Open reflections during a pandemic

        My stream of consciousness as I reflect on what I have observed during this pandemic 

•         Self isolation and physical distancing have brought about feelings of nostalgia and better times that passed by.

•       People feel the need to reach out to loved ones including those who they haven’t spoken to in a while. 

•       Some feel the need to overcompensate (e.g. say more, work longer hours than what they  usually do) in the absence of in-person interaction 

•       It takes 66 days to cultivate a habit. Does this mean in a pandemic (self isolation/lockdown state) for two months, people have changed? (e.g.I have become a homebody and learnt to enjoy my own company and don’t need to socialise) Or has this just unearthed their true self out in the open (e.g. 'if I am a homebody, I stay a homebody – I didn’t know I was before this.)

•       Organisations have embraced digital channels of communication and technology platforms like zoom to stay connected with their workforce. 

•       That being said, let’s be real, online interaction cannot and will never completely ‘replace’ authentic Face to Face interaction. 

   
 But what about?  

•        Those serendipitious organic rituals (e.g. water cooler conversations, a team huddle post a big presentation to discuss how we thought it went, a quick appreciative thank you for a job well done) 
•         At the end of an abrupt Zoom call, do we truly feel that sense of ‘closure’ or does it make us feel more isolated than ever. Perhaps we need to schedule in ‘decompression times’ those times when you would reflect on the day during your commute (which doesn’t exist anymore). But how do we encourage those decompression times while being conscious of the beauty of serendipity and chance. 

       In summary, 

       I don’t like the phrase ‘this is the new normal’. We need to challenge what our notion of normal’ really is. In my opinion, this too is a phase, could be a long phase, but it’s here regardless to teach us a thing or two. 

        As I heard from a speaker in a webinar I recently attended: 'It would be a shame if things went back to normal'. Probably considered a controversial statement by many,  considering what is happening in the world right now. However, by this we really mean, it would be a shame if people went back to behaving the way some of us did before. 

•       Organisations have started trusting their workforce more and realise that people can be counted on to get the work done from home (for those occupations atleast where work from home is a possibility.)

•       We have learnt to appreciate the things we might take for granted (i.e. our family and friends, our good health, travel, our relationship with nature - those hikes in the wilderness, those swims in beaches).

•       For a wanderluster like me, who has been in an always-on planning mode, planning my next travel and adventure, I feel like a bird whose wings have been chopped off. I have had my highs and lows during this pandemic as well but what it has done is  given me the opportunity to self-reflect. Get comfortable with ambiguity, immerse myself in that reflective state. Spend more time with myself. Discovering who I am, what are the values I live by, what I really want and what my priorities are. 

     It’s in fact in the very innately human characteristics of being agile, resilient and adaptive in the face of adversity that will see us through this time. 

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Discovery: The heart of Human-Centered Design (HCD)

This is part 1 in my 3-part series on using the techniques of human-centered design to solve a pressing problem. 

Remember when you were a child and you got excited by anything new? In the Discovery phase, we embrace this ‘fresh eyes’ perspective. We observe people's lives, hear their hopes & desires and explore new possibilities for design. Insights arising out of this phase are core to the HCD process as they are grounded in human needs.

The most fundamental mindset here is Empathy. By putting ourselves in the feet of those we are designing for we see the world through their eyes, understand their pain points & motivations. We use a range of research techniques like in-depth interviews, card sorting, photo journals, observations supported by targeted questions to uncover the human truth and the unmet need underlying that truth.

To illustrate this process, let me give an example of a project my teammates and I worked on. Our challenge was to come up with a solution to reduce food wastage in our local community (i.e. Sydney). To kick off the ‘Discovery phase’ we conducted initial desktop research and spoke to our own communities, family, friends and co-workers to get a deeper understanding of their daily routine, shopping habits and likelihood of wasting food.

Industry experts like the CEO & Founder of OzHarvest, Ronnie Kahn, enlightened us with attitudes underlying the issue of food wastage in Australia and the magnitude of the issue. We realised there were several organisations tackling what we called ‘organisational’ food wastage (e.g. food waste produced by restaurants, hotels & offices). But what about household food wastage?

We learnt that households in Australia throw a staggering $8 billion worth of edible food as waste every year. Moreover, in greater Sydney alone, households spent around $1,036 a year on food that is consequently wasted. This means for every 4 shopping bags bought by each shopper, 1 perfectly good shopping bag gets tossed out to the trash.

