Better Together Volume 1 - From Consumer Intelligence to Consumer Centricity by InSites Consulting

A PANDEMIC TAILWIND 2020 will likely go down in history as a pivotal year. From planet to people, COVID-19 has shaken, not just stirred, the lives of people all over the world. In a matter of weeks, even days, people across the globe had to adapt the way they work, shop, socialize and travel.

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GRAY (RHINO) IS THE NEW BLACK (SWAN)

Confronted with these unprecedented circumstances, many started referring to the pandemic as a ‘Black Swan’, a term coined by economist Nassim Nicholas Taleb to describe an unpredictable, rare, catastrophic event (Taleb, 2010). This model served as a perfect excuse for business managers and nation leaders to defend their lack of agility, reasoning one cannot prepare for an event nobody saw coming. Even Taleb himself contested the idea of COVID-19 being a Black Swan. In an interview with The New Yorker in April 2020, he admitted getting irritated by the misuse of his concept as “a cliché for any bad thing that

surprises us”. A more appropriate metaphor would be to consider the COVID-19 pandemic as a ‘gray rhino’, an event that is coming at us with numerous warning signals but is often ignored (Wucker, 2016). Indeed, scientists have been sounding the alarm bell for decades, stating the question is not ‘if’ but rather ‘when’ a global pandemic would come upon us. Back in 2015, billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates gave a TedTalk on the impact of a probable pandemic: “If anything kills over 10 million people in the next few decades, it’s most likely to be a highly infectious virus rather than a war”. In 2017, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation even set up the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), a platform dedicated to stimulating and accelerating the development of vaccines against emerging infectious diseases and enabling access to these vaccines during outbreaks. Likewise, in September 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) put out a press release ‘World at Risk from Deadly Pandemics’, where it predicted that “an outbreak equivalent to the 1918 influenza pandemic could kill an estimated 50 to 80 million people, wiping out nearly five percent of the global economy”.

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THE PURSUIT OF PROFIT AND PROGRESSION Despite these warnings, as a society, we collectively turned a blind eye and carried on with our quest for profit and progression. In fact, since the ‘60s - under impulse of increased globalization - our global gross domestic product (GDP) grew by more than 5,000% (The Guardian, 2019). Economic growth is ingrained in our culture as a synonym for prosperity and dominates the minds and actions of many business managers and nation leaders. Yet, this mindset puts great pressure on all our systems.

In business, fierce competition often results in a race to the bottom. Take Jet.com, an e-commerce company acquired by Walmart in 2016, that ran a food delivery service in New York City for years. They lost 20 dollars on each order, to stay ahead of the competition and dominate the online retail market (Forbes, 2019a). Such practices also put immense pressure on the global workforce, only 13% of which say to feel truly engaged at work (Gallup, 2013). In the long run, this makes people less resilient, unable to deal with stress or to bounce back when confronted with change. In the US, 76% of employees indicate having experienced a burnout at some point in their career (Gallup, 2020), while in the EU the annual healthcare costs due to workplace stress have risen to more than 20 billion euro (European Risk Observatory, 2014). In Japan, this has had even more extreme consequences with death by overwork - or ‘Karoshi’ - a growing phenomenon. With stress related to the workplace a worldwide threat, the WHO has had awareness creation and remedial actions high on its agenda since 2007. The UN agency even defines a healthy working environment as one where there is not only an absence of harmful conditions but also a presence of (mental) health-promoting ones. Apart from pushing the limits of our economic system and human capital, this rat-race mentality also stretches the planetary boundaries. In an endeavor to increase our economic capacity, half of the world’s rainforests have been destroyed and transformed into agricultural land and livestock farms. This not only has disastrous consequences for our environment, it also proves to be one of the drivers of pandemic threats. A long-term research study on the origin of emerging diseases found that this land use change is associated with some 30% of known emerging diseases (CBS News, 2020).

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THE ALMOND EFFECT 8

The impact of this growth-driven mindset on business, people and environment signaled the need for change, and served as a first wakeup call for society. While many pressed the snooze button, a growing number of people recognized that we were capitalizing on our future. In the field of economics, there is the rise of a countermovement which challenges the narrow focus on economic growth and GDP as prosperity metrics. The idea is being mooted that other variables such as well-being and (environmental) health should be included when measuring prosperity. In March 2017, the English economist Kate Raworth made this very concrete, by presenting an alternative economic model labeled ‘Doughnut economics’. Raworth argues an economy can only be considered prosperous when its social foundations are met (such as gender equality, education, health), without overshooting planetary boundaries (e.g. preventing land conversion, air pollution, climate change). Consequently, a regenerative and distributive economy stays within its social and ecological boundaries, or within its ‘doughnut’ (see figure on the right).

Taking a big leap forward in transforming our systems, however, is often a slow process. As a society - whether it is in business, politics or public policy - we tend to pay disproportionately more attention to short-term goals at the expense of longer-term value. This shorttermism is also visible amongst CEOs, that are being pressured to deliver quarterly results. A global survey amongst 600 C-suite executives and directors reported that two thirds said pressure for short-term results had increased over the previous five years (FCLTGlobal, 2014). This short-term thinking has not disappeared. In April 2018, Mark Zuckerberg testified about Facebook’s customer data leaks, justifying placing short-term profits above protecting personal information. Aside from favoring the short term, our brains also fight change. The human brain is hard-wired to resist change as it might pose a threat to survival, a reaction coined ‘the Almond Effect’, referring to the two almond-shaped pieces in our brain responsible for this (Riches, 2015). Unlocking substantial change thus demands more than merely a wakeup call; we need a strong force to break through our short-termism and

Source: Doughnut economics by Kate Raworth

our resistance to change.

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A PANDEMIC TAILWIND And that force came in the form of a global pandemic. As long-standing habits got interrupted, COVID-19 introduced a moment of reflection to evaluate and rethink our current systems.

“The pandemic represents a rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine and reset our world.” 10

Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the

World Economic Forum

With the strength and speed of an oncoming gray rhino, the pandemic pushed our society over the tipping point for change. Things that were evolving slowly but steadily, waiting to generate momentum, suddenly got accelerated and gained pace. The ‘Doughnut economics’ thinking, for instance, is now brought forward by the World Economic Forum as the world’s route towards recovery from COVID-19, and the city of Amsterdam is currently putting its principles into practice. Likewise, the pandemic served as an accelerator of existing consumer trends such as ‘Do It Yourself’ (DIY), with consumers (re)discovering meaningful pastimes in baking sourdough bread, making their own face masks or remodeling their home. This behavior is not new; in 2019 the global DIY market already forecasted a 4% growth by 2023 (Infiniti Research Limited, 2020). COVID-19 merely acted as a tailwind, supercharging this existing change.

A CATALYST FOR CULTURE SHIFTS Kelly McKnight - Head of Culture + Trends

For trendwatchers, the pandemic is a remarkable and fascinating event that spurs slow-moving macro trends and acts as a catalyst for culture shifts. As a result, COVID-19 has rapidly altered the trajectory of existing consumer trends we’ve been tracking, as well as creating entirely new ones. Although we are used to living in a continuously changing environment, we have not encountered such a disruptive event on a global level since the financial crisis of 2008. As Head of Culture + Trends at InSites Consulting, I’ve interviewed leading-edge consumers and consulted with our local trend advisors to understand the longerterm impact of this pandemic. One area that I’m particularly excited about is how the mega trend of ‘eco mandate’ has been accelerated by COVID-19. The confinement to our homes during lockdown made it clear that we need the beautiful untamed glory of nature to boost our mood and overall well-being. From moving out of the city, or finding a home with a garden, to burgeoning plant ownership - people actively tried to bring more green into their everyday life. As soon as COVID-19 regulations allowed, many rediscovered the joy of spending time outdoors and installed a new intimacy with nature around them. Think for example about the renewed interest in stargazing, forest bathing, hiking and camping, or even the rise of the ‘cottagecore’ fashion trend with its long prairie dresses, cozy jumpers and floral patterns. Post-COVID-19, I expect we will maintain this drive to live closer to and more harmoniously with our environment. As our appreciation for nature grows, people will recognize we need to nurture nature in order for nature to nurture us. This will shift consumer expectations from harnessing nature for our benefit - simply taking what we need and want - towards a more respectful relationship. I predict a growing demand for brands that support this human/nature symbiosis by helping consumers bring nature into their home, or to rewild their outdoor spaces. The ‘going back to nature’ trend creates a demand for products that use unadulterated ingredients or alternative materials, and services that support our enjoyment of the great outdoors in ways that make a genuinely positive impact on the planet. I N S I T E S C O N S U LT I N G

But this accelerated change is mostly visible in the rapid adoption of digital technologies. Research by McKinsey has shown we vaulted five years forward in consumer and business digital adoption in a timespan of merely eight weeks (McKinsey, 2020b). The use of video conferencing and social media platforms boomed as a result of the confinement at home. In a period of merely five months, the use of Microsoft Teams increased by 894%, and Zoom use grew by 677% (Computer Weekly, 2020). In Italy in particular, the time spent on Facebook increased by 70% at the start of the pandemic outbreak, and views of Instagram and Facebook Live doubled in merely one week (Facebook IQ, 2020). The healthcare industry saw consumer engagement with telemedicine initiatives really kicked off by the pandemic.

