New Verb Please

Considering the number of group discussions I’ve moderated over the past couple of decades it’s interesting that one comment made in one group comes to mind more often than most.

I was conducting some work on behalf of Waitrose and during the group one man, having realised that he was in amongst fellow Waitrose shoppers came out with the following line, ‘of course you know why we all go to Waitrose it’s because it’s full of PLUs’.

‘PLUs?’ I asked.

‘Yes, people like us’ he replied and looked around the room for approval.  And approval was indeed forthcoming.

I was reminded again of this incident at the weekend when I asked my wife whether we should go and buy something for Sunday lunch.  ‘Oh it’s ok,’ she said, ‘I went shopping this morning when you were out. Well it wasn’t really shopping, I went to Waitrose’.

This has set me thinking about shopping in a more general sense because I knew exactly what she meant.  Shopping at Waitrose is a somewhat different experience to shopping at some other supermarkets.

Somehow it feels more relaxed, you feel better looked after, you feel like the products have been looked after too, and nothing will be too much trouble if you have a question for any member of staff.

So I’m wondering whether to put forward a new verb for the next Oxford English Dictionary; it’s the verb ‘to waitrose’.  The definition would be something along the lines of having a pleasant shopping experience during which one feels at home and during which one has confidence that all will be well.

Because all tends to be well at Waitrose, and of course you shop in the knowledge that you tend to be surrounded by PLUs…

'Cheap Gourmet'

‘Cheap Gourmet’

Please see above the name for a new chain of restaurants I’m considering. 

It’s inspired by the name of another company I came across recently which calls itself ‘Easy Insights’.

After twenty plus years in research I was quite taken aback to find a company whose name suggests that it can provide insights that are simple.  The truth is I’ve always found them quite difficult to unravel.

Or was I just behind the times in terms of word definition I wondered?

The dictionary was consulted:

‘Insight’(Noun)	1.	Clear or deep perception of a situation
	2.	A feeling of understanding
	3.	The clear (and often sudden) understanding of a complex situation
	4.	Grasping the inner nature of things intuitively

It seemed to me that the definition in my mind had not been too far from the truth.

But here’s a company that can discover deep perceptions easily.  Here’s a firm that can presumably make complex situations seem simple.

So good luck to them I say, maybe it’s time for me to consider my future career options.

And thanks to them, I had the inspiration for ‘Cheap Gourmet’.

We’ll create amazing dishes using inexpensive ingredients.

We’ll offer succulent meals made by untrained chefs.

Soufflés will be our speciality and ours will be simple to make rise.

If I build this, do you think people will come?

You see I’m not so sure.

I think there are still plenty of people who understand that top meals require the best ingredients and trained chefs.

And there are still plenty of clients, most of mine included, who believe that insights come from high quality research conducted by the best researchers.

So I’ll tell you what, scrap the ‘Cheap Gourmet’ idea, I’m off to gather some insight. 

And I really don’t think it’s going to be that easy.

Of Style & Substance

It’s always interesting to be given the opportunity to see how your competitors approach proposals and debriefs. Theirs is never as good as yours of course; either they’re asking too much for too little when it comes to the proposal; or they’re stating the obvious and delivering minimal insight when it comes to the debrief.

These days, though, another element has become a major issue, if not the major issue when it comes to how people judge both proposals and debriefs. And this is the way in which both these elements of a project are presented.

You see already in writing this I’m starting to get worried that I’m becoming a tad wordy. And already I’m beginning to have concerns that because I haven’t provided illustrations for the words ‘style’ or ‘substance’ in my title that many of you have switched to trying to find something else to read instead.

But for those who have made it this far I would like to make a point about what I see as a case of style over substance in some of the research documents to which I have recently been exposed.

In these documents I have seen colour aplenty, photographs in abundance, numerous videos, and musical accompaniments too; and whilst some of this serves to complement and support a given argument or story, much of the rest I feel is often verging on the gratuitous.

What I also feel is that in some cases such devices are employed at times when argument generally is lacking and when a narrative has not even been considered, much less thought through.

