Research with kids should be different (part two)

January 26th, 2012

Children and young people are different from adults. Why, then, do we so often format our qualitative research with them in the same way we structure research programmes for adults? In this second part of our blog discussion on the topic, let’s continue with some key considerations for when you are planning your research with kids.

Don’t just talk and ask questions. Include activities.

Though imperative for work with young people, we’ve also built this principle into our work with adults and have found it successful. Even with the best intentions and brilliant moderating, attention wanes and peaks at different intervals for each individual. Building activity-based discussion groups helps overcome the unsynchronised ‘waves’. Depending on the age of young people, a good rule of thumb is to physically move them around every 10 – 20 minutes, most successfully achieved by interspersing different activities in between discussion. You’ll be amazed at the improvement of the quality of the information.

Giving kids and young people an element of control.

Control is one of the key emotional drivers of young people as they aspire to be older. If, early in the session, we give the young people a sense of control and ‘ownership’, they will more enthusiastically embrace the tasks at hand. This can be in simple ways, even by having them decide on the means in which the moderator will re-gain the group’s attention to give instructions or start a new discussion. The kids often give silly tasks for the moderator to do – like jumping up an down and wildly waving his/her arms – but they get the message early in the project that what they say, matters. This makes them feel that they are in control.

Include the holistic product or service, including packaging, graphics and even promotion.

Typically research, tests each facet of a product and then brings them all together at the end. A product concept has to be comprehensive for the young consumer to understand it. This is particularly true of an innovation. Kids (and other consumers) buy into the whole product, not an individual facet. The whole thing has to work together.

Be involved with the young consumers.

If the research is qualitative, then why are the clients kept at arm’s length? For real insight, consider interacting with your consumer, rather than just view them from behind a one-way mirror. We enjoy inviting our clients into the room with the young people – admittedly a bit daunting at first, but the feedback is always positive.

Recognizing that kids in different cultures are still kids.

There is a difference between cultural and emotional drivers. Kids everywhere aspire to be older. Though the service or product ideas will reflect the cultural preferences in a given country, the research should pay attention to the kids’ key emotional drivers. The drivers of excitement, control, testing/stretching boundaries and aspiration are everywhere. Allowing these to be prominent in the research will help better engage the participating young people and ultimately get more accurate results.

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Go ahead. Give it a shot. Do it a bit differently than the way you might structure research with adults. You’ll be glad you did.

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Research with kids should be different

January 23rd, 2012

Children and young people are different from adults.  Why, then, do we so often format our qualitative research with them in the same way we structure research programmes for adults?

In the next couple of blog posts, I would like to bring to attention a few points for consideration as kids’ research initiatives are set up.  These thoughts are based on our work with young people from all over the world,  over the past 20 years.  I only mention these few key headings, but please comment or e-mail if you would like to discuss more specific questions -  do not hesitate to contact me.  I am passionate about improving research success, particularly with children, tweens and teens, and my company is delighted to share our views without obligation to work with us (though we wouldn’t reject the opportunity either!).

Some key considerations:

Increase time spent with the same group.

In traditional research, we spend small amounts of time with multiple groups of consumer. This reduces the chance of getting accurate information.  In our experience, kids don’t really ‘warm up’ to the moderator for at least an hour.  The experience is new and they are trying to find the ‘right answers’ as their only framework for something like this is school, and in school their expected to come up with the ‘right answers’.   We work to extend the time to half-day sessions or even full-day sessions – and have found that if managed properly, they can provide a great amount of insight.

Schedule the best time for kids.

So often we schedule groups based around our convenience, and this usually coincides with the worst time for kids.  After school and early evening is the time of day when most young people are tired, irritable, and not particularly interested in sitting around and talking about things in a structured discussion group.  We recommend to our clients that group work with kids ideally should be on a school holiday or a weekend (non-school day).  Alternatively, we recommend to do the work in the school – but as much as possible, do the discussion/thinking activities in the morning.   We also find it useful to ask teachers, child-minders and others that regularly work with young people.  They know that young people do most of their best analytical work in the morning.  We do most of our qualitative work with young people in schools, and build the work around a curricular structure.

