Through the SIVO, Inc. "Modern Ways of Working" Mini Chat series, we spoke with a strategic consumer insights leader, Anna Estlund, Senior Director of Insights and Strategy at Pernod Ricard.
In this conversation with Natasha Weith, Anna discusses how she is working to the ways her team works to drive impact and efficiency. Examples include building more flexibility into her teams roles, spending more time focused on the front and end stages of projects and hiring on demand talent to extend the bandwidth of her team. All of these things allow Anna and her team to maximize their value and relevance to the organization. Check it out!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhrIyqHooiM
Special thanks to Anna for generously sharing her experience and knowledge with our peers across the Insights industry!
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.
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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Do customers want to ‘hire’ your product?
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.
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 to learn how you and your leadership team can create or re-establish your organization’s strategic intent.
By Julie Rose
Now more than ever, it’s crucial to balance future readiness with the demands of today.
The future isn’t distant. It’s already here and unfolding in ways most can’t imagine. If you look closely, the signs of what's to come are everywhere. Technology, consumer preferences, and industry landscapes are evolving at an unprecedented pace.
Yet, many still expect gradual change, a slow evolution of today’s norms. The reality is different. The future is coming faster and with more disruption than we’ve ever experienced before. To remain competitive, companies must adopt a future readiness mindset.
More Different Than Ever Before
In the next 20 years, society will change more than it has in the past 300 years. We live in the Technology Era, where things evolve exponentially. This is hard to grasp because we’re wired to think in linear steps, not exponential leaps.
For example, the stepwise expansion of grocery store refrigerated sections to include fresh snacks and functional beverages and grab & go meals was a slow, predictable evolution. But the rise of Instacart, which recognized paradigm shifts in eCommerce, the gig economy, and rideshare platforms was a significant leap that changed grocery shopping substantially. Today, 25% of groceries are bought through delivery services like Instacart.
While we easily project near-term change, we vastly underestimate long-term transformations.
Take TikTok, Zoom, Peloton, Alexa, Airbnb, and Tesla—none existed 5 to 10 years ago, yet they are now embedded in our daily lives, and disrupted industries almost overnight.
How will your industry, competitors, and consumers transform in the next decade?
The Power of Exponential Change
Exponential technological growth, driven by Moore’s Law, is driven by the power and capabilities of technology doubling every two years, if not faster. This exponential curve is almost impossible for our linear human brains to understand. Let’s demonstrate:
Imagine folding a giant piece of notebook paper in half. Now fold it again and again until you’ve folded it 42 times. How tall would that folded tower of paper be? Four inches? Four feet? Four yards?
Wrong. It would stretch all the way to the moon (0.004 inches x 242 ≈ 240,000 miles)!
This is the power of exponential growth—small changes compound quickly, creating massive impacts. Companies and individuals who can think exponentially, recognizing and preparing for the transformational changes on the horizon, will thrive in a future that looks radically different from today.
How to Prepare for Tomorrow, Today
Here are four critical steps to get your organization ready for the era of exponential change:
1. Narrow Your Lens
With endless opportunities (and challenges) on the horizon, it’s easy to lose focus. Which do you want to solve? Where do you want to start? Narrow your focus to areas where you can make the biggest impact. Rather than trying to chase every opportunity, focus on solving the problems that align with your strengths and strategic goals. Successful companies of the future will be those that zero in on the right opportunities, rather than trying to cover too much ground (or worse, choosing to stand still).
You don’t have to be Amazon, Tesla or Google X—but you better not be Blockbuster.
2. Notice & Anticipate
The future doesn’t usually arrive in the form of today’s familiar faces. Instead, it comes from the edges. Netflix didn’t resemble its current form in its early years, nor did Facebook. To see the signals of change, look beyond your immediate competition or traditional industry players. Explore the fringes of culture, markets, and technology. The future often looks weird before it goes mainstream—initially awkward, niche, and impractical—until it’s not.
What are you doing to discover tomorrow’s signals today?
3. Seek a Catalyst
Driving disruptive change is tough, especially for established organizations. That’s why you need innovation catalysts—people who have the rare ability to get things moving and drive change. These are the people who can activate ideas by building trust, challenging assumptions, and breaking through organizational inertia. If you have them on your team, nurture and empower them. If not, hire them. Additionally, reevaluate your network. Seek and develop deep partnerships that offer 1+1=3 potential.
Do you have a catalyst on your roster? Are your partners driving exponential potential?
4. Practice
Focus, anticipation, and catalysts alone won’t ensure success. You must also create the time and space to “rehearse the future”. Build experimentation into daily routines and make future discussions a core part of company culture. You still need to run day-to-day operations, but by weaving future preparation into daily practice, you’ll be better prepared when disruption hits. World class innovation companies like 3M, NASA and Nike create space, ring-fence funds and reward risk-taking and experimentation.
