The document outlines ten essential rules for improving consumer research and decision-making, emphasizing the importance of in-depth one-on-one interviews, innovative methods, and understanding consumer behavior in everyday life. It suggests focusing on breakthrough insights rather than extensive reports and adapting research methods to align with company cultures. Additionally, it highlights the need to streamline research efforts to enhance efficiency and effectiveness.

1. Breaking Rules
in Consumer
Research

2. Breaking
Rules
Enhancing your decision making...in just
5 minutes
A Futures Coaching initiative
www.futurescoaching.com

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
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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