Archive for August, 2009

If this is wellness, I’ll stay sick

Sunday, August 30th, 2009

We are frequently commissioned to invite consumer groups to participate in conferences. For this particular conference in the US we arranged for a small group of Prime Timers (our name for consumers aged 55+) to present their thoughts to delegates from the food and beverage industry on a range of products.

We spent the day prior to the conference, working with the group of ‘Prime Timers’. One of the sponsor’s of the event, Mintel’s Global New Products Database, kindly arranged for the shipment of a wide range of products from around the world. As one of the research activities, the Prime Timer group was tasked to evaluate the products, and determine the good and bad things about the products.

Each participant was asked to comment on the suitability of the product based on their own desire to purchase it if available in the US market. They would present their thoughts to the conference, as well as outlining suggestions for improvement of each product. This is an excellent activity, and one we use in many of our research projects to explore a category with consumers. Our aim is to push the boundaries of unfamiliar products – to determine the ‘must have’ attributes, and also the ‘watch outs’. And for the conference, the attendees learned a great deal from the Prime Timers’ presentation and subsequent Q&A period.

One woman was particularly colourful in presenting her thoughts. She had very strong opinions, and helpfully, very strong suggestions for how to build and improve some of the products for the US market.

There was one product though that did not do so well. It was ‘Wellness Water’ from Nestlé, and a product that was specifically targeted to women, apparently over the age of 50 years. On the day prior to the conference, I recall seeing this woman looking at the packaging, and showing a great deal of interest in the idea. She rather enthusiastically opened the bottle and poured some into a glass. The look on her face told it all: she clearly did not like the product at all.

When she presented her reviews of a number of the products, she pulled no punches. She praised many, criticized a few, and then she referred to the image of Wellness Water on the projector behind her. She didn’t say much about the product, but got her point across effectively:

“If this is wellness, I’ll stay sick!” she growled in deeply New Jersey accented tones.

A lesson that many companies offering nutritional and nutraceutical products to aging consumers (and to everyone else) should learn, if not, at their peril. (Interestingly, when I have subsequently tried to find out more about the Wellness Water product, I can’t find any information – I can only assume it is no longer on the market.)

I guess our Prime Time presenter challenged the old adage: “if you have your health, you have everything”. Perhaps, in the context of nutritional food, it needs to be “if it tastes good, you have everything”.

Just doesn’t have the same ring to it…

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Circle of life

Thursday, August 27th, 2009

“It’s the Circle of Life
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the Circle
The Circle of Life”

From Disney’s ‘The Lion King’, music by Elton John and lyrics by Tim Rice

As the song implies, time isn’t linear. The evidence of this became clear several years ago as we were asked to recommend a way of working with older consumers to best uncover the insights needed for the project.

Whilst a considerable proportion of our projects focus on young people from age 18 months to teens we found working on the opposite end of the age spectrum fascinating. The premise of our work with young people is built on some key, borrowed principles: creative principles from Steiner; research and child development principles from Piaget; educational principles from Dewey and Montessori (Give children tools, they’ll find their way); and play principles from Vygotsky

In all our projects, we see recurring themes of the key behaviour drivers of young people. Control is the primary driver – the desire to be ‘in charge’ of themselves and their immediate environment. Aspiration is also important – the desire to be treated as older, although not necessarily shoulder the responsibility of being older. Also important is young people’s stated desires of creating excitement & stretching boundaries – the desire to avoid ‘the same old thing and push their limits.

We then used similar methods to test older people (Prime Timers) and discovered amazing similarities. The most important driver of Prime Timers is control – and like young people, this is the desire to be ‘in charge’ of themselves and their immediate environment. We also see aspiration, though slightly different in that it is the desire to be treated as ‘contributing members of society’. A key differentiator, though is that they tend to be looking for the opposite of ‘new and exciting’ and find importance in memories and associations. Interestingly, many memories tend to be linked to childhood experiences, or experiences when they raised their children – these are powerful and drive many choices of brands, products and services.

As we expand our work with aging consumers, we continue to be struck by the closeness of what we had previously assumed were ‘two ends’ of the age spectrum – consistently better expressed in a diagram of a circle, rather than a line. Disney’s Lion King has it right.

