Insights Unveiled - Trends

In this episode, we explore what business leaders need to know about trends and foresights.  What do they ask vs what do they really want to know?  Which Market Research approaches do we take and what can go wrong along the way.  We suggest some 'dos' and don'ts' which we hope will be useful.  Our guest speaker is Jess Southard, who heads Foresight work for Mars Inc. 

Transcript

Judith: 0:01

welcome to the Insights Unveiled podcast. I'm Judith, I'm a writer and content consultant and now also a video storyteller in the insights industry and now also a podcaster as well.

Mandy: 0:14

Hi, I'm Mandy. I am a client side market researcher, so a consumer insight manager, as we're often called, and this is our podcast. Judith, tell us what we're all about.

Judith: 0:26

Wow, what we're all about. So our podcast, we're trying to take a critical look at Why market research projects don't always connect to great business decisions. We're planning quite a few episodes and each episode takes a typical business issue. And we're trying to lift the curtain on what really happens. Which can actually look really different depending on your perspective. Whether you're on the client side, or the agency side, or, or a supplier. We're trying to understand what gets lost in translation sort of along that value chain and why what happens in reality isn't always the same as what's specified in the brief or proposed in the tender or agreed in the contract.

Mandy: 1:05

We haven't quite decided quite yet where we're going to be published, but we believe Apple Podcasts is a, is a favorite, so we're aiming to publish there. Or wherever

Judith: 1:14

you normally get your podcasts, as they say, like, share and follow. So This is our first one and we are structuring our podcast in a sort of logical arc from the, the sorts of business issues that companies have. So we're going to start right at the very beginning around spotting an opportunity, and we're going to work all the way through what businesses do to finally marketing and selling products and services. So this one's going to be all about trends and the science and art of spotting. And applying trends to your work.

Mandy: 1:50

Trends, yes, trends and

Judith: 1:52

foresight. Understanding the world around us and where it's heading into the future. So you know, my first question really about this is, is, you know, can we even do it? Is it even possible to predict the future? And, and, and is that what we're trying to do when we do trends research? Yeah.

Mandy: 2:09

Well, of course we can't. Wouldn't it be lovely if we could? I think there's a common misperception sometimes that we can from some of the questions we get asked by business leaders, but what we can do is spot patterns, and so much of what we do as market researchers is pattern spotting, and the data we have access to these days, in terms of big data and some of the data you get from online behavior, for example, is so vast that those patterns are becoming more and more clear. So no, we can't absolutely predict the future, but we can certainly make some well informed guesses about where the world is heading. And that's very exciting indeed, and of course is very powerful and very valuable to businesses.

Judith: 2:56

And so when somebody approaches you on the client side, inside a brand. Who's approaching you about trends and who's saying to you as the market research department or the insights, the insights department, who's coming to you about trends and what is it they want?

Mandy: 3:11

Yeah, well, in my experience, so my experience is fairly limited with trends. You don't often get given big trends projects, but the two or three experiences I've had, it's been really right at the top of the business. It's been the C suite it's been marketing directors that have come and asked, what are the big trends that are going to impact my business? Because they want to understand what the risks are in the future. They want to also understand obviously what the opportunities are in the future as well. that said, you do also get more discreet trends projects that might be dealing with innovation projects within a certain type of product, for example, so quite often, you know, marketing director might say, well, what's going to be happening? What are the key trends? What can I innovate against? I can, I can talk to some examples of when I've been asked to work on some, some trends and foresight projects. And that's quite fascinating. So the first big project I was involved in the, marketing director and the marketing VP, in fact came to, it was, it wasn't just me, it was a small group of us. And he really wanted to know Big sources of change that are going to impact his business going forward. But he had a very colorful way with words. He was a very, he's a well known character in the industry, shall we say. He's retired since, so people might guess who he is. But he actually said, he used the words, I don't want any of that fake popcorn nonsense. I really want to understand what the real trend is, exactly what's going to happen. And I, I actually questioned him and said, well, are you looking for, you know, huge amounts of data? Are you looking for a lot of confidence behind this? He said, no, no, I can look that up myself. I can do the data, but it turned out that what he really wanted was to understand the implications for his business. So he wanted to take a big trend that he may well have recognized from Faith Popcorn because the big, the really big trends in Foresight are well known to all of us. There's nothing new there, but what he really wanted was to take that and say, okay, this is what it means for the business I'm in. This is how much it could cost us in the future. And this is what the opportunity could be. Yeah,