Work in the kids’ environment.

Kids in a comfortable environment amongst their peers are extremely forthcoming. If you must use a facility, do your best to make it different to a boardroom type set-up.  If possible, use other, more familiar places (schools, church halls, shopping malls, etc) so the issues created by artificial focus group environments are avoided.

In the next blog, I will provide some more thoughts.  I would love to hear any of yours as well!

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A difference in outlook

January 18th, 2012

I had quite an intense few weeks prior to Christmas last month. I had several projects, so was on a continuous business trip in the US for about four weeks. When keeping up on current events each day, I was continually taken by the near-daily positive news in the US. The positive news was regarding the economic situation, and that even though things had a long way to go to be ‘back to better’, it felt as if we were steadily, if slowly, moving in the right direction.

I landed back in the UK midday on 23rd December, and after clearing the airport, was in the car and listening to the BBC news. I was completely surprised at all the negative, fearful comments – and even with some good news reported, there was a negative spin on what was actually quite positive information. What was particularly noteworthy was that the radio presenter was talking about ‘the sad state of the US economy’, and went on to use statistics from Detroit to prove the point. Interestingly, these same facts were used in a news report in the US, but with a very different conclusion.

The old saying, often attributed to Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw and even Winston Churchill, about the US and the UK being ‘divided by a common language’ came to mind. In this specific example, there is clearly a difference in world view – and this difference is likely to be a big deal.

So what does this say about the US and the UK? If the same facts can be used so differently in the US and the UK, who then is really controlling the recovery? It would seem the news media is more in control of the economic outlook than governments and citizens.

We all know that economics is not only about the numbers – so much is related to consumer perception. Because of this, a difference in outlook is likely to have some impactful consequences. Consumer confidence is very important, and is a key driver of willingness for consumers to spend money. Consumer spending has a major influence in helping to pull economies into growth, and thus out of recession. The spending of money on ‘more stuff’ circulates that money, and keeps people in work – thus providing more money to circulate. And so on… House prices, borrowing, business start-ups – all measures to determine potential growth or decline –are impacted by the level of spending confidence we, as consumers, have.

The tonality of the news, then, can certainly instill confidence or indeed, damage it.

Though I am not an economist, it would seem logical that simply the difference in outlook may indicate that the US is more likely to emerge earlier and stronger from the impact of the global economy. As the perception of the economic situation is what impacts the level of confidence, more should be done to better position the good news and put into proper context the bad news.

I am not suggesting that the bad news be falsely propagandized. We do, though, need to challenge our news reporters in their negative conclusions and demand that the news be balanced with optimism instead of only finding the doomsday potential. We need to find ways to allow the green shoots of recovery to take root, and let the rightful confidence be restored – for the good of all of us.

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Where there’s smoke there’s fire (or SFX or arson)

January 16th, 2012

I love adages, but they are not always true – and in the case of ‘where there’s smoke, there’s fire’ – can be misleading.

The idea of the phrase is quite simple, and seems to make much sense. It is not true for a number of scientific reasons (there are several ways to create smoky effects without a fire), but misleading because, when considered allegorically, it is a statement that implies guilt by some sort of association. The fallacy of ‘where there’s smoke, there’s fire’ depends on jumping to a conclusion, with little or no evidence, and without doing the due diligence of actually determining what’s really happening.

In our personal life, this became evident with our planning application to build a unique, sustainable home on our riverfront property. A great deal of misinformation that was bandied about, with seemingly malicious intent, all designed to thwart our plan. Someone actually said, “well, where there’s smoke…” implying that all of the misinformation and false allegations somehow indicated that the whole plan was problematic. There were false claims of our intent, misleading statements of protected species that ‘may have been seen’ near our property, and even hateful lies about our plans and behaviour. Of course, in the end science and truth are likely to prevail, but the concerted campaign against us was more akin to arson – the intended planting of ‘fires’ – to create a lot of smoke!