What systems and norms do you have in place to enable learning about your potential futures?
SIVO is Your Future Readiness Co-Pilot
While tomorrow’s marketplace will look very different from today’s, understanding human needs, beliefs, and behaviors will remain critical. At SIVO, our Custom Research and Growth Framework solutions will highlight tomorrow’s opportunities, and our On Demand Talent network offers “future-ready” experts ready to provide fractional support tailored to your needs. Additionally, we are “rehearsing the future” by actively using and experimenting with AI tools that support our researchers in uncovering insights and optimizing efficiency.
Contact us at Contact@SIVOInsights.com or visit SIVO's Website to hear more about our investigation or to schedule a discovery call. Let’s embrace the future together!
By Marilyn Weiss
Did you know that 81% of consumers say they want brands to get to know them and 66% report that they would be willing to share their personal data to receive more personalized experiences?*
While there are many market research techniques for getting to know your consumers, one of the best ways to understand the intricacies of what they think and do is to “walk” side by side with them in a real-world context. Being with them in the moments that matter, you can discover the underlying linkages to how they make choices about your product or service. This is the essence of ethnographic research; a powerful market research methodology that delves deeply into the lives, habits, and environments of consumers to uncover rich insights that explain their behavior.
What is Ethnographic Research?
Ethnographic research is a qualitative research method that is rooted in anthropology. In the context of market research, ethnography involves observing and interacting with consumers in their everyday environments, such as homes, workplaces, or community spaces. Skilled Research Strategists will immerse themselves in the lives of participants, seeking to uncover unfiltered insights into their behaviors, motivations, and decision-making processes.
When to User Ethnographic Research
Ethnographic research is particularly valuable in scenarios where understanding consumer behavior in context is essential. Here are some situations where ethnography can be highly effective:
New Product Development: Exploring how consumers use existing products or navigate specific tasks or routines can provide invaluable insights for developing new products or improving existing ones.
SIVO in Action: SIVO has gone deep into the lives of senior citizens and how they communicate and interact with their families, living nearby and a far, to inform the development of health tracking devices for older people and their families.
Improving the Customer Experience: Understanding the customer journey and identifying pain points or opportunities for improvement can inform strategies to enhance the overall customer experience.
SIVO in Action: SIVO has spent quality time alongside farmers and hunters on their properties to help clients better understand their experiences with outdoor utility vehicles.
Cultural Understanding: When entering new markets or engaging with unique consumer groups ethnography helps businesses gain a deeper understanding of cultural norms, rituals, values, and preferences.
SIVO in Action: SIVO has explored the lives and rituals of pet owners and how different pet parent styles dictate their dog and cat food buying behavior and preferences.
Gaining Reaction to your Brand: Examining how consumers interact with and perceive brands in their everyday lives can uncover perceptions, attitudes, and emotions that shape brand relationships.
SIVO in Action: SIVO has worked with a national retailer to understand the impact of their new store footprint on shoppers’ overall shopping norms, routines and perceptions of the store brand, as our client developed unique-to-market storefronts.
Best Practices for Conducting Ethnographies with Consumers
1. Establish Rapport: It is critical to build trust and rapport with participants to encourage openness and honesty during observations and interviews. Respect their way of living and cultural sensitivities throughout the research process.
2. Observe without Bias: Approach observations with an open mind, avoiding preconceived notions or biases. Pay attention to subtle cues, behaviors, and non-verbal communication that may reveal underlying motivations or attitudes. Most insights come from observing what they do and not just listening to what they say.
3. Dig beyond the “what” to get to the “why”: It is easy to capture what is happening in their lives but understanding the reasons why and the associated emotions and values is where the rich insights are found.
4. Use Multiple Data Collection Methods: Combine observation, interviews, photography, video recordings, and artifacts to capture a comprehensive view of participants' lives and experiences.
5. Maintain Confidentiality: Because consumers are opening up their lives and homes to us, we need to respect their space and maintain their privacy, ensuring informed consent and confidentiality for participants throughout the research process.
6. Stay Open and Flexible: Be prepared to adjust research plans and methods based on unexpected discoveries or changes in the environment. Embrace flexibility to capture emerging insights effectively.
7. Gather Diverse Perspectives: Engage with a diverse range of participants to capture a breadth of experiences and perspectives. Consider factors such as age, gender, income, and cultural background, as well as product usage, in your recruitment criteria.
8. Limit the Size of your Team: When visiting consumers’ homes or workplaces, you will want to limit the visiting team to 1 interviewer, 1 videographer and 1 client team member per respondent. The idea is to keep it casual and as close to reality as possible. It also helps encourage respondent candor.