MICROSOFT TEAMS USAGE

Source: Microsoft

Harold Paz, Chief Executive Officer of Ohio-based Wexner Medical Center, confirms this boost, stating: “Last year we saw 50 telehealth visits per day. Now it’s 2,400.” (Stylus, 2020). The increased focus on health and safety also pushed car producers to rethink the road to car sales. Tesla, for example, launched a contactless test-drive service, and Chinese car company Geely rolled out contactless car key delivery by drone to new owners. Likewise, real estate agents had to think out of the box as the pandemic made organizing in-person home viewings almost impossible. As a result, the industry expanded its push into virtual reality (VR) to proceed with property viewing. According to real estate broker Redfin, a third of home-tour requests in the aftermath of the pandemic lockdown are virtual (MReport, 2020). Many of these trends were already well under way before the pandemic hit. The crisis simply fast-tracked much of what would have happened anyway, with many of these accelerated trends being here to stay. As more gray-rhino events will most likely come our way in the future - stemming from climate change, social inequality, geopolitical uncertainties, cyber-attacks, to pandemics - managers and business owners are challenged to adopt a gray-rhino mindset. Michele Wucker, author of ‘The Gray Rhino’, explains that, in contrast to the ‘black swan’, the ‘gray rhino’ gives people the opportunity to respond. They can move out of the way, get trampled, or jump on its back and use its force to their benefit. Chinese President Xi Jinping acknowledges this need for a more active mindset, stating that “China must be on guard against highly improbable, unimaginable ‘black swan’ events while also fending off highly probable but often neglected ‘gray rhino’ risks”. Recognizing gray rhinos, and actively dealing with these risks, resulted in China’s

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GDP rising by 3.2% in 2020 Q2 compared to 2019 Q2, this in contrast to the rest of the world facing an overall decline (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2020). Adopting a gray-rhino mindset means holding oneself accountable for taking action, embracing change and transforming a crisis situation into an opportunity. For managers and business owners, it all starts with adopting a practice of ongoing consumer listening, identifying shifting needs and behaviors, and acting upon these. On the next pages, we will elaborate on these accelerated consumer shifts, and the implications of this new consumer reality for businesses.

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CHANGING CONSUMER REALITY

THE AGE OF RELEVANCE The most significant acceleration, even on the consumer side, lies in the adoption of technology and the digitalization of our lives. While the offline world was paused, the online sphere bloomed. Take online shopping; faced with lockdown regimes and store closures, consumers turned to online and mobile shopping to buy groceries, daily necessities, and other products. According to IBM’s Retail Index, the pandemic accelerated e-commerce adoption by five years (IBM, 2020). Many consumers turned to online shopping for the first time, with 12.2% growth for new online shoppers aged 65 and above (eMarketer, 2020). This accelerated the growing ‘what you see is what you can get’ consumer rationale. Spoiled by the on-demand economy, people increasingly expect to receive any product or service - regardless of where it comes from in the world - to be delivered at their door, seamlessly (and safely!).

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LIQUID EXPECTATIONS Consumer expectations are no longer limited by the borders of a country, region or industry. Today, consumers compare a doctor’s appointment with their latest visit to the Apple store. They wonder why the check-in experience for an airline can’t resemble how they are welcomed at Disneyworld, and why walking into a bank is not more like visiting Luckin Coffee or Starbucks. This effect is labeled ‘liquid or fluid expectations’, a term first coined by Accenture, linking to the perceptual gap that consumers feel when they encounter inconsistencies between 18

a great experience in the past and any current experience.

Consumers compare any new experience to the best experiences they ever had elsewhere Due to these liquid expectations, consumers compare any new experience to the best experiences they ever had elsewhere, regardless of place, category or industry. Consequently, companies are no longer solely competing within their industry, but also across sectors and even regions. The world is one big marketplace fueling the consumers’ expectations and the brands’ innovation agendas.

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Even in sectors like insurance, we see innovative players acting upon these liquid expectations by adopting business-model thinking from other industries. Metromile, a car insurance start-up, for example, has adopted a ‘Pay Per Mile’ model, something common in the utilities sector. The insurance comes with a small device consumers plug into a port (called OBD-II) near the steering wheel to track their mileage. Via the brand’s corresponding app, users can file a claim, monitor their car’s health, manage parts of their policy, but also locate their car should it get stolen.

Another example is the ‘flight delay’ insurance of Zhong An, the first online-only insurance company in China. Using real-time flight information to capture delays, consumers get reimbursed instantly - while still at the airport - and automatically, without having to file a claim. The company even established a technology incubator to research Artificial Intelligence, blockchain and cloud computing, thereby blurring the boundaries between the insurance and tech sectors.

HOW BRANDS ARE BRINGING THE CHARM OF OFFLINE ONLINE Jennifer Liu - Managing Partner Answer Global (Taiwan)

How do you bring the charm of offline sales channels to online experiences? When it comes to embracing a direct-to-consumer (DTC) approach, many brands are afraid that they will lose one of the biggest advantages of the offline route - hyper-skilled salespeople in an atmosphere that almost whispers ‘buy it now’. Living and working in the Asian market myself, I noticed that many retailers here try to mimic this atmosphere in an online setting. As a result, retail streaming has become a growing trend in China, with salespeople using live streaming to sell their products, and Li Jiaqi, a male social influencer, making 145 million USD in a single day by simply selling lipsticks. It is like when TV shopping hit the US market years ago. After the COVID-19 outbreak, retail streaming became the only way to combine the charm of offline sales channels with online sales. Many CEOs also started their own live-streaming sessions to create buzz, and they proved their charm by doing so. The chairwoman of Gree Electric, one of the biggest home appliance players in China, sold more than 43.7 million USD worth of home appliances in three hours, which granted her the title of ‘Queen of Home Appliances’. What can we learn from the king of lipstick and the queen of home appliances? Authenticity, but also authority and professionalism, are key. The lipstick king broadcasts his live-streaming sessions from his home - you can see his dog or assistant pass by - which gives viewers a real, unfiltered look into his life. But having tried hundreds of different products also makes him a true expert and grants him the authority to recommend those lipsticks.

