In our modern world, the gap between in-person realities and online perceptions can feel vast. Life, as seen on social media is filtered, perfected, and potentially polarized. These perspectives can feel exciting for those who have embraced this curated worldview and scary for those who would rather not.
Connecting with people IRL feels much more familiar and normal. I still have the same love for my kids. I still laugh and am silly with friends and coworkers. I still have my hobbies, still celebrate birthdays and holidays, dinners still need to be prepared, etc. Although my social media interactions have a big impact on the amount of dopamine I have coursing through my body, it hardly tells a full story of how I feel or what my life is actually like at that moment.
As marketers, it is important to acknowledge the macro noise we are inundated with via our devices while cutting through it to reveal actual behavior. Feelings, attitudes, and senses of security can fluctuate rapidly, and keeping a current pulse on their key customers’ thoughts and mindsets can be very valuable for brand teams.
REAL YearLook is an online community solution we offer that goes deep with a small group of the right people over an extended period of time. Over a full year, we connect with this same group for three days each month and look at happiness, confidence, shopping, and usage behaviors. Additionally, we introduce specific stim/concepts for feedback, when applicable, and tailor add-on activities to answer specific questions. This longitudinal look is useful for intuition building and concept feedback on digital messaging and communication, promotions, media/shopping channel prioritization, and innovation. More importantly, the length of time in addition to our experienced researchers enable this digital method to move past the typical social media posturing to create a safe space where participants can be transparent and vulnerable, leading to actionable insights.
Our REAL Intuition Journey is another way to connect with consumer segments in a profound and authentic way while also providing brand teams with the opportunity to personally invest and be impacted by these connections. This approach involves customizable online and in-person approaches with broad team engagement that builds strong, unified intuition across stakeholders.
We recently completed this type of project for a client in a unique situation. They had been hearing loud complaints from a certain segment of consumers, but simultaneously weren’t hearing much of anything from others. By cutting through the filtered feedback gathered via social media, the press, etc., they realized there was much more openness and acceptance from the segment they assumed would be adverse, whereas there was more hurt and opportunity to improve relationships with the segment they hadn’t heard from. This research had a big impact on how they expected to allocate their marketing dollars, the message to communicate, and the audience that needed to hear that message.
As you have needs to connect more authentically with a specific group of people, shoot us a note. We would love to talk through which approach might be the right fit or at least send you white papers on these methods.
Another key note speaker at the Corporate Researchers conference was Derek Thompson, author of Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction. I was particularly struck by his analysis around the myth of novelty which directly impacts some of our innovation work. He describes this as “people like sneakily familiar positive variations of things of a moderate deviation to the mainstream”. There are obvious exceptions to this claim, but for the large companies we work with who have teams searching for “breakthrough innovation,” the truth is that the vast majority of shoppers aren’t looking for something radically different.
