Customer insights, design, prototype? What is this?

When the Customer Insights class started in January, I was very reluctant to believing many of the concepts that the class dealt with. I did not believe that everyone has a “designer” inside or that every person can be creative. It was difficult for me to believe that I had the ability to create a product. I had never considered myself like someone that has a creative imagination; I actually thought that I did not like to be or could not be imaginative and that I was more of a “numbers” person. Therefore, entering the class it was really hard for me to believe what I was hearing, but I gave it a shot and actually realized that I’m more creative than I thought and I do have the ability to understand a customer’s needs but also create something that can satisfy their requirements. An idea that was really interesting to me was the concept of “design”. I was not expecting the fact that design can be related to many things and even designing a new business concept or a product, but after being in class and listening to different speakers it give me the impression that it could actually be done. Additionally, I started progressing during the final project and I realized that I did have the ability and personality to “design” something new. For example, when we started reviewing the information about our interviews and photo journal I understood the need for the prototype we created. We went through many product iterations and saw that every time we were working on the prototype, we were getting something better and of different materials.


The Customer Insights class provided me with many different concepts but there were two that caught my attention and I felt like created more value to my personal development and probably my professional career. During the development of the Insight/Experience Audit & Prototype project I explored the customer insight concept. It was fascinating to see how a photo journal can give so much insight into a person’s life and also how the interpretation of the pictures can be really different from a face to face interview. I learned that once you interview your persona and ask questions about the pictures, the explanations are totally different and you need to go deeper into what they are feeling and thinking. For example, some personas tried explaining their photos over email, but once you go and sit with them you realize that the pictures mean much more to them that you actually expected and have a totally different meaning. These two techniques let you learn and understand what a customer needs or what they want, basically an insight.

The final project was a great learning experience. I had never been so involved in developing a product, even though I took a couple of entrepreneurship classes during my undergrad. I think there wasn’t anything not useful to the project because every phase of the ads value to the final presentation. It was necessary to think about the persona we wanted to target, to understand their needs through the photo journal and interview, creating the prototype and receiving feedback on the first design. More than something not useful, I think that the most complicated thing about the project is the timing because we have limited time to do every stage of the project and getting time from our personas it is also something really difficult. I don’t think there could be a better way because it wasn’t necessarily hard to work on, it was just tough to fit with all the schedules.

During the development of the project I experienced several emotional reactions. At the beginning, the first emotion I experienced was disbelief on the whole concept of design and customer insights. Second, I went through frustration because I didn’t know what to do with or how to deal with not believing in my ability to be creative. Third, I dealt with uncertainty because I didn’t know what product to develop. Fourth, I experienced fear on not being able of building the prototype because we didn’t know what materials to use. And finally, I experienced relief because we were able to get a good prototype and good feedback from our personas.


I feel that working with my group was a great experience because we dealt well with uncertainty, working together and developing new ideas. Also, I think that the project has a good process of showing how an actual product is being developed, all the way from the idea to the final product design. Working with you as a professor was really comforting because you never doubted on the fact that I was going to be able to create a product or in my hidden ability to be creative.

Social Media: Good or Bad advertising for companies?

Social media is something totally new that is moving fast and is taking over many of the advertising strategies, especially within the internet. Ten years ago, I was not involved in any social network or had never seen or pictured anything like it. I don’t think it was even considered a media to advertise in or maybe there was nothing developed yet that would give so much exposure to a brand.

I’m from Mexicali, Mexico and I joined Facebook in 2004. Since then I have been sharing pictures, comments and messages with many friends that live far away. At the beginning I guess I was rejecting Facebook because I was a member of hi5.com, which is another social network and it was the first one that showed me how I could interact with many friends without seeing them every day. Hi5 was a network with many Hispanic members and all of my friends joined that site. When I went to study to Pittsburgh, PA at the University of Pittsburgh, I learned about Facebook through an ex-girlfriend. She was the one that showed me this site and told me that everyone was joining it. I opened my account with my Mexican university email because everyone was using school emails and I didn’t know if I could use something different. After going back to Mexico, I used to go into Facebook once in a while but not every day, I think I wasn’t a huge fan of it because I was “betraying” hi5. Like three years ago, I realized that Facebook was the only website I wanted to share my life information and events in. Now, that I’m studying my MBA at UT I check my Facebook account probably two or three times per day. I has become like an obsession because there is always something new to see, discuss or laugh about. I also joined LinkedIn in 2007 but I have not been really involved with that site, I guess it takes time for me to adopt new technologies because I don’t see the purpose and I feel like I’m wasting a lot of time in that. I’m also not in twitter or myspace, so I’ll talk from my personal experience with Facebook.