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THE TRAGEDY OF THE ‘OR’ Driven by boundless experiences, consumers increasingly expect an ‘and’ story, not wanting to make compromises. This leads to various dualisms. Consumers are attracted to the global identity that characterizes global brands, but are equally eager to discover local brands and develop a personal connection. They are open to adopting sustainable products, but without compromising on performance. And they want the convenience of data (support) to fuel fast, frictionless experiences, without sacrificing their privacy. Something that became even more apparent due to the pandemic is the tech/detox dualism, namely the consumers’ desire/ necessity to use

technology in every aspect of their lives, while at the same time trying to control this dependence on digital solutions. On average, people spend 3 hours and 15 minutes on their phones and check their device about 58 times a day (RescueTime, 2019). This screen time increased during the COVID-19 lockdown, with consumers attending online religious ceremonies, organizing video calls and quizzes, or using their smartphone for online shopping. In India, smartphone use even increased with 12% during lockdown (Gizbot, 2020). This intense use of digital pushed the boundaries of consumers’ well-being, with ‘Zoom fatigue’ - the mental exhaustion associated with online video conferencing - popping up more and more in Google searches as from March 2020 (Google Trends, 2020b). Before the pandemic, a countermovement was already emerging, with ‘digital detox’ becoming a trending topic as consumers actively tried to cut back on digital (Google Trends, 23

2020a). Ironically, such a detox often also involves the so-called ‘anti-tech tech’, or digital solutions to cut back from digital. An example of this is Flipd, an app that is helping over 1.5 million users to actively unplug and reduce their screen time (Flipd, 2020). Google also jumped on this digital-detox trend by launching its ‘Paper Phone’ app, which lets consumers select vital information they need for the day - such as calendar invites, favorite contacts or recipes - and generates a printable booklet they can use instead of their phone. I N S I T E S C O N S U LT I N G

Another example is the growing desire for ownership, with the increased interest in access-based business models. In mobility, the growing urbanization and pressure on fuel prices have fueled global ride sharing. Although the market is estimated to be down by 2.1% versus the preCOVID-19 projections, the global ride-sharing market is expected to grow 55.6% year-over-year (Business Wire, 2020). Volvo is currently running a car subscription service, ‘Care by Volvo’, which provides a flexible alternative to leasing or buying a brand-new car. By paying a fixed monthly fee, drivers get access to the vehicle of their choice, without having to worry about the associated costs of running a car such as insurance, maintenance, tire replacement etc. (Volvo, 2020).

At the same time, car ownership is growing. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, car ownership increased at an average of 13.2% a year in Asia (Industryweek, 2019) between 2005 and 2015. Similarly, the rate of vehicle increase substantially exceeded population growth between 2012 and 2017 in many transit-oriented cities in the US (i.e. Boston, Los Angeles, New

York, Philadelphia and Chicago) (Bloomberg, 2019). COVID-19 turned hygiene into a vital factor in mobility, with cars increasingly perceived as a personal, safe and hygienic transportation hub. As a result, a third of consumers value access to a private vehicle more than they did before the pandemic (McKinsey, 2020a). Half of the consumers even say they are open to extending the use of their private vehicle beyond transportation into ways to safely connect with the outside world, such as drive-in movie theaters, festivals or concerts (McKinsey, 2020b). The consequences of this renewed appreciation for car ownership is clearly visible in outer London. In August 2020, congestion levels around the city increased to nearly a fifth above those of 2019, with detrimental effects on air quality and overall well-being (London Evening Standard, 2020).

Consumer value is no longer solely delivered on the outer sides of an equilibrium but especially in the overlap

For brands, consumer value is no longer solely delivered on the outer sides of an equilibrium but especially in the overlap. This growing need for ‘bothism’ - a term gaining in popularity in marketing - makes brands accept that two seemingly contradictory ideas can coexist. As Jim Collins described in his best-selling book ‘Built to Last’, truly visionary brands liberate themselves with the ‘genius of the AND’ - or the ability to embrace both extremes of several dimensions at the same time. Instead of choosing A OR B, they figure out a way to have both A AND B. I N S I T E S C O N S U LT I N G

“We’re not talking about mere balance here. ‘Balance’ implies going to the midpoint, fifty-fifty, half and half. A highly visionary company doesn’t want to blend yin and yang into a gray, indistinguishable circle that is neither highly yin nor highly yang; it aims to be distinctly yin and distinctly yang - both at the same time, all the time.”

Jim Collins, author ‘Built to Last’

This is also the idea behind furniture rental company Feather: “We believe furniture shouldn’t involve that much compromise. Affordable and well-made. Convenient and sustainable. Smart and stylish. These things are all possible with Feather. We built a more responsible approach to furniture, one that’s grounded in rental, reuse, and refurbishment. There’s still a lot of work to be done, but we’re proud to be offering a more circular approach and helping a new generation of renters create homes they love even when life is in motion.”.

HOW MAKING NO COMPROMISE CAN HELP RETAIL SURVIVE Heidi Turner - Senior Research Manager (Australia)

Retail in Australia has been under pressure, with retail spending reaching a 28-year low in 2019, the bush fires adding more pressure, and the industry being rocked by multiple employee underpayment scandals. All of this even before COVID-19 hit our shores. Many retailers - which we all thought were ‘too big to fail’ - fell. The capabilities that unite those that survive and even thrive in these fickle circumstances are their focus on the consumer, understanding their unique needs, and providing a relevant solution without compromise. Tech streetwear brand TO {BARWYN} AND BACK, for example, makes high-performance clothing from recycled materials without compromising on a distinctly alternative Melbournian style. Founder Gemma Baxter, an avid cyclist, found a hole in the market for functional yet fashionable clothing that bridges the gap between activewear and workwear. Her range offers smart functionality based on consumer-centric designs. Skirts and dresses can be toggle-tied to lift the hem when cycling - preventing them being caught in gears, wheels or chain. Integrated D-rings in clothing can be used to attach keys, wallet or mobile phone - avoiding uncomfortable, bulging pockets. Eyelets in jackets secure your earphone cord to stop it snagging at buttons, helmet straps or handlebars. Her fabric specs read like something from a professional sports arena: moisture wicking, antimicrobial, water repellant, quick drying, hi-viz, reflective, UV resistant… the list goes on and on. All of this in addition to often being sourced locally and made from recycled materials. One of her fabrics is woven primarily from recycled plastic water bottles. And somehow, she manages to make them feel good on the skin too. TO {BARWYN} AND BACK is a fantastic example of how a savvy retailer can avoid any trade-off between performance and sustainability. It represents the best of both worlds, and consumers are lapping it up.

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Consumers not only want what they want how they want it, they also want it now

Consumers not only want what they want how they want it, they also want it now. Spoiled by the on-demand economy, where a few taps and swipes suffice to fuel their wants and needs, consumers are becoming increasingly impatient. It even goes so far that 46% of consumers abandon their online shopping cart when shipping times are too long 28

(UPS, 2016). This explains the success of ‘Just Walk Out’ shopping like at Amazon Go. Upon entering the store, shoppers scan the brand’s app and get their groceries while tracked by cameras and sensors. Afterwards they simply walk out, as their items are automatically charged for. No queues, no check-out; only efficient and frictionless shopping. With Amazon Go as true game changer in the retail industry - and reportedly aiming to open 3,000 of these stores - it is predicted the concept could translate into a 4.5 billion USD annual sales opportunity (Forbes, 2019b).

The outbreak of COVID-19 did not seem to temper this impatience. Although consumers were forced to shift to a lower gear and embrace a slower pace of life, their expectations towards brands did not follow. This is also visible in the accelerated adoption of direct-to-consumer (DTC) propositions. According to PR agency Diffusion’s ‘DTC Purchase Intent Index’, 2 in every 5 Americans purchased from a DTC company in 2019. This number is forecasted to grow with nearly 50% in the next five years (Diffusion, 2020). COVID-19 accelerated this rise in DTC as interrupted supply chains forced consumers to connect directly with brands. Many of these had been playing with the idea of DTC for some time, but the closure of the usual sales channels made many take the plunge. PepsiCo, for example, successfully pivoted to DTC. In less than 30 days, they launched two different websites, PantryShop.com and Snacks.com, for their US consumers. PantryShop.com focuses on selling product bundles of essentials such as cereal, fruit juice and snacks. The other one, Snacks.com, lets consumers pick from a wide range of snacking products.

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NEXTGEN: THE AND/AND GENERATION Joeri Van den Bergh - Managing Partner & NextGen Expert

Young generations (Y & Z) are pre-wired to behave as ‘bothist’ consumers. They have a short attention span, an overwhelming need for instant gratification and new experiences, and they are growing up with technology fueling their demanding needs. On the one hand, they are looking for brands that cater to their individual creative needs to define who they are. On the other, they are the most global, political, eco-conscious, socially progressive and diverse young generation ever. The coronavirus and the economic crisis are forcing them even more to recognize inequality and disparity.

