Enhance your research decision-taking with these 10 hard-won lessons of what to do....and what to avoid

1. Breaking Rules
in Consumer
Research

2. Breaking
Rules
Enhancing your decision making...in just
5 minutes
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3. #1 Favour in-depths

For real depth of understanding always
go for one-on-ones over focus groups

Could a focus group ever tell you that
some nature-lovers use binoculars to
approach God?

4. #2 Pick experience

Too many tasks have been wrongly
downgraded and given to juniors

Did you really want a chaotic 75 page
desk research report or 3 pages giving
you precise & meaningful insights?

Reevaluate the experience needed to
complete research tasks

5. #3 Look for the essence

Avoid transcripts and videos: no one
(should) have the time to review these

What counts is: the essential, the
break-through insight, the 'aha!'
moment

A BIG outcome from a focus group
could be a one liner: not a
presentation deck

6. #4 Use innovative methods

A big agency billed a training session I
attended 'New research techniques for
the new decade', then presented
semiotics, lexical analysis & tracking!

Their justification: a new wave of
researchers find this stuff new

There is little innovation in research so
insist on new ways; new approaches

7. #5 Reject research as a job

A major FMCG firm has an overflow of
customer, shopper & channel data

Its insights team see running research
studies as their job

Avoid this: delivering business goals is
the real objective, a task which is
(sometimes) supported by research

8. #6 Become your consumer

What do consumers say? Become the
consumer of your products and you'll
already have the first insights
When I worked for Habitat, I had to

spend days in store; working for Olam
(a commodities company) requires
time spent living & working in the
countryside

9. #7 Probe people

How many times have I seen user-
based segmentations? But we are
consumers for a fraction of our lives

People are more than consumers: they
have jobs, friends, hobbies - & all this
colours attitudes & behaviours

Research real people in their everyday
lives first before drilling down to
purchase & usage

10. #8 Know your culture

Working with Ford, they wanted
databooks; Virgin Atlantic wanted
interpretation

Know that company cultures dictate
the type of research that is 'required'

Know too, that there are times when
the real research need is at odds with
what the culture normally dicates

11. #9 Focus on the last 5 items

Huge U&A surveys are overloaded
with detailed questions

But questions near the end can often
be the key to decode the results

I particularly like value statements
tacked on the back so I know, the
'who?' and not just the 'how
much/how often/why'

12. #10 Cut down your budget

Even with complex targeting,
incremental focus groups deliver
diminishing returns
I've seen 8 even 16 groups

commissioned when 4 would have
given 95%+ of insights

In-depths are the same. Did 72 make
the study more robust or were the last
42 interviews giving the same thing?

13. Enhance your decision-making
join forces with

14. What is Futures Coaching up to
during May 2012?
Helping reinvent an entire supermarket department
Preparing an international innovations project for a
winning global brand
Building a Key Note for NGO Fundraisers in Geneva in
June
Pitching to build an international development strategy
for a major European agency
Planning a business trip to Jakarta and Singapore
Pitching some new book ideas to Pearson

15. LONDON • PARIS
Website: www.futurescoaching.com
Blog: http://futurescoaching.typepad.com
Email: chris@futurescoaching.com