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Learning from learners how to teach

Monday, August 24th, 2009

In the late nineties we worked on a ground-breaking study which lasted just over six months.

The key was to understand young people’s comprehension and perception of nutrition. To our knowledge, no such study had ever been done before.

We had designed a framework in which the participating kids were tasked to create nutrition education programmes for other students their age and younger. We wanted to follow their progress as they researched the topic of food and nutrition. As they found aspects of interest they developed a nutritional education programme and then ultimately tested it on other kids.

Interestingly, three months after the research project was completed, we went back and tested the knowledge and behavior of those participating students. We also tested similarly aged students that had not participated in the project. The students that were part of the project had 3 times the accurate nutritional information, and had changed their eating behaviours in some ways. Most importantly, they were more aware of their choices, and no longer saw food as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, and could more easily balance their diets with accurate knowledge.

In this approach we learned so much about their perceptions and mis-conceptions, and then we worked with them to learn about nutritional topics, so that they could include proper information in their own education programmes.

The learnings were shared with the sponsoring food and beverage companies, with the view that they would be able to implement new strategies as they developed more nutritional foods for kids. But more importantly, we learned that the process of involving kids to put together programmes to teach other kids complex ideas was an excellent teaching tool.

Those groups of young people accomplished an amazing feat – and as a result of their efforts, we met with representatives from the UK government, the US National Institutes of Health and other agencies to suggest a plan to better teach young people about this abstract, difficult topic. We were told that we influenced the re-design of the Food Pyramid.

A few years later we were invited to present a paper at an international academic conference on nutrition and physical activity. We have even been asked to teach doctors learning to be pediatricians about kids and their perceptions (and misperceptions) of nutrition.

As I reflect back on that project in the light of today’s desire to move towards more healthful eating, I see that those learnings are still sound and relevant. Our hope, in the end, is that this model becomes the way in which kids are taught this subject. Even though this was 10 years ago, I still have my fingers crossed – but even if nothing further happens I am exceedingly proud of the work the kids did and how much we learned from learners how best to teach.

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For my children’s children

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

India is a remarkable place, full of rich history, heritage and culture. Working with kids in Indian schools is truly an experience, and always very memorable.

On one project we were in a village outside of Delhi, and the temperature was a sweltering 46° C (115°Fahrenheit). We could hardly breathe because the school was not equipped with air conditioning, or any cooling strategy at all. The local client recognized our plight and kindly brought in fans – and though the circulation of the air was somewhat of a relief as it blew over our sweat-laden bodies and cooled us a bit, it could not make us comfortable.

The young people, though, were more used to the heat. They carried handkerchiefs and regularly daubed the sweat from the faces. They smiled through it all, and when we worked on our project with them, they were delighted to participate and found great interest in the subject.

All 60 students, closely packed onto benches in a room that schools in North America or Europe would find small for 20 students, attentively recited their lessons and participated in the assignments given by the teacher. They didn’t have books or many supplies. Each student carefully carried his/her small chalkboards, each fearful that they will smudge the homework assignment and have to deal with the wrath of the teacher.

They never complained. They worked hard – harder than many students I would regularly see in schools in Europe and North America.

When I asked one child why he liked a certain idea – he said that he thought it would be good, because then his children, or their children, would have a much better life. I asked him to repeat himself – I wanted to make sure that I hadn’t misunderstood. He said again, that the idea was good because it meant that future children would have a better life than he has.

It is incredibly moving to have a child, 9 or 10 years of age, talk about how if he works hard, then his children’s children will have a better life. Up until that point I had always thought of kids as being more ego-centric, and unable to see life beyond their own wants and needs. I learned the capacity children have to understand deep concepts, if we only let them.

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Eat it, it’s good for you

Monday, August 17th, 2009

I learned something very important from a 5 year old. I don’t know why I hadn’t realized it before – it was a simple idea that had been staring me in the face for years.

We were working on new food ideas for young children, every time we said something about the food being nutritious, healthy, or good for you, this girl turned up her nose: she clearly didn’t like those ideas, and was not at all interested in trying them.