These websites are definitely about “relationships” more than anything else. As the groundswell article mentions it “concentrate on the relationships, not the technologies”. I agree that relationships are everything and websites like Facebook, Twitter or Myspace discovered that people want to have a relationship with friends, classmates or work colleagues, but also they like to be involved with companies and their efforts to attract new customers or publish new events, product lines and promotions. I’m a fan of sunglasses, I like to buy new sunglasses once in a while and I’m really interested in seeing what is new or what people are talking about. Therefore, I’m a fan of Sunglass Hut in Facebook because they have good information on the page, pictures of new sunglasses, links to other websites and they post forums about what people think of new kind/brand of sunglasses. I think this is a good way for Sunglass Hut to promote their upcoming styles and increase purchasing habits among customers by giving them more information in a website they visit often and building a relationship with them by keeping them informed on “what’s new”. Unfortunately, they have to be careful on what people post and comment. I have read comments of people being negative about new sunglasses and even from store clerks. I have seen comments where people express how they were mistreated or how some sunglasses were of bad quality. This type of “negative” advertising is dangerous and can hurt brand recognition and prestige. I think Sunglass Hut probably has someone checking the Facebook site every second of the day just to avoid bad publicity and delete any message that is harmful to the brand or a specific store.


Basically, I think Sunglass Hut uses Facebook to gain insight on what people are buying but also are trying to create experiences for customers and make them repeat a purchase or increase the frequency and amount of purchase. Gaining insight is really important to a retail store like Sunglass Hut because you can increase product lines or brands if you see a need or want among your customers. Also, it helps them understand if the store needs changes in the layout or the way they treat people. Additionally, the experiences they are trying to create are positive images that remind you that buying at Sunglass Hut is both affordable and convenient.

In general, I think Facebook and all other social media marketing sites are a good advantage for companies as long as they pay attention to what people are saying, as long as they use the websites as tools to create good relationships with customers these will be beneficial. Unfortunately, these kind of sites are sometimes a waste of time, especially among teenagers who spend a big proportion of their time checking Facebook or twitter.

Mexican Curious: US retailers with a Hispanic target...

Am I dreaming? Am I still asleep? What’s going on? Why am I in a Mexican grocery store that reminded me of my infancy in this almost thirty year old body? Why am I hung over? There were many questions in my head and I wasn’t thinking correctly. Maybe I was still a sleep, dreaming about old grocery stores in Mexico from when I was a little kid. Or maybe I was remembering visiting my grandmother in Tijuana, Mexico, and going to the grocery store to buy some peanuts. Or maybe I just had a huge headache and was really thirsty in a Hispanic grocery store that made me feel like I was in Mexico in 1990, but I was actually in Austin, TX… yes! And this was two weeks ago! I didn’t really know what was going on, maybe I was still a little bit tipsy from the night before and I was imaging things.


I had a great party on Friday night with my friends from the MBA program. We went out and partied in downtown. I woke up on Saturday and all I could think about was “I’m Walter from the Big Lebowski movie and I need a costume, I need camouflage pants, but where am I going to buy them?” I woke up, took a shower and searched the internet for the Army-Navy store located on N. Lamar. I headed out in my car, driving north and looking both sides for this small (tiny actually) army store. As I was looking around, I saw a sign, not a regular sign but THE SIGN!… something that caught my attention, especially with my big hangover. In a far distance to my right I saw “Taqueria”!, which is a really unusual word in the US. It’s something really common in Mexico but I had never seen it in Austin or anywhere in the US. You always see signs with words like “Tacos”, “Mexican food” or “Chips and Queso”, something that tries to resemble the fact that this place is a Mexican restaurant. I decided to drive back, park and check it out. To my surprise this wasn’t actually a restaurant, instead it was a Mexican grocery store or maybe you could call it a “retailer oriented to a Hispanic community”.


