There’s a lot marketing leaders get accomplished in a week — meetings with their team, check-ins with their agency and vendor partners, an analysis of last months’ results — but few can claim they pull off a new product from idea to design in just seven days.
At an event held in downtown Toronto last week by marketing and social research firm TNS Canada, however, executives were given an overview of a methodology called simply “7” which promises to accelerate such processes. It’s a service that combines consulting from TNS with access to a global online panel of more than 325,000 consumers.
“My first reaction was curiosity, given the ambition of this methodology,” said William Serfaty, global strategy and insights manager at Danone, in a video that was shown as part of the TNS presentation. “We wanted to make our brand irresistible again . . . and we needed partners able to challenge us with a strong point of view.”
Danone used 7 to develop ideas for ingredients, a brand story, packaging and design for its Activia cereal, Serfaty said. This was normally a project that would have lasted at least two to three months. Danone had attempted to get the pulse of its target market with qualitative surveys before, but in this case he said more than 50 ideas for the cereal were generated in 48 hours.
That two-day timeline for insight generation make up the first stage of 7. The next stage, according to the firm’s global director of innovation, Steve Landis, is to “ideate” all that consumer feedback over the course of the third day. The best concepts get developed on days four and five, and then “screened” or assessed with more scrutiny on day six and seven.
Of course, things may not always happen that quickly, particularly if the organization in question doesn’t have the background data they need, for example. In that case, Landis, said the “7” might stand for a seven-week process, which could include six weeks of upfront strategic consulting and then a seventh week to work on the rest of the process as normal.
“In certain categories it may take longer,” he said, acknowledging the approach works particularly well in verticals such as CPG. “But we’re not talking about months here. It’s really condensing the time frame.”
According to Landis, TNS is trying to address the challenge facing so many chief marketing officers to be both confident in the data they have and fast in how they act on it. Normally there’s a tradeoff between one or the other — surveys might use too small of a sample when projects aren’t given enough time, for instance, or the questionnaire might not be as rigorous as it should be. Crowdsourcing consumer insight is one way to alleviate that problem, he added, and it also provides some global perspective brands don’t even realize they need.
“If we want to generate ideas in Canada or U.S., the best ideas don’t always come from people who reside in Canada or the U.S.,” he said.
Brands should also be wary of relying on single sources of information like social media, Landis said, where sentiment or number of mentions on a particular service might leave important details out.
“If you’re looking at an airline and a plane is delayed, bloggers and social media users will let them have it, but how does that compare with being on the plane with bad service or a mechanical problem, when you can’t see the social activity?” he pointed out. “You would say the delays on the ground are the things to avoid, but it’s what happens in the air that makes people walk away from your airline.”
CMOs interested in the TNS 7 offering should take into account the level of preparation and commitment they need to provide from their organization’s end. Key stakeholders will need to be present and active in the workshops, and they will likely have to be the same people throughout the process.
This reflects the attitude of “winners” or high-performing firms who responded to the Insights 20/20 study conducted by Millward Brown Vermeer, the highlights of which were also presented at the TNS Canada event. According to Greg Christoforides, the firm’s senior partner, 91% of winners cited being more customer-centric as a strategic priority. Similarly, 72% of winners said they work closely with customers for ideation opportunities.
“Unless it’s a topic of conversation and sponsored by most senior leaders, it’s not going to happen,” Christoforides said.
Landis suggested CMOs may have little choice to do otherwise.
“If we accept a 24-month timeframe to develop opportunities, test ideas and get them to market, it’s just too long,” he said. “The market will have passed you by.”