To dig deeper, we conducted observations and in-depth interviews with people across a wide spectrum (Young professionals, students, couples, families with kids). We visited the 3 major supermarkets in Sydney (Coles, Woolworths and ALDI) to observe shopper behaviour and spoke to them about their shopping habits.

These shopper intercepts were followed by a telephone interview and in-home ethnographies where people showed us how they stock their groceries and spoke about their meal planning attitudes.

Armed with heaps of qualitative findings, we built an empathy map to bring life to our learnings from consumer research. An empathy map is typically split into 4 quadrants: (What people are Saying, Thinking, Doing & most importantly how they are Feeling)

We uncovered key human insights contributing to the issue of food wastage: 

1.    Lack of accurate food planning: People tend to shop for groceries quite sporadically and weren’t making shopping lists before going shopping. This led them to purchase more than what they would realistically consume.

2. Over-estimating how much you will eat: As the popular saying goes, ‘your eyes are bigger than your stomach.’ In a social occasion (e.g. house parties, Chinese New Year celebrations) the ‘social price’ of not having ‘enough’ food was so high that people wanted to avoid that scenario at all costs. Not having enough food was tantamount to not being a good host/hostess.

3. Leftovers are unappealing: People start out with good intentions, but then become too busy to make use of all the fresh food they buy. There is a general cavalier attitude to fresh food, combined with a voracious appetite for takeaway food and eating out. The plethora of choices Sydney-Siders have at hand further motivates this behaviour.

4. Supermarkets don’t cater to the needs of young adult single-person households: Many staple products (e.g. bread, milk) are sold in large packs which are sometimes too much for 1-2 adults.

4. Different perceptions of ‘food freshness’: People had different ways of estimating how long fresh food lasts and their estimates were not always accurate. As a result, select items that were perfectly safe to eat were being trashed. There were several online resources addressing this problem of ‘lack of knowledge’ on food storage (e.g. Foodwise)

We then synthesised our findings using affinity mapping to highlight what people’s key pain points (fears, frustrations, obstacles) and gain points were (wants, needs, measures of success).

Going through this process helped us cluster common themes & prioritise insights that reflected the true reality of a grocery shopper in Sydney which consequently led to food wastage:

1.    Social & Work commitments takes precedence over grocery shopping/meal planning.

2.    People overestimate how much they can eat at one point in time.

3.    It is convenient to freeze leftovers but unappealing to re-use them.

These insights led us to craft opportunities for design in a format that IDEO popularised called ‘How-might-we….’.

More on that in Part 2: Ideation

Understanding the ‘human’ in Human-Centered Design

Design thinking, Agile, Scrum. Recently these buzzwords have started to get thrown around a lot, not just in the design & tech industry, but also in parallel industries like Research, Media & Advertising. 

What does it all mean and where do these frameworks and methodologies fit into effectively creating a usable and market-ready product or service with human needs at its core?

As one of the lead organizers of the OpenIDEO Sydney Chapter, we facilitate design thinking workshops with the Sydney Community every month with the key outcome of having a social impact. To throw some light on OpenIDEO, it is IDEO’s open innovation platform supported by a global community who work together to design solutions for the world’s biggest challenges using the techniques of human-centered design (i.e. Design Thinking). These challenges run the gamut from finding solutions to food wastage to female empowerment to re-designing the fiber cup.

I prefer using the term ‘human-centered design’ as opposed to ‘design thinking’ purely because the former is self-explanatory and descriptive of the overarching aim of the methodology, to design something that is based on observed human needs. ‘Observed’ being the key word here. Traditional qualitative research techniques like focus groups and in-depth interviews need to be accompanied by ‘pure’ observation of people in the context they would use the product or service in question.

The ‘aha’ moments of inspiration often comes when we least expect it, when we get out of our conference rooms, out into the real world, and put ourselves quite literally in the feet of people we are designing for (i.e. practice empathy).

At its core, human-centered design (HCD) is an iterative process in which we put people (i.e. humans) at the heart of the design process to understand their key pain points and design products, services or experiences as a solution. We then put that solution in the hands of people to understand if it meets their needs and continuously iterate on that solution based on LIVE feedback.
Considering the pace at which the world is changing, and the current reality where technology is often obsolete before it even hits the market, it is crucial to adopt this iterative mindset where you get feedback from ‘your people’ (I shy away from using the word consumer) in the early stages of the process.
In the end, if you aren’t always designing to meet the needs of people, your product or service can quickly become irrelevant to the present reality.
There are several iterations of what constitutes the steps in HCD but to summarise it in the simplest way possible: the three phases of human-centered design are essentially:

1. Discovery
2. Ideation
3. Prototyping

In actual experience, these stages are far from being sequential. Therefore, what we assume will be a linear process is actually quite organic and deliberately inefficient. Which brings me to one of the most crucial mindsets we need to adopt as human-centered designers. To embrace ambiguity. 

