Posted by InsightsNow Marketing Team on March 11, 2011
A Modified Excerpt from Dave Lundahl’s Upcoming Book, “Breakthrough Food Product Innovation through Emotions Research”
“When all think alike, then no one is thinking." — Walter Lippman
The above quote by two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Walter Lippman emphasizes the power of critical thinking through collaboration. Differing perspectives cultivate the opportunity for breakthrough ideas to emerge. This concept applies well to innovation teams; they function best when they are comprised of a melting pot of different perspectives. The diversity of perspectives comes from the mix of professionals trained in and having experience with different disciplines that contribute to thought diversity.
In this article, we will reveal the key players on the innovation team, highlight their respective roles and contributions to the product innovation process, and expose the barriers some of the team players are facing.
THE CONTRIBUTORS WITHIN THE INNOVATION TEAM
- Business Managers: Contribute their knowledge to the team by owning the development of innovation strategy. They contribute to the team by serving as the primary client (i.e. the brand or product line management), allocating resources for the team (i.e. portfolio management), serving as the team leader (i.e. managing how the team is organized) and managing co-innovation (i.e. how ideas flow into the team from contributors outside the team).
- Innovators: Apply their domain of expertise to create and make in-process marketing, design and development decisions within their team roles.
- Sensory Researcher (Sensory Scientist): Responsible for generating insight into how a product impacts the consumer experience (perceptually and emotionally). The methods and techniques used by sensory professionals in this role tend to be based upon the disciplines (as depicted in the schematic below) of perceptual psychology and consumer behavioral psychology.
- Marketing Researcher: Responsible for generating insight into how markets are impacted by innovation. The methods and techniques used by these research professionals are typically based upon the disciplines of behavioral economics (e.g. choice behavior), social psychology (e.g. dispersion behavior), cultural anthropology (e.g. cultural norms) and the emerging field of digital media and marketing (e.g. using digital consumer and market information).
THE DISCIPLINES FOR EACH CONTRIBUTOR
The schematic below portrays the multidiscipline diversity of thought from these contributors to the innovation team. On the left are the disciplines that contribute to build team knowledge through research. On the right are the disciplines that apply knowledge for innovation. Similarly, the upper disciplines contribute to building and using knowledge to develop innovation strategy; while the lower disciplines contribute to building and using knowledge for product development.
THE ROLE FOR EACH CONTRIBUTOR
In many ways, innovation teams are analogous to football teams.
- Business Manager – like a coach, is responsible for building the team, while developing and implementing a winning strategy. In the case of product innovation, the Business Manager is responsible for developing the innovation strategy (i.e. how to use the strengths of team members in their respective innovation roles to achieve business goals).
- Innovators – like receivers and ball handlers, are responsible for implementing the innovation strategy. They score touchdowns by creating space to operate, discovering opportunities for new and improved products and scoping conceptual designs to create product requirements and new concepts. They use their intuition, seeking out that innovative spark to create new possibilities.
- Researcher (Marketing Researcher and Sensory Researcher / Scientist)– is much like a quarterback. The Researcher is often the difference between winning and losing (i.e. they are often the game changer). Quarterbacks must work with both the coach to develop the game plan and with the receivers and other ball handlers to execute the game plan. They must have skills to get the ball to the hands of receivers and ball handlers and be capable of generating and communicating insights. It is the Researcher that has the power to raise the innovation bar through research, delivering insights that link a holistic definition of the product to the experience of the consumer. When Researchers are able to deliver these types of insights, they change the game for both strategist and innovator. Insights that answer questions about why consumers are changing purchase behavior enable strategists to establish adaptations to that change. Insights that answer questions about why consumers respond to media mix or positioning, enable marketers to better adapt their messaging. Insights that answer questions about why product and package features, functionality and sensory qualities elicit emotions, enable designers and developers to adapt.
THE CHALLENGE BETWEEN CONTRIBUTOR FUNCTIONS
Like many teams, role and function challenges amongst team members often arise; this is also true within the Innovation Team and the role struggle between Marketing Researchers and Sensory Scientists. The issue at hand is, “who’s role” (Sensory Researcher / Scientist or Marketing Researcher) is responsible for consumer insights and consumer product insights for product innovation? However, the question shouldn’t be phrased, “Who’s role should it be?”, but rather “What is the domain expertise of each role?”
Sensory Researcher / Scientist Function: The expertise of the sensory field uses methods and techniques such as, perceptual psychology, sensory perceptions (e.g. recognition, characterization and rating intensity of perceived sensations) and sensory affect such as “liking” (i.e. sensory pleasure and preference) to measure how people perceive products through their senses. Sensory research has traditionally applied this expertise in support of the development of food products. The methods employed tend to be very scientific, taking a reductionist approach to generate consumer product insights.
However, the landscape is changing. There is a growing awareness that product developers need inspiration and guidance based on measures that go beyond liking. This creates the opportunity to capture information that leads to insights into how products impact consumers on an emotional level. Yet, this requires a more holistic approach to research. This means that sensory research is now researching products that are fully branded and used in-home. Sensory research now includes choice measurement; blurring the boundaries even more. In this case, the Sensory Researcher is able to play the role of chief provider of consumer product insights provided a broader, more holistic approach is taken to understand the emotional impact of products. The problem with the sensory profession is that many Sensory Researchers have yet to transition from a reductionist approach. This limits the capability to delve into emotions research. However, emotions research is undoubtedly the hottest topic in the sensory field.
Marketing Researcher Function: Traditionally, the Marketing Researcher has focused on supporting the marketing and business management functions. The research methods used have roots in the disciplines of social psychology (e.g. research methods to understand market dynamics), cultural anthropology (e.g. ethnography) and digital media and marketing (e.g. tracking product and brand performance). Marketing Researchers apply their methods and techniques to deliver consumer insights into how consumers are changing in their relationships to brands. These insights build knowledge into what consumers seek, how they share what they have found and what they select.
However, it appears that insights delivered by Marketing Researchers often fail to be perceived as having strategic value to business managers. Marketing Researchers are not getting to the “so what” of insights. However, the marketing research world is evolving. Emotions have crept into the marketing research vernacular. The emerging discipline of behavioral economics has lead to awareness that emotions often are stronger motivators of consumer behavior than rational thought. The understanding of why consumers connect (or disconnect) with brands is largely a question of emotional impact. Consumer insights drive innovation strategy development and require the Marketing Researcher to go beyond questions of “how” consumers are changing and “what” they are doing. They need to also understand questions of “why.”
As stated above, the question for the roles each function plays is not so much about whom they support, but what type of insights they provide to the product innovation process; thus redefinition of roles makes perfect sense. Sensory Researchers / Scientists and Marketing Researchers both sit on innovation teams and are working toward the same common goal; that is, to innovate new products for consumers.
Learn more about these changes and how they affect your role as a Marketing Researcher or Sensory Researcher / Scientist. REGISTER TODAY for our March 30th webinar, The Future of Product Research: Where Sensory Scientists and Marketing Researchers are Headed.