30 COVID-19 will fuel youth activism as they now have extra concerns for their future. Their education got stalled or is seriously lagging behind because of closed school or universities and boomer teachers unable to keep up with technology. Their internships - which in normal times help them to kick off their careers - were cancelled or postponed. Some lost their student jobs and income. And the labor market doesn’t look promising in the near future either. A great example of how brands can tick both the hyper-personalized individual needs of NextGen AND the collective dream of creating a better world is skate apparel brand Vans’ ‘Foot the Bill’ campaign which ran during the corona crisis. Basically, it was a customization program that invited Vans fans to design their own shoes, which were then sold via Vans’ e-shop to support the fans’ network of independent skate shops, restaurants and other small businesses affected by COVID-19. The net proceeds of their unique designs (over 4 million USD) went directly back to the small businesses they decided to support themselves. Success factors behind the campaign: NextGen creates their own shoes, THEY decide on the charity’s beneficiary AND they feel better because they - together with their love brand Vans - create a better world.

THE AGE OF RELEVANCE Consumers expect brands to understand their unique needs and wants, which may differ depending on context or occasion. Research by Salesforce confirms that 72% of consumers expect companies to understand their unique needs and expectations, and that 66% would switch brands if they felt treated like a number, not an individual (Salesforce, 2018). And this goes beyond just delivering products. Consumers are on a quest for relevance and expect brands to play a role in this. In fact, 77% of global consumers indicate they prefer to buy from companies that share their values. These so-called ‘meaningful brands’ also are seen to outperform the stock market by 134% (Havas Media, 2019). However, a brand’s values and purpose should not merely exist in its mission statement; they need to be translated into concrete action as to how the organization intends to support its consumers in reaching their basic, psychological, self-fulfilling and collective needs.

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HOW CONSUMERS ARE LOOKING FOR ‘MORE’ IN FINANCIAL SERVICES Paul Child - Global Client Partner (UK)

The recent rise of Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) funds in the UK illustrates how consumers are looking for ‘more’ in financial services; they want their money to follow their values. In my 20+ years of running research in the banking and finance sector, I have never seen such a strong shift towards purpose-led investing. What sets these ESG funds apart is that they go beyond simply excluding ‘sin’ sectors; they actively support businesses in doing good and realizing positive change. This approach also seems to provide fertile ground for new investors to enter the market via digital-first brands.

32 An example that caught my eye is the app tickr. The brand’s founders previously worked in the investment management industry, and started tickr to make investing with societal impact convenient and accessible to everyone. The app only lists funds designed to invest for impact - be it affecting climate change or promoting diversity. Via short videos and company profiles, tickr offers its users transparency as well as guidance via in-app ‘financial education’ videos. With their app-led approach, the brand aims to bring investing to the masses, targeting a rather different investor audience which seemingly pays off - more than 40% of its investors are female, with an average age of 31 and a massive 50% that have never invested before. They also follow what I consider the golden rule of success in the ESG space: being open and honest about where they could improve or the areas in which they’re not quite where they want to be (yet). This openness prevents scrutineers from excavating embarrassing exceptions to their philosophy, and sets out their long-term goals to grow their service.

Similar to how consumers move up in needs’ pyramids like Maslow’s, their expectations towards brands are layered

Similar to how consumers move up in needs’ pyramids like Maslow’s, their expectations towards brands are layered. A high-quality offering remains the foundation. However, this is no longer a differentiator but rather a brand’s license to operate in the marketplace. As many consumers have reached ‘peak stuff’ (meaning they are maxed out on products and services), they demand more than a well-performing offering. Once their basic requirements are fulfilled (i.e. basic needs), consumers move up to expecting a compelling experience (i.e. advanced needs). When they have access to such satisfying experiences, they expect brands to them help reach their life goals (i.e. self-fulfillment needs). Lastly, consumers need brands to also contribute to positive societal impact (i.e. collective needs). The pandemic impacted the pyramid’s bottom and top layers in particular. Border closures, supermarket queues and empty shelves put a renewed pressure on the fulfilment of the basic needs. Moreover, the increased focus on health and safety is pushing brands to rethink their offering in the aftermath of the pandemic. Next to that, the global reduction in human activity and travel - bringing cleaner air, empty roads

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and bolder wildlife - gave people a glimpse of what a greener world might be like. And so brands are also challenged to think about how to contribute to that better world through their offering.

The hierarchical model of consumer needs

Hotel chain CitizenM is a nice illustration of how a brand can support its consumers, in this case business travelers, in reaching their needs across this pyramid. CitizenM’s purpose is to create a frictionless consumer experience and ‘affordable luxury’, which is reflected in its comfortable, well-designed rooms. By downloading the ‘contactless stay’ app, launched in the aftermath of the pandemic, travelers can safely and conveniently use their smartphone to check in and out, control

temperature and entertainment, or order food and drinks. To support digital nomads and freelancers in reaching their life goals, the brand offers a flexible stay option on a month-by-month basis (CitizenM, 2020a). As for societal impact, guests can skip room cleaning, and donate the money saved to initiatives for better mobility in developing countries (CitizenM, 2020b). CitizenM succeeds in being a truly relevant brand in business travelers’ lives. It plays a role across all four needs, creating a coherent offering, while making sure its actions are in line with both its brand purpose and its target group.

If brands don’t act, consumers will

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SUSTAINABILITY, A BRAND’S NEW PURPOSE Joeri Van den Bergh - Managing Partner & NextGen Expert

Globally, some 7 out of 10 people believe climate change is - in the long term as serious as the COVID-19 health crisis. And it is! It would take humankind 18 years to repair the damage we have done to the environment since the ’70s. CO2 is the new currency During corona lockdowns, many urban citizens experienced the better inner-city air quality. It made them revalue nature and clean air. Drastically lowering carbon footprints will become one of the main sustainability missions in the next 5 to 10 years. Some brands are already using their efforts in marketing campaigns.

Heineken, for instance, is producing all brands sold in the Netherlands on 100% green energy - and they call it ‘our new ingredient’ in billboard campaigns. Oatly prints the CO2 equivalent on each pack of oat milk, and challenges the milk industry to do the same. The plastic monster Consumers are shocked by images of our oceans filled with plastics. Reducing and recycling packaging, especially single-use plastic, will be another key sustainability strategy. Since 2019, Nestlé has a team of 50 researchers working full-time on creating environmental packaging for all its brands. Coca-Cola is only using rPET (100% recycled plastic) bottles for all its brands in several markets. Clean is the new green But ‘clean’ means more than clean air (zero emissions) and clean water (zero waste). ‘Clean is the new green’ should be seen in a broader context of ‘clean labels’, including the use of natural ingredients, and cruelty-free sourcing and production. Fair trade, well-being and inclusivity will gain importance as the COVID-19 crisis increases our social solidarity. Websites like ‘didtheyhelp.com’ made it very transparent which corporates were supporting the financial safety of its staff and suppliers during the crisis and which ones were dropping them.

In this age of relevance, consumers thus expect brands to provide relevant products, services and experiences in line with their unique needs and wants. And if brands don’t act, consumers will. They have the tools and the knowledge to develop their own business ideas. Inspired by books like ‘The $100 Startup’ by Chris Guillebeau, anyone can start their own business, especially in a reality where entry barriers are lower than ever. A perfect example is deodorant brand Native. One day, Native’s CEO Moiz Ali was looking at the AXE/LYNX deodorant label while he was waiting to pay for his shopping, and could not make sense of most of the ingredients. That is when he came up with a new business idea: a deodorant with only natural ingredients. It turned out to be one of the fastest growing deodorant companies in the United States (Consumer Goods Technology, 2017).

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HOW LATIN AMERICAN BRANDS TAKE UP A MORE ACTIVE, SOCIAL ROLE Alexandre Catelan & Luis Montesano, respectively Founder/ Partner and Research Director/ Partner at Provokers (Brazil)

Greater access to information and a growing awareness of injustice - especially among the younger generations in Latin America - has led to a situation where inherited values are being questioned. As a result, mobilizations and social activism are becoming common practice. In our experience at Provokers, a research and consultancy agency that has been present in this region for more than 10 years, we witness how govern-

ments hardly respond to any demands of the population. Therefore, people increasingly expect brands to take up an active, social role and support change. Brands, in turn, echo this void by actively searching for routes towards improvement, denouncing unfair practices and processes. Or, by remedying mistakes or stereotypes built in the past, especially in relation to gender and sustainability which also improves consumers’ overall perception of the business or brand. As research professionals, we are convinced brands benefit from occupying a more active role in supporting people’s collective needs. A nice example is telecom brand ‘WOM’ that provided free social media access to all its Chilean users during the social demonstrations in October 2019. This action allowed protesters to share their experiences with a broad audience and remain connected while facing the danger of police repression. WOM thus played an active role during the protests, by fulfilling their users’ need for communication while also supporting them to spread social demands. In doing so, the brand translated its values and purpose into concrete actions to support the collective needs of the Chilean society.