In qualitative research it is particularly important to remember that ‘smoke’ does not always equate to ‘fire’. It is far too easy to jump to wrong conclusions. I have experienced a number of examples in which A + B does not equal C. In reality, there are so many possibilities of an answer, that to assume an answer to a question is the definitive conclusion is dangerous. It is very important to ask the question in different ways, and to consider the subject from a number of different ‘angles’.

The deeper and real truth can usually be found, but it is not normally as simple as asking a straight-forward question. It is far better to ask “Teach me about….” and use this as a springboard to discuss the topic in-depth rather than directed, elicitative questions. We all know, but sometimes fail to accept, that behaviour is not always rational – and indeed, very many of our life choices are based on irrational emotions. Ways to elicit understanding of the deep-set reasons for behaviour and choice should be the true aim of qualitative research. And only then can we decide if ‘smoke’ is a result of fire, SFX or arson.

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From beyond our borders (part three)

January 12th, 2012

As I have highlighted in the past couple of blogs, our cross-cultural learnings have added considerably to our tool box of research methods – sometimes directly, but also indirectly.

For instance, cross-cultural experiences allowed us to see the importance of nature, nurture and context – and these understandings led us to see the power of context in better evaluating products and services. For example, testing breakfast foods in the afternoon or evening (which are the most common time that breakfast foods are qualitatively tested!) generated less valuable results than those tested in the context of morning. With different results, and often different product ideas rising to the top, and influencing the final choice of the product to be progressed.

There are some other key influences on our research approaches, directly related to our experiences with such wide and varied cultures.

• Contextual research – finding ways to develop and evaluate projects that are in the context of ‘real life’. By seeing around the world how powerfully context effects inclinations, we are now keen to recommend research projects that are in-context with consumers lives – for kids:

• In school – excellent for evaluating lunchbox products, but also products which kids will discuss and get excited about
• With their best friend – particularly good for snack foods and beverages
• With a group of friends – very useful for work on teen-targeted products
• With their family – this is a great context for family meal products
• During outings – on-the-go products are best tested
• In restaurant – ‘eat-alongs’ are very helpful in testing menu options, and the context of restaurant consumption
• Drive-thru – if a product needs to be successful as a ‘drive thru’ product, it is very useful to test it there

Each of these contexts adds dimensionality to the research because the results in context differ. By ‘triangulating’ (using 3 – or sometimes more contexts) the research become ‘3D’ and provides real insight, and actionable learnings.

Product developers, marketers and researchers should, whenever possible, strive to find the appropriate contexts for the brand or product in question, and find ways to engage the consumer in those situations. Only then can we be certain to uncover all the contextually relevant insights needed to win.

• Structure of sensory testing with kids – and indeed adult consumers – to allow for neophobia and not discount ideas merely because of lack of familiarity. We have been able to ‘force’ in a research context, the number of necessary exposures to allow a consumer to evaluate the idea on its merit, rather than discounting it merely because it is ‘new’.

We have learned, and verified in our own research, that it takes between 8 and 13 positive exposures for kids to say they like a certain food. In our sensory research, we try to find ways to ‘force’ the positive exposures and then conduct the evaluations. This means that the altered testing method provides a more ‘real’ context, so that the product evaluation is on a more realistic footing. We can then more accurately compare our product to competitors’ and see how we may actually fare against them. Too often we discard good product ideas because they don’t appear to evaluate well (because we don’t reduce the impact of neophobia).

• Paired pairs (rather than mum/child pairs) – observing the ‘power struggle’ between parent and child in numerous cultures when speaking to them together, we needed to explore ways to balance the power so it is more realistic. Cross-cultural learnings have, indirectly led us to a unique solution. By conducting interviews with two mums, each with their children who are friends is a simple way of balancing the power – we saw glimmers of this when working in sub-Saharan Africa, where groups of mums would be engaged to work on a project, and when they brought their kids into the room, the dynamic completely changed! We then experimented with this thinking and developed a new research method to include in our tools when working on products for children or for mums/families.