In fact, in their book, Creative Confidence, Tom & David Kelley talk about going with the flow in the face of the unknown in order to give yourself the opportunity to be surprised, have your initial assumptions questioned and develop creative ideas.

In this 3-part series, I will explore each of the phases of HCD in more detail and outline my key learnings in taking teams through the process of human-centered design grounded in a pressing human need.

2016: Swimming in a 'C' of trends

G’day and wishing our readers a very happy 2016! As we welcome the New Year, we also get to embrace a fresh set of trend predictions. JWT’s Intelligence Future 100 Report gives us plenty of trendy food for thought.

I like to use the framework of the 4C’s (Consumers, Culture, Category and Context) as a way of categorising information, transforming learnings into insights and creating a powerful consumer ‘connection’. We can also apply this model when analysing trends and their underpinning insights. In this light, here’s a look at some of the top 2016 trends and ways in which brands have already started to take advantage of the forces at play.

Consumer trend:

Neuromarketing: Advances in technology have elevated ‘Neuromarketing’ from being a noughties buzzword to a serious 2016 science which helps shape our understanding of consumer motivations. While neuroscience is in no way a substitute to speaking with consumers and observing their actual behaviour, when used alongside classic research techniques, the implications can be powerful – offering a deeper understanding of how consumers make decisions. In recent times, neuroscience techniques have helped brands predict advertising effectiveness during the development stage as well as analyse drivers of post launch success/failure. An example of this is where Snickers’ used Neuroscience to predict the success of their Aussie Builders campaign where researchers investigated the differences between how 50 females & 50 males responded to the controversial ad.

Culture trend:

Untabooing Womanhood: Feminism has entered a new wave on social media that celebrates previously taboo aspects of femininity. From underarm hair and hygiene to menstruation, social media is saturated with women who are sharing images reflecting the reality of being a woman, with the main objective of raising consciousness and prioritising issues like equal pay and body image. While a few brands like Kotex U have already started to bring hushed topics to the fore in their humorous advertising, we can definitely expect more brands to jump on this cultural bandwagon in 2016.

Category trends:

Chefs as thought leaders: Chefs continue to make a big impact on FMCG and food retail categories. As food increasingly becomes a means of self-expression, further fuelled by the Instagram #foodporn frenzy, chefs have become new-age trendsetters. Here in Australia, some of the world’s leading chefs met at the Taste of Melbourne to discuss 2016 cooking predictions. Keeping food fresh, local and simple will be the order of the day. As one famous chef stated ‘’When people go out to eat, they want a story on a plate.’’ Given the overdoses of Jamie and Heston publicising supermarkets on TV in 2014/15, there will be more creative ways for brands to leverage this celebrity chef super power this year.

Hyper-personalised experiences: Bespoke is the magic word where customers expect tailor-made, unique experiences to suit their individual interests. And this is a trend that crosses all product and service categories. Extreme Dining experiences like ‘Dinner in the sky’ gives customers an ‘out of the world’ experience (well, almost) by seating 22 people around a bar-table, secured by a four point strap system on seats, elevating them 50 metres above ground.

And speaking of Heston, his restaurant, The Fat Duck asks customers to submit information about themselves while booking, allowing The Fat Duck to build customer profiles and tailor meals to individual experiences and childhood feelings of adventure and curiosity.

We see this trend even in retail, where consumers expect highly personalised shopping experiences. This year, ShopStyle, a style search engine launched Tailored Shopping.

A new feature that personalises a user’s shopping experience based on their searches and activity, helping them discover new brands, stores and style inspiration through crafted suggestions.

Ingestible Beauty:

The lines between beauty and food are blurring with the holistic way in which consumers see wellbeing. The Beauty Chef , an Australian superfood beauty brand has a range of ingestible inner beauty powders and offers a platform with recipes including a choice of desserts that incorporate its products, such as a Cheesecake.

Context Trend: Virtual Reality: Brands are continually experimenting with Virtual Reality (VR) to give consumers immersive experiences to drive purchase consideration. As an example, Hamilton Island, Qantas and Samsung partnered to create a three dimensional, Virtual Tourism experience. Customers can choose to fly with pilots in the cockpit of a Qantas jet as it lands at Hamilton Island airport, swim with sea turtles, explore the marine life at the Great Barrier Reef, play golf or just relax at the beach.

