Leveraging Cultural Research for Understanding Elevated Consumers

Hello! Every year, I go to several market research conferences to learn about new techniques in my field, to meet new clients and colleagues, and to do some travelling. I took my notes from one of these conferences and turned it into this little review so that I could share what I learned with you. Enjoy!

This is a photo I took at the conference

Consumers are making purchase decisions that support their evolution into actualized, conscious beings who seek to consume goods and services that authentically enrich their lives, improve the world, and protect their local economies. Concurrently, trust in corporations and their products is at an all time low, with only Congress scoring lower in rankings of trust. The presenters at Foresight and Trends 2017 made these trends clear, provided explanations, highlighted potential directions, and suggested research strategies which will help all of us to better serve clients and customers in this rapidly changing environment. A focus on the Social Sciences, including Sociology and Anthropology, emerged as an essential thought tool for tackling these complex business issues, which are rooted in today’s greatest social and cultural challenges.

Henry Mason of TrendWatching finds that the new consumer CSR demands are moving away from simple organic and green trends towards a greater focus on local economies. The way that companies treat workers is now just as important as whether their source materials come from ethical and sustainable sources. Buy one give one models that serve local communities are wonderful and inspire consumers, as Megan Shea of the Soulfull Project demonstrated, but as the face of work changes, consumers are likely to begin looking out for their jobs and their friends’ jobs via their own consumption habits as well. Tom LaForge of MACROFORCES pointed out that while 75% of gross revenue goes to Fortune 500 companies, only 17% of workers are employed by the Fortune 500 set. This startling gap has remained at the same levels for the past 20 years according to Forbes magazine. I was left with the thought that this employment gap is likely to be one of multiple social and cultural sources of the confidence problem.

Tom LaForge discussed the thought of sociologist Susan Fiske, whose research found that humans assess brands as if they were people or social groups. Today’s consumer or worker interacts with the world’s largest brands frequently, but it seems to me that despite efforts to be more personable, many of these interactions still occur in a rather transactional manner. Transactional interactions do not generate a feeling of familiarity, knowing, or trust the way that friendships do. At best, transactional interactions create only the level of familiarity and trust that one might have with an acquaintance. The organizations or companies that earn or maintain consumer trust will be those that truly meet consumers where they are, engage in a two way relationship, and enable them to meet their newer, more elevated goals.

Nick Lanzafame of Buzzfeed showed us just how nuanced we must be in our approaches to consumers. Buzzfeed research shows that 80% of Gen Y and Z believe that gender, sexuality, and race fall on a spectrum, and 71% have a passion that is considered niche or extreme by others. These consumers want to be spoken to directly, as they all represent a “segment of one.” With diverse goals, aspirations, lifestyles, and increasingly complex identities, there is simply no longer a neat “gen pop” consumer. In order to establish or restore trust, it is important to truly know these consumers as complex individuals. If we believe that people assess brands in the same way that they assess other people, we must realize that people are not only most likely to trust those with whom they have a mutual relationship, but that they will also have increased affinity for people with whom they share common background, interests, communities, or goals. Using research to identify these important “segments of one” and their unique interests can enable companies to enter into more thoughtful, impactful, and mutually beneficial relationships with consumers.

Several speakers noted that today’s consumers are looking to level up their consumption habits and their life goals. Panel speaker Tara-Nicholle Nelson explained that these consumers are looking for products and services which will help them to achieve levels of well-being which are much higher on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs than the wellness goals of previous generations. Having already met their lower order needs, today’s transformational consumer is looking to be healthier, wealthier, wiser, and now feels that they have the right to live a happy life. Technology should work to support these goals, enabling humans to be happier humans. Amber Case noted that the ultimate goal of technology should be to move more of us from living in fast-paced chronos to a less-fragmented kairos. In other words, as opposed to being buried in endless attention sucking apps and devices which speak in awful computer voices, we should be developing technologies that allow more and more of us to escape our devices as opposed to being constantly beholden to them. Of course, the definition of a happy life is likely to look very different depending on the segment of one, but who doesn’t want to be less attached to emails and the devices which deliver them?

Ultimately, purchasing goods and services is a behavior that we can understand through behavioral economics and the social sciences, which can help us understand how habits are created. Corrine Sandler of Fresh Intelligence spoke of behavioral plasticity. Just like neuroplasticity, our behaviors are highly flexible and trainable. A shocking 45% of our daily activities are habits. Therefore, Sandler encouraged us to view influencing consumer habits as the goal, as opposed to endeavoring to drive consumption with new innovations. Innovations are endless, but transforming an innovation into a habit embeds a product or service into the daily life of an individual.

However, it is generally accepted that it takes 21 days of repeated activity for a person to form a new habit. Is habit creation then a truly viable strategy for companies? Of course it is! Jonathan Asher of PRS InVivo showed how the ethnographic study of two groups can lead to great innovation in inspiring lasting behavior change. When helping a client that is looking to create such a change, PRS InVivo will gather deep insights about groups that currently exhibit the desired behavior, as well as groups that do not exhibit the desired behavior. In this way, both the groups and the behaviors themselves become easily understood, and a strategy to influence behaviors and create habits can be generated.

Qualitative research aimed at deeply understanding culture was frequently referenced during this conference as a tool that can help companies learn more about trends, habits, groups, needs, expectations, and the rapidly evolving aspirational goals of today’s transforming consumers. Ethnography, sociology, and anthropology are being leveraged by many of the conference presenters to gain deep cultural insights that help companies to successfully navigate the new consumer environment. These types of research are being supplemented by powerful quant tools, such as the Sonar tool in use at Pepsico. Rachel Gordon explained that there are few tools in the marketplace that can assess cultural change in a quantitative way through the analysis of online data. So, Pepsico partnered with Black Swan to produce Sonar, a unique social listening program that is currently only in use at PepsiCo.

Through successful, multifaceted research that combines qualitative and quantitative techniques, today’s companies can gain understandings that allow them to understand, address, and serve their clients and consumers in the ways that consumers have grown to expect. As the rate of cultural change quickens, with more trends emerging and breaking every day, these types of learning become the difference between being ahead of the curve and being behind the curve. Recognizing truly resonant trends will be key to identifying the path forward with today’s transformational consumers, the transforming workforce, and transforming expectations and needs. Thank you to Foresight and Trends for an inspiring program that will keep all of us ahead of the curve.