We’re all being told to get closer to our consumers, to listen to our consumers, to get under our consumers skin, but is this enough to generate truly breakthrough ideas and future product concepts. Sometimes, you will strike it lucky but I believe if you really want to expose your self to strong innovation directions you need to go far broader. Say you’ve done your market analysis and you’ve got a target group of consumers. Standard industry practice says you should use tools such as storytelling, observation and focus groups with this target group. I say you should still do this but you should also cast your innovation net far wider. Here is a useful model to help you broaden your search for innovative concepts:

 

Step 1. Go ahead and research your target customer group, which can be done using standard tools such as 1 to 1 interviews, focus groups and basic observation. More sophisiticated tools such as story-telling where you get customers to prepare a story related to the subject matter you wish to research can pull out further insights. Other powerful approaches are accompanied shopping or direct observation. Allow maybe 40-50% of your total research time for this activity.

Step 2. Indentify stakeholders who are likely to observe and interact with your target customers as they use the product and interview them about how they see your customers behave. Potential candidates as stakeholders could be service engineers for users of office equipment, doctors in the case of patients in hospital or catering managers or shop keepers for snack consumers. Allow maybe 10-20% of your research time for this step.

Step 3. Put yourself in the shoes of your consumers, in short, be your consumer. Spend a day in the life of your consumer. If you are an engineer working on a new family car design, spend a day using the car with your family. Notice the things which are frustrating and the things which you like as a customer and user would. I understand Nissan used this approach when they asked their engineers, 5 at a time, to sit, with writing pads at the ready, in the Nissan Micra for 30 minutes collecting insights about their experience. Allow 10% of your research time for this.

Step 4. When I say deep users, what I mean here are extreme, passionate users of your product. So if you want to research coffee, talk to the consumers who prepare their own coffee blend, maybe even roasting it themselves. These consumers are likely to value product elements which can help you identify true stand-out products of the future, Purple Cow products, you might say. Allow 10-20% of your time here.

Step 5. Study parallel indutries and markets. Many powerful insights can be derived from practices which may well be common in other industries. Tools such as TRIZ can play a role during this stage to help identify suitable candidate industries. An interesting cross over industry that immediately comes to mind is human food and pet food, where trends in the first industry quickly transition into the second. Another example is the transition of ideas from pharmaceutical to food in the area of functional food. Allow 10% of your time here.

This process can help you get deeper insights which can help you create real breakthrough concepts

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