Judith: 5:11

so I was gonna say, is that one of these examples where something gets lost in translation? Because if you hadn't pushed back on that question, how would that have gone, do you think? What would have been the difference if you hadn't pushed back at that point? Well,

Mandy: 5:22

well, I think we probably would have gone to him with a huge amount of data. He would have been bamboozled by, you know, slide five, or rather not bamboozled, but bored. And I think we probably wouldn't have designed the project to ensure that we had enough a broad enough team that could really bring him what he wanted. So it wasn't just a case of saying, these are the big four sites and trends that are coming down the line. It was a case of taking those and saying, Oh, this is what this means for your Africa markets. This is what it means for your Asia markets. This is what the supply chain head is saying about all this. This is the danger that might be coming from, I don't know. other economic forces, et cetera. So he really wanted that business wide implication. I think if we hadn't drilled into that, we probably would have gone with a lot of data and some very fancy slides depicting the future which would have been lovely, but it wouldn't have been what he really needed to know. Yeah.

Judith: 6:16

Okay. And how did you then communicate what you needed to the agency or whoever was working with you on that?

Mandy: 6:27

Yeah. So this was, it was really at the heart of the brief. We were actually working with a very well known futures agency at the time that we went, obviously went into pitch and we chose this particular agency because they were extremely good. at bringing trends to life. They had a very clear framework. But I think the thing that really did cause some issues in the project was to keep coming back to the, but what are the implications for this? How do you size the implications for this? Can you look to other? organizations that have had this same trend impact them and what has been the outcome. So we did have to keep pushing them. But again, that's something they were expecting. No, absolutely not. No, they were expecting to do their usual, very well thought out, very slick, very clear framework approach. in the context of the industry we were asking about. Yeah, yeah. And to leave it at that, I think they absolutely were not expecting to do this extra step where they really had to drive the implications and the, and the, yeah, the cost analysis that would, would come from it.

Judith: 7:32

And so at what point in the process did that become, were you able to communicate that very clearly in the brief to them at the beginning, or, or at what point in the process did the agency start to understand, hang on a sec, this isn't our normal. piece of work. They want something more from us here and something a bit different. How does that go? Talk to

Mandy: 7:54

that if you can. Yeah, so this is the thing with Trends is obviously every Trends project is different. But what I would say is it's always a journey. So I've never worked on a Trend project where you write a brief, you deliver it to the agency. Boom, boom, boom. Four weeks later or eight weeks later, it comes back. Ta da. It's always a journey. So once you've written that brief, you are in constant contact with that agency. Things progress. And so therefore within, I suppose, maybe about a third of the way through, it became clearer and clearer from our stakeholders about what they did want, what they didn't want. That's when we started to have the conversation. But of course, the first thing you have to do is to really look at the data sources the big shifts that are happening in society. Yeah. To, to mark out what those, those four sites and those relevant trends are. Yeah, I mean, that's the, the, the, you can't do it without that bit. Absolutely. But then once that starts to, but then there's much more needed. Yeah, then I think at some point you shift into the, how are we going to bring this back into the business mode? How are we going to present this? And at that point you start to have a conversation about, well, actually the trend without the implication is not going to land. And therefore, let's start thinking about the implication and doing some more work on that.

Judith: 9:02

Yeah, so I'm asking the question about when it became apparent to the agency because I know that the that mission creep can be very, very painful for agencies as well. And you know, if they have costed on the basis that um, oh yes, this is a trans project. This is how we do trans projects. This is how much time it takes us. This is how much it costs us. And then there's some sort of component in there that's not understood and that involves something a bit different. That can be a real, a real place of pain for agencies. So that's why I'm

9:30

asking

Mandy: 9:30

the question. Absolutely, well this, this brings me on to, so I think coming out of that that experience, I have some clear do's and don'ts. And I think what we're talking to is my, is my first do the most important do, particularly with trends work, because it is so ambiguous almost by nature. And that is to nail the brief. So to, to your point, really. understand from your internal stakeholders exactly what they want right from the start, almost before you start having that discussion with the agencies or doing the pitch. And one thing that really helps there is to almost present to your stakeholders what it could, what the end point could look like. So, you know, do you want output that looks like this? if in three months time I came back to you with this, would this be fantastic for you or would you say, no, no, that's a waste of time and money? So presenting different types of output to your stakeholders really helps to clarify that. Remembering they don't always know what they want because they may not have been through a major trends piece. Themselves in the past.