To survive and even thrive in these turbulent times, businesses around the world need to keep the finger on the pulse to understand the consumers’ changing needs and wants. As Zhang Ruimin, founder and CEO of Haier, rightly points out: “There are no great companies, only relevant companies”. This requires commitment in listening to the voice of the consumer, and installing a culture and infrastructure where con-

sumers are an integral part of the business.

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CHANGING BUSINESS REALITY

FROM MASTERY TO INTIMACY For centuries, businesses were focusing on mastery, or growing superiority in a certain domain or strategic focus. To survive and thrive, brands and businesses were to excel in products, services and/or price. It was all about doing things better, faster or cheaper. As early as 1776, Adam Smith introduced theories on the division of labor to increase productivity. His book ‘The Wealth of Nations’ illustrated how output can be increased through specialization of the workforce instead of making every worker construct a finished product. Since then, a culture focused on continuous improvement be it product, service or price - has dominated in business.

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Car manufacturer Toyota is exemplary in this pursuit of excellence. In 1951, it installed its so-called ‘Creative Idea and Suggestion System’ (CISS), which allows every employee, regardless of their role or focus, to make suggestions on ways to improve the production process. By 2011, more than 40 million improvement ideas where submitted (Toyota UK, 2014). Adoption rates grew from 23% in the first year to 96% in 1986 (InnovationLabs, 2015). In 2001, Toyota included their quest for continuous improvement as a core dimension of their Guiding Principles, called the ‘Toyota Way’.

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an ‘if I build it, they will buy it’ mindset, focused entirely on the product with a rather diffuse notion of the consumer

Yet as one becomes so obsessed with continuously improving products, services and processes, one loses sight of whom they are doing it for, and that is the consumer.

“When your eyes are only looking at the organization, your ass is facing the customer.” Yudai

Although most companies initially start from a focus on the consumer, and are dedicated to providing a relevant and appealing offering, many seem to lose track over time. After a few successes in the market, managers tend to internalize the idea that consumers primarily respond to the great products and services they push to the market. As a result, managers increasingly adopt an ‘if I build it, they will buy it’ mindset. This is also what happened to Microsoft in 2012, when they developed what they believed was the next big thing: Windows 8. The brand spent millions of dollars on R&D to include every possible feature in the platform, so as to outperform Apple and Google. However, what they actually built was what their engineers ‘could’ rather than what they ‘should’ develop. After its release, it became clear regular consumers struggled to use Windows 8, as

some basic aspects such as closing running applications, or simply restarting their computer, were far from intuitive. American business magazine Inc. even described Windows 8 as the ‘epic fail of the decade’, warning business users about this upgrade (Inc., 2013). The demise of Windows 8 perfectly illustrates the possible consequences of an inside-out mentality for a brand. Here, Microsoft engineers believed they knew what consumers needed, focusing on the product and largely ignoring all consumer insights.

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THE FAST FISH EATS THE SLOW FISH To stay relevant in these extremely volatile times, operating based on this ‘if I build it, they will buy it’ mindset is no longer an option. Henry Ford’s so-called ‘immutable law’, stating that ‘the one who can give the consumer the best quality at lower prices will certainly be at the head of the industry, no matter what goods he produces’ is no longer valid. In this age of relevance, brands must keep a finger on the pulse and swiftly act upon shifting consumer needs and wants. As Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, rightly says: “It is not the big fish that eats the small fish, it’s the fast fish that eats the slow fish”.

It’s not a brand’s size that ensures competitive success, but its ability to quickly respond to change

Hence, it’s no longer a brand’s size that ensures competitive success. It is its ability to quickly respond to the changing world with a relevant offering. This also explains why Chinese brands lead Fast Company’s top 50 of World’s Most Innovative companies list (Fast Company, 2019). Meituan Dianping, a shopping platform that provides the booking and delivery of services such as food, hotel stays and movie tickets, was listed number one; ride-sharing company Grab came second. With millions of citizens that are constantly looking to improve their quality of life, start-ups in China have no other choice than to be extremely outside-in, or consumer-oriented. In this highly competitive Chinese market, brands need to quickly understand what the consumer needs, and provide exactly that at an unseen speed. If not, consumers will take their business elsewhere.

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THE NEW FAST FISH OF ASIAN WEALTH Scott Lee - Managing Partner (Hong Kong)

When I arrived in Hong Kong 20 years ago, I was impressed by this futuristic neon city by the sea. Little did I know about its sleepy neighbor, Shenzhen. Growing over 20% a year, I witnessed Shenzhen transform from a small fishing village to China’s Silicon Valley. It is now home to around 10,000 tech start-ups, including Tencent, the social media and gaming giant that owns WeChat. In 2013, the social media app WeChat moved into digital payments, launching WeChat Pay. This digital payment service really took off after WeChat introduced the ‘red envelope’ feature, which is based on the Chinese tradition of ‘hongbao’

(i.e. red envelope or red packet) to give money to family and friends as a gift. In 2015, users sent 500 million digital red envelopes in a single day over Chinese New Year. Together with its rival Alipay (from Ant Group, the other major digital payment platform in China, formerly known as Ant Financial), WeChat has transformed everyday life of consumers as they can buy almost anything, at any time, from within these super apps. This rise of digital banking puts pressure on the traditional players in the industry to keep up with competition. One could say that the success of the fast fish urges them to take action. Standard Chartered, for instance, launched its consumer-friendly digital bank ‘Mox’ for a mobile generation, to “make banking a delightful experience”. HSBC, on the other hand, plans to trim banking fees to fend off competition. While these incumbents are taking small first steps, Ant Group is launching a virtual bank in Hong Kong while targeting a valuation of 225 billion dollars to pull off the world’s largest initial public offering. Ultimately, it’s no wonder that Piyush Gupta, CEO of Singapore’s biggest bank DBS, said he was “scared out of his wits” by these new fast fish, prompting him to digitally disrupt his own bank to survive the waves in the industry.

Brands need this speed to act upon unforeseen changes in the market. A study by McKinsey amongst 853 executives confirmed that fast organizations outperform others on profitability, operational resilience, organizational health and growth. The same study shows executives are making extensive changes with one overarching goal: to increase the speed at which they adjust the strategic direction, and make and implement tactical decisions (McKinsey, 2020c).

“Prior to COVID, consumer centricity was a process that was gaining ground. If anything, COVID accelerated the need to understand our customers, and has driven us to change things in the organization.”

Christine Schapdryver, Customer Insights Manager at Aveo

Video rental company Blockbuster, for instance, got eaten by ‘fast fish’ Netflix, as they were just too slow in adapting to the changing reality. Founded in 1985 by software developer David Cook, Blockbuster stood out with their selection of 8,000 VHS tapes and computerized check-out process. In 1988, the brand became the leading video rental chain in the US with 800 stores. Yet the brand’s ignorance led to a fatal decision of not buying, back then small DVD-by-mail rental service, Netflix. In September 2000, Netflix, struggling in the aftermath of the dot. com crash, put themselves on the table for (only) 50 million dollars. Yet, Blockbuster argued that the business model of Netflix, and just about every other online business, was not sustainable. In 2010, Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy protection, with their last store closing in 2014. Today, Netflix is a 149 billion USD company, more than 50 times what Blockbuster was worth.

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THE PHOENIX EATS THE UNICORN The example of Blockbuster illustrates how brands organized around an inside-out perspective, largely focused on their product, internal processes or gaining efficiencies, are less resilient in dealing with disruptions in the market.

Brands need to build resilience, or the ability to bounce back and recover after difficulties

More than anything, brands need to build resilience, or the ability to bounce back and recover after difficulties. This capability to absorb stress, readjust and eventually thrive in altered circumstances is key in a ‘gray rhino’ reality.

