happen repeatedly, in multiple forums, in-person or virtually, in internal documentation, as well as, in external communication. Strategic Intent can’t be communicated enough to ensure it is internalized by all parties.

Strategic Intent Consulting: Get Transformational Insights

In this time of continuous change, with a refreshed grounding in foundational insights and market intelligence, combined with solid strategic planning (i.e., Assess, Align and Articulate), you can give your organization and your stakeholders what they are hungering for . . . strong strategic intent. Let SIVO help with strategic intent consulting!

 Schedule a Discovery with SIVO Today

Schedule a discovery with SIVO to learn how you and your leadership team can create or re-establish your organization’s strategic intent.

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:  

• Design: Online qualitative research is flourishing now with kids. Sending a “top secret” envelope of concepts or a box of items to unwrap in sequence during an interview, a.k.a., “unboxing”, keeps kids and parents engaged and sharpens their thinking about the items in front of them. Post-pandemic families are used to having Zoom calls, giving virtual room tours, and even running out of the room to gather “show and tell” of their own. Plus, we often get “bonus sibling” insights.
  
• Screening/Recruiting:   Use a battery of questions to set the child up for success for the given method—every child is a consumer and their opinions matter, but every tool doesn’t make them feel good or accomplished about the process when it’s over.
  
• The Guide/Questionnaire: Be visual in qualitative and quantitative research.  And, with in-person qualitative, use kinesthetics exercises to gather their opinions and perceptions (e.g., full-body voting, stretch breaks).
  
• Seating: Make sure you get assent from the child, even if it’s a simple verbal “yes” that they want to proceed. If they say no, gently excuse them. Everyone has a bad day sometimes or finds the environment scary!
  
• Analysis: Kids have a positivity bias. They want to please and say what they think the researcher wants to hear. Filter what they say through a lens of reality.  Sometimes friend-pairs can help get to the truth.

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 

Context. Clarity. Conviction. Consider these your driving factors for presenting Insights that shape strategic business decisions. Eliana Wahnon (General Mills, VP of Consumer & Market Insights) recently joined The SIVO Insights Forum to share her expertise.

Let’s dive deeper into the framework Eliana uses:  

• Context: What matters around this particular topic, issue, or question?
• Clarity: Be brief and straight forward. Share the Insight in a cohesive story.
• Conviction: Create evidence to build that what you are saying needs to be acted upon.

https://youtu.be/Yv8JdvFvILY

Tune into a lively on-demand conversation “Bridging The Gap: Translating Insights Into Meaningful Business Results" to hear from Eliana and other Insights experts including Khary Campbell (Comcast, VP of Consumer Research & Insights) and Elizabeth Oates (Book Author, and former Ulta Beauty VP of Consumer Insights.) 

Learn from Insights leaders as they discuss: 

• The critical role Insights plays in shaping strategic business decisions
• Strategies and tactics to ensure Insights are acted upon
• How to navigate leadership that is reluctant to follow Insights’ guidance
• How to build trust and credibility with senior leaders
• The evolution of Insights roles in the future
• How to make a bigger impact within your organization

Special shout out to Natasha Weith, VP of Research at SIVO Inc. for hosting The SIVO Insights Forum!

by Julie Rose

I’ve been in the workforce for over 30 years (GASP!). I’ve witnessed and been part of a lot of change. Changing technology is a mainstay in the Age of Information, which is centered on accessing information and knowledge easily and quickly. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning is another advancement in getting that knowledge even faster and more quickly.  

With each advancement or new tool, there is the inevitable talk of our jobs going away because the latest advancement is expected to replace us.  In many cases, with advancement in technology, there are shifts that do render obsolescence. From my experience, it is the past technologies, not people, that have become obsolete. As people, we adjust, we leverage, we apply critical thinking, we learn, and take advantage of technological advancements to be more effective and efficient but we typically are not replaced.      

Experience with Workplace Technological Advances 

Early in my career, I was on the Email Task Force when email was just being introduced in the workplace. We grappled with tough topics, like were we going to allow employees to send personal emails. Yes, this is a true story! Email technology has made information flow much faster and easier.  In fact, I don’t remember the last time I faxed something to someone. Email improved the way I work, but it didn’t replace me or make my job obsolete. 

I also remember leading a team that was evaluating social media listening techniques and tools as we were trying to glean insights from the vast number of online conversations and content. People wondered if we would ever need to conduct primary market research again. People wondered if they would be replaced with Do-It-Yourself Digital scraping tools. It didn’t happen. I’m still here providing custom insights by leveraging the best market research tools to meet my clients’ business objectives.  

The Soup-Starter, Not the Soup 

The latest advancements in Artificial Intelligence have impacted every industry, and we are all evaluating it to figure out how to safely leverage it and integrate it into our current best practices. My reflection on the many changes I’ve personally experienced has helped me to formulate my thoughts on it. I’ve been asked quite a lot recently by friends, colleagues, and clients what do I think about AI, machine learning, and specifically natural language AI like ChatGPT or Google’s BERT. My latest answer . . . It’s the Soup-Starter, but it’s not the Soup (or the Chef!). 

New tools like, ChatGPT, are an excellent way to access information and knowledge quickly and to easily get started on a topic or approach. It starts the soup, but it doesn’t finish the meal. Just like soup needs a chef, research needs a researcher, and insights require an Insights Professional. It takes discernment, creativity, experience, and nuanced choices to make a delicious, complex, flavorful pot of soup and the same goes for a custom market research study.  Just like the chef might consider certain stocks and spices to start the soup, a researcher can start with ChatGPT to contemplate potential objectives, methodologies or questions before designing a custom market research project that fully meets the needs of the business. 

Using ChatGPT in Market Research 

When it comes to market research, we at SIVO have found ChatGPT and other AI tools to be a useful starting point in the following ways:

1. Defining your business objective: Understanding and defining the business problem and the customer problem to be solved.
2. Collecting background information: Collecting what is already known on the topic in the research design phase.
3. Exploring research options: Exploring research approaches or methodologies before arriving at the final research design.
4. Beginning survey development: Exploring research question types, projective activities and techniques to consider for discussion guide and online survey development.
5. Identifying themes during analysis: Using only secure AI tools (and not open-source options), for organizing data and synthesizing transcripts and video footage to assist with the analysis and creative storytelling for the research report and presentation.

Evolve toward the Future 

As AI technology evolves, we will evolve with it.  We will leverage it to improve how we operate.  For now, it becomes our new “soup starter” but we still own the recipe and must make the soup.  All of us need to experiment and decide how AI can improve our ways of working but we will continue to apply our craftsmanship, critical thinking, and intuition to finish the job.  

At SIVO, we are dedicated to understanding your business challenges and questions and will then use our expertise, resources, and access to technology to recommend a learning plan and approach that considers all variables and delivers on your needs. Contact us  at Contact@SIVOInsights.com or go to SIVOInsights.com today to schedule a discovery call and connect!