Judith: 10:30

And from the agency side, I mean, you know, we're always like question the brief, question the brief, question the brief, but if that questioning hasn't been done inside the client side organization you, you might be questioning the brief for, for no good reason because the, the research person might not actually know the answers that you need to know Yeah. To propose the right sort of project in the, in the first place. So I think that's a clear area of disconnect

Mandy: 10:53

that can Yeah. Absolute. And I think in the same vein, this is sort of, sort of, kind of a one B to that point as well is in nailing that brief, make sure you have a, a, a multifunctional team. working on something like Trends. So it isn't something that just, it might be led by the market research department, it might be led by the strategy department and you're supporting them, but there needs to be someone from finance, there needs to probably be someone from supply, there needs to be someone from marketing involved in that. Because again, in terms of nailing the brief, getting their perspective and getting their help and support on that journey is, is really critical. You can't expect to be across all of those different implications. It also means as well, and I, this I speak from experience when you're in the room presenting that final lovely foresight and trends presentation, you're not met with blank faces presenting this could happen. And this is the implications that this is, it is conjecture. And the worst thing that can happen is, you know, you have a sea of people just. with either disbelief or concealed contempt. but if you've got friends in the room, we've all been there. We have, we have, it's like, what is she on? What does she mean? But if you've got friends in the room or they know that they're people in their team have worked with you on this, you're much more likely to be receptive and you can talk to those different different sides of the business as well, more easily.

Judith: 12:15

My

Mandy: 12:15

second do is around, and we've mentioned it already so I'll just mention it really briefly, is having a very clear framework. So whoever you work with as an agency, they're likely to have their own framework, and it's likely to be very good because it's one that they will apply to multiple for clients. But just make sure as the as the as the business is the client that you understand that framework and it is very clear for everyone that you're going to be feeding it back to. So one really obvious one is Being clear, what is a foresight? What is a trend? I've, I've used the two terms quite a bit already and interchangeably, but knowing, you know, how you are going to define them. And I think there probably isn't one set definition, but knowing how you define them and how the agency you're working with is going to define them is, is really important and sort of almost coming to back to your client with a, this is what we mean by this. And this is how we find them. I

Judith: 13:06

mean, that's such an important point in terms of communication and in terms of lost in translation as well, because you can use a word like foresight and it can mean completely different things to different people.

Mandy: 13:16

last do, which is related to that, is really about showing you're working. So again, relating to the framework. Trends and foresights. Can come from so many different data sources, and particularly in this day and age where we have incredible information coming from from big data sources. But what I think is important is that when you're relaying your trends back, you're really clear about where this you know where this prediction has come from. What data have you used? How have you used it? How exhaustive has it been? A trend that might come from, I don't know, some analytics business or even Google trends will be different from the sort of trend you might get from a sociologist or, or a cultural theorist, for example, Yeah, yeah. What the limits of that

Judith: 14:03

data is.

Mandy: 14:04

Are there

Judith: 14:04

any, are there any don'ts? There's three really good don'ts. Yeah. What

Mandy: 14:08

don'ts do you do? Three really simple don'ts that again, we'll, we'll come up time and time again. So one is don't boil the ocean. You can really go down a rabbit hole with, with trends. As a client side researcher, it's generally not your job to become the cultural theorist or the trends experts. There are people out there who do that all the time and that's their, that's their life and they're very good at it. And you, don't have to do that for them and do that with them. You know, your job is to write a decent brief, get the information back into the business and land it. The second one, and we've talked a little bit about language and being really clear on definitions. But there is another, there is another pitfall with, with language and I'll illustrate this with an example. I once spent two weeks in the middle of a trends project having a discussion, I wouldn't say arguing, but having a discussion about whether something was an opportunity space or a demand space, how we wanted to define it. And it was a set, they were essentially the same things. They were just. You know, it was just a, a, a space within which a business could perhaps innovate But yeah, it was about two weeks, I think we spent having that discussion and there were other discussions in that vein. Vitality versus health is another one that comes up, I think, for quite a lot of people. Yeah. My advice is find the simplest way to call the thing. What it is and try not to get drawn into discussions about language because it sucks up time. It sucks up resource. It makes everyone a bit craggy. And you end up at the end of the day, not feeling excited about the trend, but feeling, you know, rather disgruntled about the fact that your words are not being used. And the last one is not to let trans projects take on a life of their own. And again, another example, I think the, you know, the first. big trend project I worked on. I think it took about nine months to a year. A good six months, oh, by which time the world had moved on, obviously. And the trends were done. But the other thing was, I think six months of that was really writing lots and lots of pages trying to cover our backsides in every area. This goes back to the, the landing, the implications thing. We went overboard on it. By the time we, we actually presented it to the C suite they have other stuff that they need to be across. So they were really only on for seeing five pages. Yeah. They just wanted the headlines. They wanted to know what the big things were and then, you know, everyone else can sort of sort out the, the, the, the detail of work with the detail. So I think you're not getting lost in the trying to get the perfect final document before you go live with it is the other piece of advice I would give. But no, I would say, you know, it is, if you get the chance to work on trends, whether it's a big project corporate level, or if it's just a, smaller one that's just to, to underpin some innovation. Go at it with with enthusiasm. It is one of the most fun and enjoyable. Yeah, it's, it really is a fantastic thing to work on.