I asked her why.

“If it is good for me, I know I won’t like it.” she said. “Every time my mum says that, it always tastes yucky.”

I realized that what she taught me in that moment was one of those big, universal truths. I saw it in my own life, and in the myriad of projects on new, nutritional kids’ foods on which we have worked over the years.

When we are young and eat nutritional food readily, we never have to be told, “eat it, it’s good for you.” The only time we’re told, “eat it, it’s good for you” is when we haven’t already eaten it – and therefore probably don’t think we like it. This reinforces the perception that food that’s good for us tastes bad, and we see that carried into our adult lives, too.

I always loved spinach as a kid. My mum never had to encourage me to eat it. It was only later that I learned that spinach was good for me – and then I could use that as a reason to convince my mum to give me more spinach. I still love spinach today.

Just yesterday it was suggested that I have some beetroot (known simply as ‘beets’ in the US). I have never really liked beets – too earthy tasting for my liking. Of course (you guessed it), I was told, “You really should try some. Beetroot is good for you.” I immediately cringed – ‘good for you’ = ‘tastes bad’ was again reinforced.

Why hadn’t I seen that connection before meeting that young girl on a project? I guess it takes the perspective of a five year old to teach us properly.

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Angel in the detail

Thursday, August 13th, 2009

The phrase, “the devil is in the detail” can be misleading. It implies that there is something negative in the minutiae. Working with Thai kids on a dairy project let me see clearly, that to some people, the intricacies and detail are exactly what delight them. The detail is the thing that brings ideas to a whole new place; to a different, more motivating level.

On this project we were working in a Thai school, and the day started as typical for Thai kids, but it was new to me. After a rousing rendition of the Thai National Anthem and flag raising, there was a five or ten minute chanting session (as per Buddhist custom, I was told). The mayhem and energy from the demonstration of national pride quickly resided to a palpable peace. And when finished, the children calmly – and I have never seen such calm in a school setting before or since – went to their classes.

The depth of learning from the very first moments with the class of 9 year olds was incredible. We had group discussions about some themes, and went immediately to an ideation session in which the young people developed new ideas for the category that would appeal to them.

Now we frequently use ideation as a research tool with consumers to uncover important themes, and a by-product of the process is that often great ideas are born. In this session, in each of the ideas proffered by the kids, we saw particular engagement in the fine detail of design, but also the detail in how their specific product ideas would work. Never before had I really noticed such attention to the apparently small points.

This cast a whole new light on working with kids in other cultures, and in seeing the fine points as something important rather than merely childishness. I now hear kids’ stories in a new way, see the way they see the world differently, and have seen a change in the way I find new products for myself.

I have learned – and much to my enjoyment in work and in my life – that it isn’t at all the devil in the detail, but rather a positive angel. Should I still see the big picture? Most certainly. But seeing with two points of view – big and small – is far richer.

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It’s the simple things in life

Monday, August 10th, 2009

As with most sub-Saharan African experiences, Kenya is a mix of life and vitality, with high poverty. Importantly, though, a vibrancy and richness exists that belies its fiscally poor state.

So far this year has meant an inordinate amount of travel to many diverse cultures. I am in wealthy cultures one day, and in poverty stricken areas the next. It is truly a year of opposites in many ways, and from these contrasts I have found a new definition of richness and happiness: a richness from something other than material wealth; a happiness that is derived from enjoying life and all the experiences life has to offer rather than merely looking for ‘the next thing’.

Music and colour play an important role in the expression of life, and the young Kenyans with whom we worked found their joy in these simple things. Not only in commercial expressions of each, but rather in the free and readily available. They found the colour in nature exciting; and the music they sang together – seemingly spontaneously – brought great delight. They were intensely creative – a life skill required for survival, to some extent – and were smart, energetic, appreciative and hard working.

This draws a stark comparison with the young people in the supposedly developed world – and though it is not all greed and begging by any means, there is an expectation to get ‘stuff’. Frequently, when we work on projects with kids from very affluent backgrounds, we see this play out.

