Have you ever been stuck for months, or even longer, on a concept that isn’t testing well? And no matter how you rework it, it still doesn’t fly, or at least doesn’t meet internal success criteria?
This is one of the situations we frequently encounter, when clients, very often global innovation teams (but not exclusively), call us as a last resort:
“Help! We’ve been testing for months, even longer. We’ve already done X studies and consulted Y service providers/institutes, and we still can’t get it right! And we absolutely must pass the next test to validate the strategic plan.
WHAT IS REALLY GOING ON HERE?
– They are usually basing their concepts on “fake” consumer insights. Not deliberately, of course!
– But their innovation process pushes them to “create” insights that go with the product innovation… rather than start with real insights and develop the innovation that addresses them.
THE MOST COMMON SCENARIOS:
– Innovation is initiated by R&D, but without knowing precisely which consumer insights it corresponds to: the insight is therefore “written” after the product is developed, to draft concepts that correspond to the formats of the tests to be passed.
– Or perhaps there is, initially, an insight that comes from somewhere, a country, or a global study… but in an effort to develop innovations that work everywhere, it is “averaged out”, sanitized, and becomes “fake” through repeated smoothing and rounding of all its edges.
WHAT IS THE SOLUTION?
– The good news is that there is at least one! As we usually find it, it exists.
– But it is not miraculous, and it requires questioning principles that have become internal dogmas and that teams sometimes no longer have the perspective or courage to challenge: they prefer to tread water for months rather than take a step back.
– And this step back is a step into REALITY: starting again from the consumer’s reality!
– Because no, insights cannot be manufactured… you have to talk to people, observe them, listen to them, and then decode and capture/formalize the right insight, the right tension, the one that is insightful, that “illuminates” and opens up perspectives instead of just being the introductory sentence of a concept.
The 2 conditions for success that we have observed:
– Re-do qualitative research, the real kind, by talking to real people
– Combine qualitative research with strategic thinking and consulting to keep the right balance between the consumer perspective and the business perspective
>> Ready to step back into reality?