Does this mean that every brand, every new product, every project requires a cross-cultural look? No – but I think at a minimum we should work to establish our teams and their endeavours in ways to provide them with cross-cultural contexts to better allow their learnings to build with each experience. Even if your brand or product is only in one region, cross-cultural understanding can add value – and this can be instilled by involving team members that have international or pan-regional experience.

We always need to be particularly mindful, when making ‘go’ and ‘no-go’ decisions on our projects, to make an effort to see the differences that context makes: separate ‘human behaviour’ (observed in all cultures) from ‘UK (or other culture) behaviour’. This will allow us to better see our consumers and the drivers of their interest in or rejection of our brand, product, experience and even communication.

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From beyond our borders (part two)

January 9th, 2012

In the UK, kids would frequently give reasons to why they didn’t like something as ‘because I’ve never had it before’. But when we heard the same responses in Germany, France, Italy and Spain, we realised that the insight – the deep consumer truth – was something much bigger. Later we were working on a project in tribal areas in South Africa, and observed young people’s fondness for certain tastes that we found unpleasant, and their revulsion of flavours we found very good. We then traced back their liking to familiarity – and could build a strong case for finding familiar flavours, rather than those that traditionally are thought to be good (based on our own cultural experience).

This connection of events was the specific seed that eventually blossomed to a deep understanding of children’s innate neophobia (fear of new), so that we could develop new methods to research new tastes and eating experiences. We have also learned, tested and now regularly utilise specific ways in which to work against innate neophobia. So now, we know when we are listening to and observing consumers, which reactions are more likely due to basic neophobia and those which are more founded in weaknesses in product ideas. This understanding has expanded to include all sensory aspects – so has relevance for communication, entertainment, toys, personal care products, magazines and books, and educational programmes.

In our work in the US on various new and existing food products, we would often hear consumers talk about how they were ‘tired of the same old thing’ and that they wanted something ‘new and different’. We would then test those new ideas further and find that the ideas that were furthest from the existing one seemed to score much lower than those that were closer in. We saw the same situation mirrored in Europe, Asia and particularly in the Middle East. Only by seeing the same behaviour in many regions did we realise the importance of incremental innovation, and how to work to position the ‘further out’ ideas to sound ‘closer in’. Though it feels somewhat counter-intuitive, it has shown to increase our clients’ success on new product initiatives from 1 in 10 to 1 in 3. A significant improvement built from cross-cultural learning.

Consumer groups in the US and Canada have let us see the UK in a new light (and vice-versa); working with children in Thailand, Malaysia and China has taught us about drivers that are prevalent in nature and let us see more about ‘nurture’ in North America, Europe and beyond; mums’ sessions in Africa add dimensionality to our work with UK mums. Work with grandparents in the US and the UK has provided similar abilities to separate history/memories from innate ‘grandparenting’ behaviour.

Qualitative research (and indeed all research), in order to add real value, needs to bring something to the table. To merely indicate what consumers say, without context of deeper human understanding, provides fodder for those who say ‘research is useless’. Adding the social and human context, then, requires experiences that allow us to separate cultural context from the way we are. The way that we have gleaned this knowledge of context is from experiences of working within many cultures around the world.

In the next blog I will wrap up this discussion on cross-cultural comparisons with some specific ways that our research methods have been influenced.

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From beyond our borders (part one)

January 5th, 2012

It is said that often we can look at others – their lives and experiences – to shine a flashlight onto our own existence. This is not only true in our day-to-day lives, but also particularly true in innovation, product development and indeed, research. Ideas from around the world serve as inspiration; trends from other regions tune us into seeing signs in our own markets; global trends fuel our own thinking and let us explore the possibilities in our own markets.

In a press interview a few years ago, when asked to provide reasons for our company’s growth and success even in a tough economic climate, a thought dawned on me. I guess one could always comment on quality service, follow-through, personalised projects – all the things that a smaller company can so often provide better than a larger one. But this didn’t really separate us from other small research companies.

When thinking this through, I am convinced that a major reason for our success is built on our ability to compare learnings from culture to culture. Even though a small company, we are different because of the fact that we have worked on six of the world’s seven Continents, and have considerable experience working with many diverse cultures – from traditional ‘developed’ countries and familial situations, to emerging market cultures and even tribal communities in very undeveloped areas.

