Using Human and Cultural Insights to Anticipate Consumer Desires
Posted by Jeffrey Henning on Mon, Oct 05, 2009
Tom Laforge, Global Director of Human & Cultural Insights, with The Coca Cola Company presented at the AMA Marketing Research Conference. Human insights are universal and unchanging, based on biology, lifestages, psychological motivations and ergonomics. Cultural insights change slowly: lifestyles, values and beliefs, trends, macroforces and worldviews. Coca-Cola has a cultural researcher in almost every country it does business in; for cross-cultural interactions the two researchers of the two countries discuss. Tom prefers to look at macroforces and worldviews, which tie us together. Marketing insights, on the other hand, change more rapidly: category, consumer, customers, channel, shopper, brand and product. 90% of Coca Cola researchers work in this area.
Coca-Cola was invented in 1886 by American pharmacist Dr. John Pemberton. The macroforces that have shaped the world since then include population growth, the spread of capitalism, increasing affluence, medical and psychological advances, technology and automation, connectivity and mobility, environment changes and globalization. Given these macrotrends, how will each affect consumers, brands, marketers, companies and our worldview?
Consumer goods constantly have improved quality: Fordism, Taylorism, Time Motions Studies, Lemon Laws, Quality Circles, Deming, Kaizen. This has produced an abundance of low cost and high quality stuff, a tremendous difference since Dr. Pemberton's day. Tomorrow's consumers will be more likely to be in buying clubs; iPhone apps will change the purchase experience as individuals scan product barcodes for price and product comparisons. The Walmart Sustainability Product Index measures energy, packaging and environmental impact; consumers want to buy better products for the environment but they don't know how yet. "We have fewer people with bigger houses who have to rent apartments to put their stuff in!" Carrotmob is the opposite of a boycott.
For the changing role of brand, yesterday the residual value of brands was quality and safety; today the dominant value of brands is identity construction for consumers; the emerging role is of societal control. You buy a pair of shoes from Toms he gives a pair of shoes to someone who needs one. Toyota sells the Prius as a car that improve the environment for everybody. Coca-Cola's ads continue to talk about spreading happiness and joy. Coca Cola is launching many initiatives to improve society, such as supporting the WWF polar bear fund.
Macroforces caused changes in manufacturing, consumers and brands. How should marketers, and market researchers, change? Market researcher or... Storyteller? Creative agent? Steward of the planet? Cultural leader? Emotion provider? Aesthetic designer?
Tom Laforge is clearly all of the above!