Source: Harvard Business Review

According to a Harvard Business Review article, companies that structure their organization and decision processes for resilience have a so-called ‘anticipation benefit’, i.e. the ability to recognize threats faster. Moreover, they are likely to rebound from the shock more quickly and have a ‘recovery speed benefit’. Apart from this speed advantage, resilience also gives an edge in performance (see figure). This was

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also visible during the initial COVID-19 shock; while companies came down rapidly and synchronously, recovery altered depending on the adoption of resilience principles (Harvard Business Review, 2020). In his book ‘The Phoenix and the Unicorn’, Peter Hinssen uses the term ‘phoenix’ to refer to companies which actively reinvent themselves when confronted with disruption, as they metaphorically rise from their own ashes after going through rough times. The term ‘phoenix company’ actually finds its origin in the financial sector and defines a corporation that gets created to continue the business of an insolvent company.

One of the phoenixes in Hinssen’s book is tech brand Apple. Whilst Forbes ranked it ‘most valuable brand’ for nine consecutive years, Apple - with a value of $205 billion in 2019 - does have a serious history of failure. Think for example about their PDA ‘Newton’ (19931998), or their digital camera ‘QuickTake’ (1994-1997); both were discontinued within five years after launch. In June 1997, on the verge

of bankruptcy, Apple was featured on the cover of Wired magazine with the simple message ‘Pray.’. 11 years later, however, in 2008, after Apple rose from its ashes, featuring on the same cover as ‘Evil/Genius’. As the first company with a trillion-dollar market cap, Apple is now one of the most valuable companies in the world. In recent decades, appraisal for unicorns - the fast-growing start-ups challenging existing players and business models - has dominated business literature. Yet in today’s pandemic reality, being a unicorn is no longer enough. Even unicorns need to adopt this phoenix attitude, and actively embrace a culture of experimentation and innovation.

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An example of a unicorn that adopted the phoenix attitude is Spotify, the global leader in music streaming. Spotify had all the ingredients to survive and even thrive in lockdown: providing people confined at home with ‘escapism through music’, seamlessly streamed on any device without depending on physical distribution. Yet the Swedish company’s revenue stream, primarily based on advertisement income (listening to ads in return for a free account), was seriously affected by the pandemic, as advertisers cut their budgets. They acted upon this quickly by reconsidering advertising as the cornerstone of their business model and looking into alternatives. Similar to Netflix, the brand wanted to move from being pure streamer to copyright owner, in this case by bringing original content in the form of podcasts. The platform saw artists and users upload more than 150,000 podcasts in just one 52

month, and it signed exclusive podcast deals with celebrities, such as Michele Obama. Spotify is on a mission to change the podcast game; in September 2020, it even experimented with interactive podcast polls where, similarly to Instagram, listeners and hosts can see the poll results in real time, giving podcasts an interactive feature.

We need to move from mastery to consumer intimacy, where consumers are embraced as an integral part of our business

Building resilience does not necessarily involve transforming an entire business; it’s rather about pivoting to business models that provide short-term survival along with long-term growth. To do so, brands need to develop the ability to scan their environment, and quickly detect and respond to market opportunities. It is no longer about what brands can make, but about what consumers need them to make. As Martin Reeves, co-author of ‘The Imagination Machine’ says, “In today’s business world, transient high performance is commonplace; it is sustained performance by resilient companies that stands apart”. In other words, companies need to move from mastery to consumer intimacy, where consumers are embraced as an integral part of their business.

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CHANGING BUSINESS REALITY

FROM CONSUMER INTELLIGENCE TO CONSUMER CENTRICITY

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Listening to consumers is nothing new. Companies have been consulting their buyers since the early 20th century. In the ‘50s, the Betty Crocker company was one of the first to run focus groups to understand why American housewives weren’t buying their cake mixes. This novel form of brand/consumer encounters, which originated in academia, revealed that although these women loved the idea of a cake mix, they felt guilty not doing the work themselves. To solve this friction, the brand adjusted their recipe - giving consumers a sense of participation - by requiring just adding an egg. The recipe adjustment proved to be the icing on the cake, resulting in rising sales of the Betty Crocker mix. This marked the start of focus groups becoming 56

common practice to illuminate the psychological complexities that blocked people’s buying habits. Over the course of the previous century, focus groups were used to shape almost every aspect of our lives, from cake mixes to vacuum cleaners.

Marketer/consumer encounters often resemble a zoo visit, being a very sporadic, distant and unidimensional experience

Yet, these encounters between brands and consumers often resemble a metaphorical zoo visit, a very sporadic, distant and unidimensional experience. They usually only take place when a business is in urgent need of feedback, giving marketers a snapshot of a specific moment in time. Furthermore, these sporadic encounters often take place in lab-like settings, where marketers observe what people say from behind a one-way mirror, not giving consumers any opportunity to enter a true dialogue.

Source: Capgemini, 2017

To ride the wave of change, brands need more than a consumer snapshot. In this age of relevance, they need to have an ongoing finger on the pulse of what consumers think, feel and do. Many brands are investing actively in becoming more ‘consumer-centric’.

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Yet consumer centricity, or ‘putting the consumer at the core of your business’, often remains a hollow concept. There seems to exist a large gap between what companies say and what they do. In fact, already back in 2005, research by Bain & Company showed that while 80% of businesses believe they deliver a ‘superior experience’, only 8% of consumers believe companies actually do so. This discrepancy leads to a so-called ‘delivery gap’ of no less than 72% (Bain & Company, 2005). 15 years later, in 2017, Capgemini released similar findings, proving this delivery gap is ever-present. Surveying more than 3,000 consumers and 600 executives, they found that while 75% of organizations claim to be consumer-centric, only 30% of consumers agree (Capgemini, 2017).

Simply putting the consumer at the heart of the value proposition is not enough

Simply putting the consumer at the heart of the value proposition is clearly not enough. To bridge this delivery gap, businesses and marketers need to embrace a more active approach towards customer centricity. It’s about integrating the voice of the consumer in everything they do, by everyone in the organization. In a business context, this means decision making is driven by an intrinsic understanding of the consum-

er, rather than solely being fueled by facts or consumer intelligence. In other words, the consumer is anchored deeply in the organization, and drives change throughout the business.

CONSUMER CENTRICITY COVID-19 accelerated the need for ‘consumer centricity’. With the pandemic driving new habits and behavior at an unseen speed, businesses had no choice but to get close to consumers to capture their shifting needs and wants.

Christine Schapdryver, Customer Insights Manager at Aveo

Becoming consumer-centric requires requires brands and businesses to actively manage three components: (1) continuity, (2) diverseness and (3) closeness.

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CONTINUITY DIVERS

CENTRICITY 61

SENESS CLOSENESS

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A consumer-centric approach means stepping away from distant, sporadic and unidimensional brand/consumer interactions. In his book ‘We-Think’, Charles Leadbeater uses the metaphor of companies having to create a bird’s nest which consumers can lay their egg in - referring to their input, feedback and ideas. It’s about creating an open environment that is ‘always on’, supporting continuity, or ongoing dialogue.

It’s about creating an open environment that is ‘always on’, supporting continuity, or ongoing dialogue

“It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better.”

Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon

The adoption of digital tools - which was accelerated by COVID-19 - facilitates this continuous collaboration. In addition, this mobile era enables consumers to share in-the-moment feedback, when and where brand interactions take place. Installing such an ongoing (real-time) consumer dialogue, however, is only one step towards growing consumer centricity. To be consumercentric, one needs to distill relevant insights from the data gathered during these consumer interactions.

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DIVERSENESS There has never been so much data. According to the ‘Data Never 64

Sleeps’ report, a single internet minute in 2020 held more than 400,000 hours of video streamed on Netflix, 500 hours of video uploaded on YouTube, and nearly 42 million messages shared via WhatsApp (Domo, 2020). And that is just the tip of the iceberg. Data, once a scarce good, is now up for grabs. And it’s a similar reality within company walls, where customer intelligence practices are installed to track, monitor and store every consumer interaction and transaction. Yet herein lies the paradox: while we are well-fed by data, we are starved for insights.