So as you can ‘C’, there are lots of great trends which are set to become even hotter in 2016. We look forward to seeing how brands further capitalise on these over the next 12 months. Exciting times ahead!

From Consumer insight to Human insight: The importance of Brand E.Q.

Being a Qualitative Researcher, I get my kicks from understanding consumers scratch that, people, their eccentricities, and how they vary across cultures. Why people do what they do and what influences their behaviour.

The most striking quality of successful brands is their E.Q. (Emotional Quotient) Their ability to emotionally connect with people in a manner that make them Feel something! Excited, Motivated, Strong, Safe, Attractive, Nostalgic, Respected. These are just some of the positive emotions people associate with brands that make them feel good.

Back in 2009, I consulted a national paint brand in Chicago, Valspar, in developing their marketing strategy. What was particularly distinctive about Valspar, was that they had a deep understanding of the different emotional states people go through when they were looking to paint their homes. The key issue discussed in the board room was not about selling more paint cans to more people, it was about identifying human pain points in the customer journey and discovering ways to resolve the same.

As an example, research found the two biggest obstacles to people painting their homes were concerns about the amount of work involved and lack of confidence that they'd get the color right. Valspar addressed this by rolling out digital tools where online color consultants would talk to customers through issues live on their mobile devices as they apply shades to photos of rooms. Most importantly, Valspar became the first paint brand to offer refunds on paint even after it's been applied to walls at home, therefore, going above and beyond customer expectations. (http://bit.ly/18mc4h1)

In 2011, we were commissioned to develop the brand positioning of Amari Hotels & Resorts as well as upcoming projects (at the time) in Thailand: OZO & Saffron Hotels. The hotel I found particularly interesting was OZO hotels (http://www.ozohotels.com/hotels.aspx) in Thailand. What was unique about the OZO brand was that they wanted to develop their positioning around providing a great sleep experience - an uncharted territory in this market, at the time.

We developed hallmarks to bring this positioning to life which particularly meant paying attention to small things. Hotel rooms were not just rooms, they were 'Snooze zones' where hotel staff ensured a noise-free environment, high quality beds designed for optimum comfort, sleeping kits that customers can choose from which may comprise a pillow spray, scented candle, lavender oil or other amenities designed to help you sleep better, whether you have returned from a party or jet-lagged from a flight.

Customers could visit the 'Ozone' in the hotel for a selection of chamomile tea, hot chocolate and night cap drinks for the evening. All of the above ideas originated out of the key finding that customers who visit Ozo hotels were looking to relax during their time there and often that was something as simple as making sure they get the right amount of sleep.

The importance of local cultural nuances cannot be emphasized enough when it comes to developing successful brands. Just for Men is a hair colouring product for men and they were looking at increasing their market share in the Middle East (UAE & Saudi Arabia being key markets). Our research uncovered that Arab men place a lot of importance in their outward appearance. In fact, the grooming of their beard took precedence over hair as this was typically covered with a traditional headpiece. Their beard was a mark of their masculinity and pride.

While in other markets, men did not have any qualms talking about colouring their hair, a key cultural insight for the Middle East was that hair colouring was a taboo topic of discussion. Arab men considered it an extremely personal topic and not something you discuss with your mates or family.

This had obvious implications for marketing Just for Men in the middle east. In a category where colouring your hair is a sensitive subject, Just for men had to engage with its target audience using discreet channels where men felt comfortable in their own skin (For example: Trial & placement in designated areas exclusively for men, TV program selection with a strong male skew, content creation & partnerships with trusted partners operating in the Men's lifestyle & grooming sites etc.)

The above are just a few examples of how these brands were able to build stronger E.Q. Go beyond just the surface level, to dig deeper, to arrive at key human insights in order to create stronger brand connections that emotionally resonated with people.

As marketing continues to evolve, it is perhaps best we do away with words like 'customer insight' and 'target audience' and focus on gaining a deeper understanding of the human behind the customer. What are his/her needs, how is his/her behaviour impacted by their culture, their upbringing. It is this human insight that ties people & brands together and manifests itself in different ways depending on a person's social surroundings.

Unlocking Cooking Attitudes across Cultures

I came across this really interesting study on Cooking Attitudes across 22 countries, conducted by a global research firm. What was interesting about the study was that they took into account 3 criteria that could potentially influence a country's attitude towards cooking:

1. Knowledge about Food & Cooking: How knowledgeable are you when it comes to things like the best time of the year to pick tomatoes, flavour/spice compatibility, the right cut for your meat?
2. Passion for Food & Cooking: How passionate are you about the Cooking Process? Do you get excited about it? Do you cook because you LOVE cooking or do you see it as a necessity?
3. Reported hours spent cooking per week: How many hours per week (approximately) are you cooking?