We have found throughout all our work that cross-cultural comparison adds incredible value. By being able to separate the cultural from the innate we can see answers quite differently. By juxtaposing one culture’s response from another helps to build a deeper understanding of the subject being researched. Working with consumer groups in a wide variety of cultures across the world helps enrich and develop the understanding of many other cultures beyond that being researched – and specifically our own.

Can we take this idea of taking research from other cultures and comparing to our own as a tool for deeper understanding?

About 11 years ago, when observing children in the waiting room for a research project on food, we noted that very young boys tended to play with building blocks by stacking them vertically (and then knock them over, only to start again), but very young girls tended to play with them by laying them out horizontally and ‘putting them in an order’. It was merely an observation, and didn’t really amount to anything at the time. It was only when we saw a similar behaviour in Africa, and then again in a Scandinavian country on other projects that something struck home.

It was at this point we began to start to actively think about tools and techniques to help us separate nature from nurture in our work with boys and girls (and ultimately with men and women). As it turns out, because of our ability to compare cross-culturally, we can now more clearly guide our clients with an understanding of this specific innate behaviour, and then overlay that with cultural understanding.

Thinking beyond our own culture helps turn a de-brief or report of research from ‘they said this and then they said that…’ to an actionable set of recommendations based not only on what consumers said, but importantly including the context. The reporting evolves from the often frustrating statement of process to a deeper understanding of behaviours and traits, with added cultural depth.

In a tough, competitive market, understanding of context and depth can be the difference between success and failure.

In the next two blog posts I will discuss more about cross-cultural comparison, as well as possible ways to utilise it to gain deeper understanding.

 

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2011: More than turbulent, a tempest

December 30th, 2011

It is rare that I say, “I’m glad this year is over.” But I do this year.

Record ups and downs – from the global economy to weather patterns and natural and man-made disasters – the year was fraught with fearful reactions and backlashes. Often the phrase ‘one step forward and two steps back’ was uttered. This was not just a bad storm, but rather a tempest.

On top of business and economics, there was also a lot of sickness and bad news from family and friends – bad news from losing jobs and having financial struggles to the more concerning life-threatening illnesses. Though unrealistic to consider it ‘fate’, it did sometimes feel as if there were lots of factors, all actively working against us.

Saying this, we’re still here. We’re still working. We’re still growing and learning. We’re still able to see a positive future – perhaps the glimmer of light seems further away than previously, but it is there nonetheless. And adversity and struggle are incredible teachers: we learn what really matters; we learn how to overcome difficulties; we learn how to find joy and light in what might previously have only been considered darkness.

The world has seen tough times before, and I suspect will see them again. Let’s just keep learning from them, and developing positively as a result. Today we have higher standards of living than two or three generations previously, we have more opportunities, and we have longer life expectancies. We are one year closer to curing some frightful diseases, and we have a deeper understanding of nature and our impact on this planet. We still make mistakes, of course, but we are one step further ahead too.

What will happen in 2012? I don’t know, but I still have hope. I have faith that the foundations we’ve built during the past couple years of challenge will hold fast and remain strong. I believe that we will learn from our mistakes. I have hope that all the fears will not come to pass, but rather the positive benefit of our collective hard work. And if it is not in 2012, then there is 2013, or 2014…

As the year is coming to a close, we want to take this opportunity to wish you a prosperous, healthy and beneficial 2012 and beyond. And if it is another tough year, we hope that the lessons learned will be the solid stepping-stones for future successes and ultimately, joy. We look forward to when our paths next cross.

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Breaking the rules

December 22nd, 2011

From the moment we crawl into this world and begin to gain an understanding of the way things work, we are faced with rules. Often these are ‘natural laws’ as we learn about gravity even before being able to name it by falling down and scraping our knees. We are also forced to follow familial and societal rules: we have a curfew, or we have to maintain certain speeds on roadways or we would be punished. Rules abound, and we are duty bound to follow them.