9. Bring a Videographer: A high-quality video reel will bring your consumers to life for the stakeholders in your organization. Trust us. It is absolutely worth the added expense to have a professional behind the video equipment!
10. Translate Insights into Recommendations: Finally, give your research partner the time to comb through the notes, video and transcripts to synthesize the data, identify the ethnographic insights and translate the insights into actionable recommendations. This will always take longer than you think it will!
By using these guidelines to fully embrace a holistic understanding of consumers’ lives, businesses can uncover nuanced insights that help build a relationship with their consumers, inform strategic decisions and drive innovation.
SIVO for your Ethnographic Research
As business teams try to navigate an increasingly complex and dynamic marketplace, SIVO’s skilled and experienced research team can lead you through ethnographic research to make sense of the mysteries of consumer behavior and unlock new opportunities for growth. Reach out to the SIVO team at Contact@SIVOInsights.com to schedule a discovery call today!
For more DIY approaches, check out SIVO’s On Demand Talent Profiles to learn more about how an experienced, fractional Qualitative Research Strategist/Expert Moderator can be also an asset for your ethnographic research needs.
Introduction statistics cited from Forbes.com: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2023/07/18/why-customer-centricity-is-a-key-to-long-term-success/?sh=60917fb67f64
by Cindy Blackstock
In Part 1 of our Jobs Theory series, we described how uncovering the underlying needs and motivations of consumer decisions leads to new opportunities for product innovation, renovation and positioning/messaging. Now let’s dig into the keys to success for Consumer Job Mapping.
“Jobs to Be Done” mapping works for all industries and any products or service to create a competitive advantage for your company or brand. There are a few points to consider when embarking on jobs discovery:
There are multiple ways to understand your consumer: in-home observation, longitudinal diaries, one-on-one interviews, in-context intercepts, etc. The optimal approach should be customized for your objectives and your consumers.
Enlist an experienced researcher to listen and interpret your consumers’ words and behaviours to identify the Job. For example, consumers cannot answer the question “What job are you hiring this face cream for?” Asking the right questions in the right way is key to uncovering hidden motivations.
A jobs map will be comprised of multiple jobs ranging from functional to emotional. Ensure each job has been defined – or structured – with context, motivation, and desired outcome. For example, a consumer statement such as “When (the situation) … I want / need (the motivation) … so I can (outcome).
Go beyond just identifying the job. Use activation sessions to translate the Jobs to address your team’s business goals. For example, mapping competitors against your jobs map identifies “white space” opportunities for new product innovation.
At SIVO, we have successfully helped our clients identify opportunities with Job Mapping including white space and positioning opportunities to win in the market place. Here are a few examples to bring it to life.
Innovate in an existing category
OPPORTUNITY: A food manufacturer wanting to find white space in the hot snack category to grow sales and earn a bigger share of consumers’ wallets.
SIVO APPROACH: We used a multi-phased approach to get a comprehensive view into the lives of their consumers. This included mobile journals, in-home ethnographies, in-store intercepts and product user immersion.
RESULT: With the Jobs Map framework, the client was easily able to identify and prioritize jobs signalling white space opportunities, and that led to the launch of a new and unique product to the hot snacks category.
Communicate with your target
OPPORTUNITY: An apparel supplier needed to more fully understand a new consumer target to develop effective messaging.
SIVO APPROACH: We dug deep with both consumers and the sales team to uncover hidden motivations for apparel purchases. We designed an approach that used online boards to capture longitudinal learning (multiple days of apparel choice) followed with webcam focus groups to dig deeper on what was uncovered during the online board.
RESULT: We learned how the target consumer “hired” her apparel and accessories to convey her personal style. This discovery was then reflected in our client’s Facebook and Instagram posts with a focus on the finer details and accessories that are unique to this apparel brand.
Position your new product
OPPORTUNITY: A tech start-up had developed a training app for athletes and were preparing for their next wave of fundraising. They needed to demonstrate they knew their target consumer and how to communicate with them. The company had a hypothesis around what their target consumer was looking for but needed to be sure.
SIVO APPROACH: We needed to capture the First Moment of Truth when exposed to the app and the Second Moment of Truth after using the app. We combined one on one interviews capturing the immediate reaction to the app, followed by a 2-week diary using the app, then one-on-one interviews to learn about the experience.
RESULT: SIVO uncovered an new consumer job, “I want to train like a pro” which was more compelling than the client’s original positioning for the App. The client shifted the messaging, in their introductory video, to focus on this job.
Are you ready to uncover, activate and deliver on your consumers’ jobs through data-driven product evaluation services? Please reach out to SIVO and we will help you build a Consumer Job Map that is full of opportunities to grow your business!
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