Judith: 17:08

Brilliant. Well, on that note, shall we move on to our Yes,

17:14

So we have a guest with us today to talk about trends. Our guest is Jess, and I'm going to let Jess tell us a little bit about herself, and particularly Jess, what your involvement with trends work is. Yes, well, pleasure to be here, Mandy. Um, so I guess as a way of introduction, I'm Jessica Southerd. Uh, I am a, I basically lead our corporate, uh, strategic foresight program at Mars Incorporated. Um, I've been in the CPG consumer insights, innovations, 2005. Um, for about 15, 16 years, um, and a whole other lifetime ago, but very relevant to the work I do right now. I was a, uh, military intelligence officer in the United States Army. Um, so yeah, I guess that's a little bit of background. And in terms of trends, um, I would say there's so many different, you know, if you say the word trends, similar to innovation, I think it could mean 10 different things to 10 different people. Um, and for me, I actually try very intentionally not. To use the word trends, because I think we immediately default to that fast hype, the TikTok trends, like the things that are just fast moving, they're quick and, um, you know, as a business, they can be a pretty big distraction. Right. Cause you're constantly just chasing trends. I like to think about it as what are the big shifts in consumer behavior? That are driven by much larger structural shifts in society, whether it's socio economic, cultural, demographics, um, because again, I think those are far more enduring and quite frankly, a little bit more actionable for a business than what we typically think of when we think of of of trends. Well, that's really interesting because going back to our previous conversation with, with Judith, we were talking very much about definition being very important on this topic in particular because it's so ambiguous. Yes, yes. And to me, you know, I always tell people like, um, you know, foresight isn't about seeing things. It's about motivating the organization to act. So being really intentional and not just what, what is it that we're seeing, whether it's a trend or a shift in consumer behavior, but what's the why? Because I think if you don't understand the why from like a human behavioral psychological perspective, then you end up again, chasing things that are just very reactive. reactionary, um, and aren't able to really get sort of one step ahead. Okay, fantastic. So without betraying any commercial confidences, are there any foresights or indeed faster trends that are happening at the moment that you think are really interesting? Yeah. I think in general, we have experienced. So, I mean, just an insane pace of change and I feel like everyone is is treading water just like we were talking about terms of like, I need a sabbatical. Um, you know, if we think about binge watching TV or, you know, Amazon, everything at our fingertips, like, life has been almost on Um, I think that we're starting to see a lot more of a kind of fast forward mode, and I think one of the trends that we're starting to see. Um, you know, one of the things that's really take hold right now is this idea of slowing things down, you know, taking time off out of your career. Um, you know, trends in terms of the slow eating, slow beauty, which there's several beauty brands that are completely disrupting the status quo and saying, actually, I'm going to have fewer products and launch fewer things, which in a beauty category, I find very fascinating because beauty is all about the new, new, new, new, new, new, new, new. And I just, I just think, um, yeah, I think there's this, this broad perception that, we've got to just figure out how to slow things down I, I heard the other day that 2024 is, um, being called the, the great deceleration Yeah, indeed. Indeed. Jess, this is fabulous feed for thought. One thing our listeners are really interested in, um, is what gets lost in translation in the process of trying to find trends and foresight. So, whether that's between the business organization and its needs and the market research department or the research department and the agency of the consultancies. Um, in your view, what goes wrong in that process? Have you ever had a time when you've been deeply disappointed by something that's been delivered to you that wasn't what you expected? Yeah. Um, I mean, I think part of it is, The going back to the why the curiosity, like, I see so many trends reports, especially this time of the year, right? Like, every trend agency releases their whatever top 20 of the year top 50 of the year and I think a lot of them focus on the what and probably not enough on the why. Um, and we also tend to think and it links to our business planning. Everything is cyclical. And so the tendency is, oh, this is 2024. This the year of this. It's like, well, 2024 is really an extension of 2023. And that's an extension of 2022. So to me, the 2 things that are missing is the why, like, okay, yeah, you're, you're telling me the what, but what's really behind that. You know, what are these trends sort of signaling? Um, and then that longitudinal perspective, right? Um, so, so those are the two things that I think are just really, really. Yeah, that really makes, that really makes sense. And then finally, um, if you could give our listeners just one piece of advice for trend hunting or foresight hunting, what would it be? Um, read everything you can get your hands on and, and give yourself time to think and reflect. Um, I would say, you know, I'm, I'm constantly scouring just open source. news and information for just signals. Right. And I started like a higher level world economic forum, a trust barometer, like some of the more big strategic thought leaders. Um, but then also, you know, I read five news, news sources on a daily basis. Um, and I look very intentionally look for contrasting points of view. Right. Um, so I think it's allowing yourself to be curious. Right. Um, almost obsessed with with reading and absorbing information, but then also making sure you carve out time to just. I have multiple notebooks, and I'm constantly scribbling and drawing, and, um, I also ask myself a lot, like, what, what, okay, we're seeing this, what is this telling us, From a human sort of perspective. Um, It's really interesting. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So that, that's really interesting because it speaks to, um, I guess what market research is all about, really. It's about being curious. Um, and also about wanting to join the dots and make sense of the world around us and what's going on. So I think that's really, really fascinating advice for whether you are in a market research client side department or, or in an agency as well. And even if your, your primary role is not about trend hunting, you know, this idea that you should keep your eyes open to all these free reports you can get and rolling news, etc. And maybe just kind of picking up one piece of something that's interesting a day. And then, as you say, trying to make sense of it, um, across time is, is, is really interesting. Thank you so much, Jess. That's been Fantastic food for thought. And thanks for your time. You bet.