In our working lives we also face rules, and yet those of us tasked with the responsibility to ‘innovate’ in the food and beverage industry are often stuck in rules and find it incredibly difficult to get colleagues or consumers to ‘think out of the box’, when those individuals are so stuck in the box they wouldn’t survive outside.

Real innovators throughout history have broken, twisted, bent, or ignored rules, and real ‘breakthroughs’ have always accompanied a rethinking of rules. If Piaget had followed all the rules, education as we know it may not exist.

In the business and marketing world, the idea of ‘rules’ also applies.

For example, in the US, the ‘rule’ for coffee was that it was cheap (usually 10 cents a cup with free refills) and not particularly good quality. A number of years ago, Starbuck’s changed those rules. Starbuck’s created a new language for coffee (stolen from the way wine connoisseurs talk about wine), added on the experience of enjoying a few moments relaxing, and a new way of thinking about the previously commoditized coffee was born. They broke the rules, and created a whole new industry.

Other successful companies have broken the rules, or indeed continue to ‘break the rules’, too. Apple, Virgin, Geico and others are towards the top of today’s list of rule breakers. What’s interesting to realize is that many big brands today were ‘rule breakers’ of the past.

Kellogg’s ‘broke the rules’ a century ago by creating a way to ‘flake’ grains and offering a cereal in a box. Also a 100 years ago, Coca-Cola ‘broke the rules’ by branding their soda fountain offering, and providing signage for shops – with the shop name, of course, but also the Coca-Cola logo and message. McDonald’s created a new, faster way to get food by breaking the rules of how typical restaurants were organised. Polaroid created an instant image and instant gratification, breaking the rules of a camera with film that needed developing, with a delayed gratification. Microsoft and Apple changed the way we think about computers by developing an easier way to use software – thus ‘breaking the rules’ of consumer expectations of computers that were the size of a building.

Many of these past rule breakers aren’t necessary rule breakers today. In some ways, they created a new status quo and continue thriving on that. This can make them less willing to break rules, and they can – in some cases – become stagnant. The word of warning to them is that others come along and break the ‘new rules’. We need to be mindful of the ‘rules’, but constantly think about ways to break and reinvent them.

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Kids today are tomorrow’s adults

December 19th, 2011

This sounds cliché, but is true.

Although children grow, they most often retain a sense of ‘who they are’ throughout their life. Certainly, they are the products of events and their evolving environment, but there remains a core of personality traits in them no matter their experiences. Generational ‘personalities’ are, in some ways, similar to an individual’s personality.

My grandmother was a young mother during the Great Depression and World War II and the subsequent rationing. As a result of this influence in her life, she was a saver and collector of things (from my perspective she was a ‘hoarder’) – always worried about ‘running out’ and ‘doing without’. So was my father. So are a lot of the adults who lived during that period. That trait of collecting and saving (dare I again use the word ‘hoarding’?) is common to those generations. It is logical to surmise, then, that events of today are those ‘trait formers’ of tomorrow.

One simple example, in our work with children, is that we see that they live in a much more convenient world than we grew up in. Many of our homes have microwave ovens and dishwashers – the utmost in convenience, we might think. Yet, because they have known nothing else, these things that we see as so convenient are taken for granted. In fact, loading the dishwasher is inconvenient for many of today’s kids. Waiting for the microwave takes too long for many young people today.

I have worked on projects in which kids complain that 90 seconds in the microwave is “…too much time!” By observing this reaction, I can easily predict that the term ‘convenience’ will need to be re-defined for this generation as they mature to adulthood – and I suspect that there will most definitely be a market for convenience that is even MORE convenient. I also suspect that the current financial situation is going to impact tomorrow’s adults. With parents teaching us that they are, for the first time, saying no to kids for things they ask for, I suspect that when these kids are parents they will want to say ‘yes’.

I also predict that this emerging generation, when adults, will understand money and spending differently. By knowing kids now, and really understanding their situation and thought processes, we will have a better idea of what to work toward in the coming years of product development. It’s not just about designing products for today’s kids, but also preparing for the adults of tomorrow.

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