Please don’t get me wrong here; I’m all for the use of graphics, illustrations, video material et al if it is being used for a purpose and not just for effect. I’m all for the use of any means by which a proposal can be made more interesting, a presentation can flow more smoothly and be better communicated.

But I’m only in favour of this if a proposal is strong on substance already and a presentation has been thought through properly. If this is not the case then I believe that many of the devices mentioned above might eventually serve to devalue our industry more than enhance it.

The written word, I feel, has been fundamental to the way this industry has grown and developed to date. I’d like the use of words to remain a key part of how we continue to communicate. Let’s not gloss over this in our obsession with all things bright and shiny and new.

Now I’m hoping you made it this far in your reading. Otherwise I’ll start to wish I’d kept the original title for this piece. It was ‘fur coat and no knickers’, so you can imagine how much fun might have been had on Google image with that.

Strategic Futurologist Director of the Positive Solutions Boutique

How do you like my new job title?

If you’ve read other blogs you’ll understand the difficulty I’ve had in the past in actually putting across exactly what I do for a living.

Well I’m wondering if this might be the answer.

You’ll note the exclusion of the words market and research; they’ve never made me that popular at parties for one reason and another.

Then there’s the qualitative word – well no-one can pronounce that for a start and even those who can, have no interest in what it means apart from enjoying the chance to tell me that they know it’s different to quantititititative.

Added to this I’ve been noticing some fancy titles lurking in advertising and marketing magazines recently and I think it’s time I had my own version.

So I’m not re-naming the offices Fruit Towers but I do quite fancy ‘doing an Innocent’ on my job title.

And these new words are not chosen at random:-

I’m ever so strategic – a fancy way of saying I think about stuff I find out and how it might be interpreted.

I’m a futurologist – well, the past, it’s so yesterday. And hey, I’ve always wanted to be involved with an ology.

I’m a director – the most important person in this entire… boutique.

Positive solutions – that negative vibe, man, no-one wants that any more; it’s answers our clients want.

I run a boutique – which is the current way of positioning oneself as a small market research agency. We’re very popular now apparently, low overheads, personal service, what you see is what you get.

So there you go, new title sorted. What next?

Ah, now it’s just a case of finding a large enough business card (or should that be QR code) on which my new title might fit.

Here’s to the future – infinity and beyond!

‘No fuss, no nonsense, no tantrums’

And there I was thinking it’s time I posted a blog and I get the subject matter handed to me on a silver platter. One of my clients chooses to email me to say that he ‘loves my approach’. And why does he love my approach? Because, in his words, it’s ‘no fuss, no nonsense, no tantrums.’

To say that this response is pleasing is something of an understatement, especially when this quote comes from someone who has worked in the advertising industry for decades and who knows what fuss and nonsense and tantrums can look like and feel like from a client perspective.

Added to this is the fact that without realising it, this person has summed up exactly what I’ve been striving for in all my years in business. It’s what underpins my work; it actually makes up a decent part of my personality.

And then of course I get to thinking… Like all good researchers one needs to fully interrogate this new piece of data.

The other side to making no fuss is that sometimes you don’t get noticed. The other side to no nonsense and no tantrums is that sometimes the hard work which is put into something does not get recognised and does not always get appreciated.

Again this can be looked at from a work and personal perspective.

Another client once introduced me as someone who was brilliant at what he does but ‘s***’ at marketing himself – you see there is a potential downside to no fuss, no nonsense.

In my personal life also I’m often judged as the person for whom things seem to work out fine, as if by magic – but again that’s often because when things are not going so well, tantrums tend to be rare and the hard work that goes on in the background to make things fine is rarely discussed beyond a close family circle.

So let’s weigh up these pros and cons.

Am I happy to be known as the person who makes no fuss, creates no nonsense, and has no tantrums? You bet I am.

Am I bothered if some people choose not to see or acknowledge the work that goes into making things work out from a business and personal perspective? Not really because their lack of acknowledgement probably says as much about them as it does about me.