“I find it astounding that the more sophisticated we get - with analytics, predictive modelling and rafts of data scientists - the less able we seem to be to put ourselves in our customers’ shoes and create brands and interactions that genuinely make their lives better.”

Cheryl Calverley, CEO at eve sleep (online mattress retailer)

The reality is that many data-rich companies are insight-poor. By collecting and analyzing patterns of purchase, usage and retention, buyers become numbers instead of real people, or segments instead of individuals. If marketers truly wish to think like their consumers, they need to understand the context and stories behind the data. It is no longer enough to focus on ‘what’ is happening. Marketers need to bring in more diverseness, adding the ‘when’, ‘who’, ‘where’ and especially ‘why’ to the mix to gain an in-depth consumer understanding. In other words, companies need to transform ‘thin’ data which aids the daily business execution (e.g. purchase, usage and retention patterns) into ‘thick’ data that provides a 360° view of their consumers and fuels more strategic business decisions. To become consumer-centric, one must move from data to insights, understanding the ‘what’, ‘where’, ‘when’, ‘who’ and ‘why’ of consumer behavior.

To be consumer-centric one must move from data to insights Also key is engaging with the right blend of people, as not all consumers have the capability to share out-of-the-box ideas or solutions. Ordinary consumers can provide valuable input and feedback on brand ideas, concepts and experiences. However, consulting more leadingedge consumers to uncover trends and optimize solutions can be beneficial. Or even to involve creative consumers to come to ideas that spark. Calling upon a diverseness by using the right people for the right task is essential for brands and businesses to become truly consumercentric. I N S I T E S C O N S U LT I N G

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Yet shaping and crafting relevant consumer insights is a means to an end. A next - essential - step is to activate the organization on those insights. Moving from insights to action, and bringing the entire business closer to the consumer.

To drive change, insights need to trigger both the mind and the heart To drive change, insights need to trigger both the mind (memorability) and the heart (empathy) of stakeholders across the organization. Memorability is all about making insights mentally available, making them stick, by fueling them at the right time, in the right format, to the right

individual. Yet to fuel change, insights should also evoke empathy, giving a feeling of closeness between stakeholders and consumers. This can be done by installing real ‘consumer connect moments’, where marketers literally meet their consumers. For example, P&G replaced many of its traditional consumer listening approaches - where the marketer adopted a more observing role - with programs that directly connect marketers with consumers in their everyday environment. An example initiative is how their Mexico marketers leave their office desk to work in stores in low-income areas for a week, so as to get a firsthand impression of how their consumers shop.

CHANGE = MEMORY X EMPATHY

“We want our marketers - who are in the day-today and details of their products - to sit back and talk to real people who don’t spend very much of the day thinking about your product at all. That kind of connection remains really important.”

Tiina Raikko, Director of Fuel Consulting

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THE MEMEFICATION OF INSIGHTS Tom De Ruyck - Managing Partner

A first step towards empowering people to act upon an insight is making sure they learn and feel what the insight is about. Traditionally, only a limited group of people is involved in this learning process, for example by participating in a debrief workshop or managing the research study themselves. Bringing an insight to life by adding further thoughts and observations or by using it as a basis for ideation therefore remains in the hands of a small team. By involving a wider group of employees, however, more people within the organization get immersed in the consumer reality. This increases their understanding

and empowers them to make better and more consumer-relevant decisions. Also, the theory of open innovation teaches us that ‘the one golden idea’ can come from anyone in the organization. To increase the impact of insights on the business, more employees across the organization need to experience what insights are about, and get the opportunity to use them for idea generation. For example, by experiencing how consumers are using a given product in everyday life, employees of the product’s manufacturer get a better understanding of existing frictions and thus routes for improvement. When such an insight is then replicated by employees and completed with their own experiences, observations and ideas, it is shared with various people across the organization and triggers action. The insight has become a ‘meme’ (Dawkins, 1989). An illustration of such a meme is what we did for ATAG, a leading supplier of kitchen appliances. ATAG wanted to move from a product-driven strategy to a consumer-driven approach - what they call ‘cook-centered thinking’. To fuel the internal belief in this strategic shift, we invited 400 internal stakeholders to discover consumer insights and experience first-hand how strong ‘passion for cooking’ can be. The #welovecooks experience engaged over 170 employees that enriched the insights by contributing 125 observations, and this resulted in 13 potential internal projects identified by the crowd. As the new strategy got widely accepted and supported among all employees, it turned into the #welovecooks meme.

Yet all efforts to evoke consumer understanding and empathy are irrelevant if employees don’t have the tools or the power to act upon the insights. Organizations should embody the necessary culture and infrastructure to turn insights into action. Every stakeholder should get some level of autonomy - within certain organizational boundaries - to act upon insights without needing to consult the upper echelons during lengthy meetings. Haier, the world’s largest home appliance manufacturer, boosts employee empowerment by working with self-managed teams that are in direct contact with consumers via digital platforms. CEO Zhang Ruimin observed that becoming truly consumer-activated requires a shift in mindset: “The most difficult thing is that in the past the employees would listen to their bosses, but now they don’t have any bosses; they have to listen to the users”. Every single Haier employee is encouraged to act upon consumer insights by developing and pitching innovative ideas. If they succeed in selling their idea to their management, they get the chance to set up their own team and take it further, together with subject experts. Similarly, hotel chain The Ritz-Carlton understood how important employee empowerment is to deliver an outstanding experience. For many years they gave their staff a budget of 2,000 USD (per employee, per guest) to solve any consumer issue in a way they deemed appropriate.

42% of marketers think their organization should be structured around the customer; research shows just 6% of businesses are currently set up that way I N S I T E S C O N S U LT I N G

Such practices allow businesses to address consumer needs in a fast and agile way. However, organizational structures such as those at Haier are the exception that proves the rule. Most organizations are still built around traditional silos that do not have a clear line of sight to the customer. Research by Forrester found that only 54% of marketers regularly communicate with customer insights (Forrester Consulting, 2019). In fact, while 42% of marketers think their organization should be structured around the customer, research shows just 6% of businesses are currently set up that way (Marketing Week, 2018). In a consumer-centric organization, everything starts and ends with the consumer. Consumers are the glue that should connect all departments. This is why more and more organizations are introducing customer-focused roles such as Chief Customer Officer (CCO). This rather new function is responsible for fostering an outside-in per70

spective and creating an ingrained focus on the customer across the business. As designated customer champion, the CCO’s tasks span all customer-facing functions, driving the organization to work collaboratively towards offering an optimal customer experience.

Being consumer-centric is about impacting the hearts, minds and actions of all stakeholders involved

Yet having a Chief Customer Officer that represents the consumer in the boardroom doesn’t guarantee consumer centricity. To be truly consumer-centric, everyone, from CEO to office manager, needs to adopt an ongoing consumer focus. It’s about impacting the hearts, minds and actions of all stakeholders with relevant consumer insights. Consumer centricity needs to be a habit, embedded in a company’s culture and infrastructure. Amazon puts great effort into creating a habit around consumer-first thinking. One of their techniques is to leave an empty chair in every meeting, representing the consumer, as a reminder that everything in the business must enhance consumers’ lives. And this customer-first thinking is also present in their approach to product development, known as ‘Working Backwards’. All projects work backwards, starting from the ideal customer end state. This usually starts with a mock press release which targets the end customer and announces the finished product. If the listed benefits do not sound interesting or exciting to customers, then perhaps they are not (and therefore the project should be discontinued).

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BETTER TOGETHER

A COLLABORATIVE MINDSET

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One thing the pandemic has taught us is that we are capable of moving faster and further than we imagine when we are forced to do so by extraordinary circumstances. Across the world, we witnessed countless examples of brands and organizations adapting at an astonishing speed. They all had one thing in common: an outside-in perspective. Think for example about how Multichoice, Africa’s leading TV entertainment company, quickly expanded its content offering for news and sports during the pandemic. To support, inform and entertain their viewers during the confinement at home, Multichoice shared advice from trusted experts, but also pivoted their sports offering. The brand acquired the best award-winning sport documentaries from around the globe, and produced thematic channels for sports fans to relive the greatest sporting moments of all time. 74

Organizations that embrace such an outside-in perspective are inherently more flexible in dealing with disruption. In his book ‘Reorganize for Resilience’, Harvard professor Ranjay Gulati explains that the advantages of being outward-looking are indeed most apparent during turbulent times. He states: “Rallying around customer problems results in the resilience that protects businesses from economic storms.”.