Judith: 25:07

So, wow, that was amazing to hear from Jess. That was so good. And yeah, thank you so much to, to her for joining in and giving us the benefit of all the, her experience. So really, really interesting episode. I think, trying to have a bit of a think and, and, bring it all together. You know, well, as in, as in so many things, it's all about communications really, isn't it? and I think that's going to be the theme of, of every single one of these episodes is, is about I mean, it's, it's more than communications. It's trying to put yourself in the other people's shoes, isn't it? Because, you know, the first, the first disconnect we identified as where, if, The, the insights department haven't had those detailed pushbacks on the stakeholder then however much the agency is questioning the brief. They're not going to get the answers that they need to then deliver further down the line and then, you end up delivering a piece of work that you think is great and, you know, potentially because you've worked very closely with the Insights Department all the way, the Insights Department thinks it's great as well, but, but it's just not landing with stakeholders. Which brings me to a second thing that I thought that actually came out of that really, which is kind of begin with the end in mind. So, you know, think about what the outputs are going to be. And this is. As you said at the beginning, Mandy, this is a way that you, you manage to get into the minds of your stakeholders by saying, well, if I come to you with an output that's very data heavy, will that be good for you? Or if I come to you with an output that's very top level, will, will that be good for you? And to to use that as a way to sort of get in, but to, to what, what it is the stakeholder really wants. But there's no reason that the agency can't do that as well at the point of questioning the brief. And I think another, another good point that you made as well was certainly that the, the client side researcher doesn't have to be the expert on cultural. what, what's, what's happening out there and actually not as the agency research unnecessarily because, agencies work with across different across different categories across different brands all the time and, you know, agencies need to be experts at translating that brief from the client. Into a methodology that will then deliver on that, that brief as well. And that's sort of what you're looking for them to do.

Mandy: 27:31

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Judith: 27:35

But I think, I think probably out of all of these, this sort of begin with the output in mind is probably the clearest one. Because, you know, then at that point, that's going to help the agency. Oh, okay. Well, this is what we're going to be delivering. This is what it's actually going to look like.

Mandy: 27:49

Great advice. Wow. I think that's it then for trends,

Judith: 27:54

I think. That's it for trends. Is there anything else you have to say about trends?

Mandy: 27:57

I don't know. There's a lot more we can say about it, but not in a, not in a short, short podcast. No, no,

Judith: 28:05

We're done on that, I think. Okay, all right, brilliant. Well, it's been lovely, as always, talking to you, Mandy. You too, Judith. I will look forward very much to the next time we get together and have a good old NASA about agencies and clients and what can go wrong and how to communicate for our next topic, which is going to be

Mandy: 28:27

our next topic is going to be that next step along the the journey to products and services, which is understanding consumer needs. Excellent. That's what we're all about. That's what we're all about. So it just remains to say thanks so much for listening. Thanks to our guest speaker. And yeah, if you'd like to hear more insights into Insight do look out for other episodes. Thanks all. Bye. Bye.