No, on due reflection, I’m fully content with my newly-coined tagline.

And not that I’m one to make a fuss or anything but this comment comes on the most successful day of commissioning that we’ve had as a business since we started in 1994.

‘No fuss, no nonsense, no tantrums’. Try it; it might work for you as well.

Tuesday - Telling it like it is

A recent course leader specialising in social media suggested that I was over-thinking when it came to decisions such as who to ‘allow’ into my social network. ‘Consider quantity not quality’ was his mantra for the day.

Well I’ve been pondering on this ever since and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m right and he’s wrong.

Because the quant v qual question has played a large part in my working life and for me the qual word has always held sway.

It’s about the quality of the research, the quality of the researcher that counts; just as it is the quality of the connection and the quality of the relationship that matters in the longer term.

And yes, it’s good to build on these quality contacts but surely the bullet approach will always be an improvement on buckshot.

So I’ve decided to stick to my guns (ha ha) and continue my journey on the qual over quant pathway.

We will continue to suggest to clients that they don’t just ask how many groups or depth interviews they can buy for a certain amount of money but to also ask who exactly will be conducting those interviews and how much experience do they have of engaging with customers, of dealing with clients.

We’ll also continue to argue that whilst some quant researchers can turn their hand to qual, there are times when qualitative specialism counts, and so too experience.

   

Spice of Life, Variety

When asked what I like about my job a stock response over the years has been on the theme of variety.  Variety of clients, variety of people interviewed, variety of topics addressed. 

It was musing on the third of these areas recently which urged me to look for evidence as to whether I could still justify this response these days.  So I’ve looked back just to the start of this year and have been genuinely taken aback by the variety of subjects already tackled in 2011.

I started to imagine a weekend during which I might connect with the products we have been asked to look at, the services we’ve been asked to consider, and the projects we’ve been commissioned to work on.  Here’s how the weekend might pan out.

Friday evening fancied a treat, reached for a Gü dessert whilst flicking through some brochures trying to choose our next holiday.  Should we go camping this year or maybe a package holiday in the sun?  We’ve enjoyed holidays with Keycamp and Eurocamp over the last few years so that’s always a safe bet.

My wife found she was having trouble with the small-print in the brochures so had to wear her reading glasses for a while.  She went for Foster Grant this time, bought them at the same time as her sunglasses. 

A friend has a caravan we might borrow but he’s often talking about cleaning his caravan and the shampoos he has to buy for it.  He says Mer products are great and they work on cars as well.  Personally I’ve just discovered G3 so that’s my brand of choice these days for car shampoo. 

Of course camping might involve investment in new equipment; the airbed is looking a bit shabby and the sleeping bags also need replacing.  As for the tent, we’ve had that for years and it still does the job.  I’ve always trusted in the Coleman brand when it comes to camping equipment.

Saturday and up early, thinking about the dinosaur exhibition which might be coming to National Museums Liverpool later this year. 

Instead headed for the shops and Aldi first off – needed tea, mayonnaise, peanut butter, bread, biscuits, jam, cereal, fish fingers and some bread for toast

Shopping done, called in at Millie’s Cookies for a muffin and a cookie.  Wondering about a barbeque tomorrow so maybe get some quarter pounders and frankfurters too – should I choose a branded option or go own label instead?  Wondering about a cake mix as an option too, or shall I just go to the M&S bakery?

Saturday night needed to sort out finances before settling into the evening.  Have been thinking about switching banks for a while and wondering about one of those Co-operative Bank Privilege accounts, or is it Privilege Premier, can’t remember.

Sunday morning, we’re off to the show homes down the road.  We fancy a new home this time, probably from Redrow Homes; less maintenance and it would be nice to be the first into a property. 

Weekend nearly done, I just need to do some online shopping before bed.  Oh and I keep meaning to check next weekend’s arrangements for our theatre trip with Superbreak.

It’s been a busy weekend.  And so have the last six months. 

Here’s to an even spicier second half of the year.