The first thing I thought when I went in there was: “What is this place?”. I have been living in Austin for the last seven months and all my life have been around the US. I lived at the border with the US for 18 years and I had never experienced this kind of Mexican culture and involvement in US soil, especially in a grocery store. I guess that certain retail chains and many other companies have foreseen that the Hispanic community will grow in a near future with a potential purchasing power. According to investigations made by Mintel Oxygen, Hispanics’ “purchasing power is projected to reach more than $1.4 trillion by 2013” 1a and “population is projected to grow by 12.9%, compared to 2.9% by non-Hispanics from 2008-13” 1a. I believe that retailers in the US are trying to integrate processes, activities and feelings in their stores that involved the Hispanic community, things that make them feel back at “home”.


On my personal experience, we Hispanics have certain values taught to us since a young age. Family, friends, love and respect are some of the most important things in life. Your country, your heritage and your culture are some of the things you should feel more proud of. This type of store brought mixed feelings to me. It made me remember my childhood which made me feel happy, but at the same time it made feel like I didn’t fit, the whole store didn’t fit in the US environment. I know it might sound really confusing, but it was hard for me too. It is hard to describe the feelings, emotions and thoughts I experienced when I walked in there.

There are many things to talk about with the Hispanic grocery store concept. I could talk about the target market, why they decided on that, how they intend to reach it, the store concept and layout, type of products and services offered inside and out, competitors and marketing strategies. This topic will give the opportunity to explore things that have always caught my attention about the retail industry such as how grocery stores do their internal marketing, how they design the stores and why the products are in which shelf. I think all these aspects are part of the strategy to reach the target market but at the same time increase sales. We’ll see how this topic develops along the way, but one thing is for sure… Viva Mexico!

Sources:
1. Hispanic Retail 360 Summit - August 2009
a.Mintel Oxygen. “Hispanics and the Retail Environment”. Leyhla Ahuile. (excerpts from the Mintel Reports: “Hispanics and the Retail Experience”, July 2009 and “The Economic Impact of Hispanics in the US Marketplace”, June 2009).

MARKET RESEARCH TECHNIQUES?

Turn Customer Input into Innovation
Ulwick’s approach is so interesting. He and some of his partners adjusted an already existing methodology; it is not like they created this from scratch and came up with it themselves. It is based on the common knowledge of market research with certain tweaks here and there that make the methodology so revealing and interesting.
I think it makes so much sense to ask your customers, “what do they want the product to achieve for them”, instead of asking “what they want”. This simple question changes the whole approach of how to interview a customer and how to gather the right information. The methodology also contains similar market research ingredients, as defining the target market, analyzing quantitative data and identifying opportunities but I’m actually impressed with Ulwick’s article, his approach and methodology have been really enlightening. In my line of work I haven’t gotten involved with many market research studies and especially from an innovation or design perspective. I have limited knowledge on this subject but it makes much more sense to structure the research in this way. Customer-needs being the top priority, instead of customer-wants.

Metaphorically Speaking
The ZMET methodology of Zaltman is a little bit more complicated to understand and I feel that a person who gets involved with this kind of market research needs to be more of a psychologist or sociologist than a sales person or customer research agent. This seems to be a more specialized kind of research with a longer time frame of preparation. Customers need to pay more attention and think more seriously about what they really think with the 12 images they need to take to the interview process. Even though the interview process is one-on-one, it seems that metaphors of how they feel of the images, what they think of an expansion of the pictures or what they see or smell with the picture makes me realize that research could be really accurate and could actually help understand what a customer feels and thinks from a brand or a product.
All these specifications might make this research more expensive and not simple to understand for upper management. Whoever is conducting the research needs to be really assertive concise with the results gathered from the interview.
ZMET is tough but very interesting and revealing, more of a display of images and understanding of feelings, it could be really insightful!

Kenna’s Dilemma
It is interesting to read that focus groups are not necessarily effective, especially since they have been a “useful” or “commonly used” technique in the past. I’m not really sure I agree with Blink in this article. It would be more interesting to check more data on real exercises vs. focus groups results. I do agree with him that a person who is locked in a “test” is more subtle to say whatever the product or brand wants to hear. In a discussion for the Strategic Management class, we were discussing how the Pepsi Challenge was biased because Pepsi products have more sugar and therefore, since it was only a taste and not the whole can, many customers preferred Pepsi because our taste glands are more sensitive to a “sugarish” feeling. Also customers were in a controlled environment where you can’t sit down and watch TV or have something to eat.
I do believe that Kenna’s dilemma is an issued, and a probable solution to this problem could be to have real focus groups in a restaurant or a bar when a person asks for the product. I know this idea could be really hard to implement, but it could be a solution to this problem. Interesting but doubtful. I guess I need more data!

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