We have worked on hundreds of projects, in many cultures, and the only time we have ever had anything stolen from us was in an area of affluence well beyond the norm. Young teens in this school had expensive cars that they weren’t allowed yet to drive (but their chauffeurs drove them) and more technical gadgetry and expensive fashion items filled their designer rucksacks.

And though the theft of our video camera and product samples was annoying, more troubling was the behavior of these young people. They had short attention spans, and showed little interest or curiosity in anything. Sadly, most did not appreciate their good fortune nor did they see any value in working for anything. They saw no joy in life, and complained about everything.

Does it mean that affluence is wrong? Certainly not. But affluence to the exclusion of the appreciation of simple things is sad. Yes – poverty must be eliminated, and no one should go without enough food and appropriate shelter – but we must not lose the wealth that we can all find in the simple things that life has to offer.

If I had to choose to raise children like those I worked with in Kenya and those I worked with in the super-affluent community – I’d choose the Kenyan kids every time. They are truly among the wealthiest I have ever met.

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Raise your hand and be counted

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

I started that year with a great deal of travel. It was New Year’s Day and I was flying to China for a project for a pan-Asian client. It was an early morning rise after a late night – though not as bad as it could have been. It was my second occasion in China, and I was looking forward to the chance to work with Chinese kids. We needed to run the project before Chinese New Year, and that lengthy holiday period.

The experience was memorable, particularly because of the young people with whom we conducted the project. We spent a couple of days with them – the first day we took them shopping at a local supermarket, letting them choose products that they felt were appealing for various criteria. They did a remarkable job, and attacked each assignment with energy and interest.

When responding to our questions, they were bright, energetic and eager to be heard. One can understand this in the context of the ‘one child policy’ in effect for a number of years, compounded by the sheer numbers of people. Parents are keen that their ‘one child’ will stand above the crowd in some way, and because of this, the kids are expected to raise their hands in class for every question the teacher asked (amusingly, even if they had no idea of the answer). They were also eager to show off their just-learned English – and impressively, even though only about 9 years of age, could carry on a basic conversation in English.

It is certainly different than our frequent experiences in North American or European schools. So often we see that students will sit at the back, and choose locations in which they are least likely to be seen or called upon. And though I have learned techniques to get young people engaged, these take effort and time – in China, we didn’t have to work hard to get engagement and response.

When I work with their young people, it is understandable why the Chinese economy is growing in leaps and bounds, and the pace of change in China is incredible – with each of the 1.2 billion people eager to make their mark. If we want to keep up, we need to teach ourselves to raise our hands, and be counted.

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Best meal ever

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

We were working with young people in tribal communities in southern Africa. The experience was quite memorable in that we had worked with the same group of young people for a project that had spanned several days.

From the beginning, the group was quite remarkable. We were working in a school, and though to our standards the school was in pretty shabby shape, the students seemed to thrive. They were committed. Many travelled over two hours to get to school – part by foot, part by taxi – and they showed a real dedication to participate in all that school had to offer. Many of the windows were broken, and there was little in the way of supplies, books or other things that we are so accustomed to seeing in school situations.

The young participants in our project were young teens, and they were working to help us develop and test new ideas for food products. They spent some time evaluating the existing market, developed new ideas, and tested their ideas among the other students at the school. The ideas would then be further tested quantitatively by our client, but the initial test instigated by the students served as a good screening to help narrow down ideas and find areas in which to build.

Our final day had arrived, and the students wanted to do something to thank us for choosing them to work with and for spending the whole week with them. They had slaughtered some chickens from their families’ holdings, and spread the blood of the chickens over the grave of their ancestors. The latter was a rite reserved to show honour and was usually used for special occasions like weddings and unique heroic acts.

As the group told us what they had done for us, and then cooked the chicken for us over an open fire, the feelings we felt went far beyond a typical research project. The vibrancy of the young people, and the potential that they represented, was powerful, moving and memorable. And though we had learned a great deal for our client on this project, I personally learned much more.

When we shared the feast they had provided, I was humbled. These teens had so little, and yet they were giving us a gift – a gift worth far more than the cost of the food; a treat worth more than eating delicacies in a fine restaurant. Yes, it was just fire roasted chicken – but it was truly my best meal, ever.

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