While the pandemic forced us to close our doors, we had to open our minds to greater collaboration

ANDY WARHOL WAS RIGHT Kristof De Wulf - Managing Partner & CEO

The importance of putting customers first in driving repeat business and boosting brand recommendations is undeniable. Yet customer centricity does not always deliver against its promises. The well-known 80/20 Pareto rule turned into a 60/40 rule, proving that customer loyalty is in decline, and current life expectancy of a Fortune 500 firm is less than 15 years, highlighting customers’ fickle behavior. It shows the deficit of the once-sacred and perceived-to-be-timeless truths of 20th century management thinking, including the top-down mental model we use when considering the role of customers. Andy Warhol was right when he stated in 1968 that “in the future everybody will be famous for fifteen minutes.”. Globalization and the internet changed everything, with anyone anywhere having the power to make a difference. According to Warhol, someday the ‘hierarchy of subjects’ would be abolished, with anybody and therefore everybody becoming famous at some point in time. What would happen if we applied Andy Warhol’s quote to the concept of consumer centricity? All stakeholders would be truly equal, empowering customers to act as employees, and employees to think as customers. Employees would be able to let go more easily of whatever they are experts at, helping them to think ‘out of the box’. However they would not blindly follow the dogmatic statement that ‘the customer is always right’, as this gives them the wrong impression that they can never get it right. A great example of treating each other as equals is how H.J. Heinz Company had its marketers work together directly with customers to detect new ketchup consumption occasions. In the participation age, companies need to tear down the walls they built around them, and say goodbye to the old dichotomy between outside-in and inside-out thinking.

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To stay relevant, brands need to surf the wave of change and build resilience through ‘consumer-centric thinking’. More than ever, brands need to stay close to their consumers. Rather than taking a snapshot of their consumers’ everyday life and behavior, organizations need to establish an ongoing dialogue between consumers and marketers, empowering the latter to act upon consumer insights. One could argue COVID-19 introduced an era of collaboration. While the pandemic forced us to close our doors, we had to open our minds to greater collaboration. It’s about integrating the voice of the consumer in everything brands do, through ongoing and structural collaboration.

This quest for collaboration is also visible on the consumer side, where consumers want (and even demand) to take on a much more active role. In 2000, research duo C.K. Prahalad and Venkatram Ramaswamy described this emerging relationship between customers and companies as co-creation, and popularized the term in their HBR article ‘Co-Opting Customer Competence’. One of the most iconic examples is Lego with its ‘Ideas platform’, inviting consumers to submit their own designs for new playsets. Over the years, many prominent brands, from Cisco, Dell, Procter & Gamble, Sony and Starbucks to Unilever, have actively involved consumers in the development of relevant products and services. And successfully so. Co-creation helps to create an offering that better meets consumers’ needs and results in a broader acceptance. Research among 554 senior executives confirms the business impact of co-creation, with 61% of them saying that co-creation has enabled them to produce more successful new products and services (Hitachi, 2017).

BRAND-CONSUMER COLLABORATIONS:

THE PERFECT SYMBIOSIS Thomas Troch - Senior Business Director (US)

With a background in product design, I’ve always been intrigued by identifying unmet consumers needs and developing valuable solutions. Today I support these processes by facilitating collaborations between brands and their consumers. It’s the perfect symbiosis; people are excited to think along, while in a world that is changing faster than ever before, brands need to ensure they stay relevant. Over the past years, I worked with the Anheuser-Busch team in the US to do just that. The pinnacle of this collaboration is their yearly innovation event ‘iWeek’, centered around consumer collaboration to co-create relevant new beverage ideas that fulfil unmet needs. In recent years, consumers have joined forces with Anheuser-Busch in many shapes and forms; from sharing their daily lives and frictions, to sharing new ideas, giving feedback on ideas and even tasting new beverages. One example of a recent innovation is Social Club Seltzer, a sparkling (or carbonated) water enriched with alcohol. Here in the US, the hard seltzer category has seen a meteoric rise in recent years. Its appeal lies in its low content of carbs, sugar and calories. Social Club Seltzer’s take on hard seltzer is refreshing, yet complex - a cocktail for those looking for more refined flavors. For the launch, Anheuser-Busch asked designers, writers, filmmakers, producers and all-around creative hustlers to help build Social Club’s first marketing push. The decision to reach out to the general public for assistance came from the insight that the best way for a brand to create content that connects with its intended audience is to get members of that audience to create the content themselves. Selected collaborators are invited to support the creation of specific ideas and deliver concrete content. Some may even get selected to become a longer-term Anheuser-Busch collaborator.

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The ability to be responsive is the new competitive advantage

The outbreak of COVID-19 has boosted consumers’ eagerness to take on an active role, and collaborate with brands to collectively shape products and services in line with the new reality. But this collaboration with the outside world is not limited to consumers. This age of relevance requires companies to cooperate with creatives, employees, other companies and even competitors, creating a collaboration eco-system. A nice illustration of this type of 360° collaboration is ‘Operazione Risorgimento Digitale’,

fueled by TIM, an Italian telecommunication provider. The aim of this project is to bridge the digital divide in Italy, which became tangible by the pandemic, by training up to one million citizens to become digital-savvy. To do so, TIM collaborates with multiple partners, such as tech companies Google and Cisco, but also not-for-profit Innovation Centre Censis or the Encyclopedia Institute Treccani, to develop the largest free internet school. In a world where change is inevitable - and the pace at which things change unpredictable - the ability to be responsive is the new competitive advantage. Collaboration is the new modus operandi. But how to adopt such a collaborative mindset and become ‘Better Together’? The upcoming bookzines in this series of five will elaborate on how to seize structural collaboration. In the second bookzine, we will illustrate how to get the most out of collaboration initiatives, by involving the right consumer for the right task. The third bookzine will talk about the DIY tools and tactics that can help company-wide stakeholders to get closer to consumers. In the fourth bookzine, we will showcase the importance of mixing think, feel and do activities, to uncover both conscious and unconscious behavior and gain deep consumer understanding. We will close this series with impactful cases of the use of structural consumer collaboration in branding & communication, innovation and customer experience programs, in the fifth and final bookzine.

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COLOPHON Bookzine authors Sarah Van Oerle - Content Activation Manager Katia Pallini - Content Marketing Director Tom De Ruyck - Managing Partner Kristof De Wulf - Managing Partner & CEO

84 Column contributors Kelly McKnight - Head of Culture + Trends Jennifer Liu - Managing Partner Answer Global (Taiwan) Heidi Turner - Senior Research Manager (Australia) Joeri Van den Bergh - Managing Partner & NextGen expert Paul Child - Global Client Partner (UK) Alexandre Catelan - Founder & Partner at Provokers (Brazil) Luis Montesano - Research Director & Partner at Provokers (Brazil) Scott Lee - Managing Partner (Hong Kong) Tom De Ruyck - Managing Partner Kristof De Wulf - Managing Partner & CEO Thomas Troch - Senior Business Director (US) Design Hannes Willaert Language editing Anne-Laure Simoens

contactus@insites-consulting.com @insites

in any form or by any means, be it electronic, mechanical, by photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the publisher’s prior written consent.

n a world where change is inevitable, and the pace at which things

change unpredictable, the ability to be responsive is the new competitive advantage. To stay relevant, brands need to surf the wave of change and build resilience by developing a collaborative mindset. This bookzine illustrates why structural collaboration is the new modus operandi. To survive and even thrive in these turbulent times, businesses need to keep a finger on the pulse to understand the consumers’ changing needs and wants. This requires commitment in listening to the voice of the consumer, and installing a culture and infrastructure where consumer insights are an integral part of the business. It requires ‘consumer centricity’.

ABOUT INSITES CONSULTING Founded in 1997, InSites Consulting is a nextgeneration consumer insight agency and global market leader in online communities. Our proprietary insight management platform and versatile research toolbox allow brands to become truly immersed in the consumer reality. We make consumer-centric decision making a reality for over a third of the world’s leading brands. By uniting brands and consumers around the world, we can shape the future better, together.