The following infographic highlights attitudinal differences regarding cooking between Men & Women. Understandably, women score higher points across all the 3 criteria as gender roles continue to remain traditional, when you look at all of these countries holistically.

Another infographic demonstrates the results from the Survey conducted across 23 Countries:

Interesting to note that the Overall Figure is led by only 5 countries: India, Ukraine, South Africa, Indonesia and Italy. However, we see reported differences across all the 3 criteria.

While South Africa leads in terms of knowledge related to Cooking, people in India reportedly spend the maximum amount of hours per week cooking.

In India, home-cooked food is seen as more nutritious and healthy in comparison to Street food. In traditional Indian homes, a mother prepares home-cooked meals for her family and this is just one of the many ways in which she demonstrates the depth of her love for the family.

Italians are most passionate about cooking - where their key driver for Cooking is the pursuit of enjoyment. Cooking in Italy is associated with pleasure and discovery, compared to some other countries where Cooking is seen as a necessity.

South Korea are at the bottom of the list for feeling passionate about cooking. This is possibly driven by the fact that the street food culture is very strong in South Korea, which makes Cooking at home seen as an unnecessary burden.

Another interesting finding was that the knowledge & experience one has of cooking need not positively correlate with a passion for Cooking. For example, Turkey claimed the 3rd place for cooking knowledge, however fell to 7th place (like the US) with regard to passion for cooking.

The lowest ranking countries were: Poland, Sweden, Belgium and Russia where relatively lower scores for both Passion and Knowledge for Cooking, led to lesser amount of time being spent in the Kitchen.

An important point to keep in mind is that, just because these countries are not big on cooking, it would be wrong to assume that they are not big on food in general.

Take Belgium for example, Food is an extremely important part of Belgian life and Belgians reportedly spend considerably more money on food than the Average American, devoting a lot more time and energy discussing about it, shopping for it and ultimately consuming it.

On that note, Bon Appétit, Buon Appetito,Selamat Makan*

*Enjoy your meal in French, Italian & Indonesian

Sources: gfK Research, Global Gourmet

The Quest for Creativity in Research

I am a firm believer in getting your hands dirty when it comes to discovering Human Insights through 'Consumer Research'.

I was recently consulted to propose a research technique to understand why people use Instagram in Australia. Mainly, What a day in their life looks like, how Instagram plays a role, key triggers/motivations for usage, and how other brands are really engaging with people in this platform.

Past studies conducted on Instagram showed that women were more active on this platform and the content posted varied by format: For example, Photos were more about personal experiences, and Videos were about sharing bite-sized engaging content. What was interesting though, was that, there were also differences seen by region. You had more foodies in a city vs self-proclaimed Narcissists in the other city.

While a Qualitative approach was ideal for what we wanted to achieve this study, we did not want to only go in for run-of-the-mill, traditional techniques like Focus Groups. Instead, we recommended 2 studies to get an in-depth understanding of consumer motivations and drivers with regard to their Instagram usage.

1. Mini-groups with a Twist: 6-8 respondents are gathered in a comfortable setting (a cafe, beach) to discuss their attitudes about Social Media (particularly Instagram) among other things

Participants would keep a log of their Instagram usage prior to this discussion (over the past 7 days) This log is discussed in the group. Not only this, we would include Projective techniques where participants are asked to take a break for about 15 minutes, go out, do what they normally do with their phones/cameras, click photos/videos, whatever, and then come back to discuss what they did. This will make our participants more conscious about their usage patterns.

Our mini-groups would yield initial psychographic segments (For example, The Creative Artists, The Selfie Takers, The Foodies) from which respondents will be handpicked for the next exercise.

2. Instagram Diary: Shortlisted participants from the previous exercise go through their regular routine (using Instagram) as they would normally do. End of the week/weekend we have an indepth interview to discuss their usage behaviour and variations in usage according to the time of day, context etc. The idea behind this is to encourage spontaneity as much as possible, with least amount of bias.

The biggest benefit of taking the above route is that we gain diverse perspectives on how consumers interact with social media, while being as close as possible to their most natural, spontaneous behaviour to get to true 'human insights' that we can then use to guide our brand strategy to connect with people in a manner that is emotionally relevant to them.