Research is a stumbling block.
Do a quick survey. Bottled carbonated mineral water - would you buy it?
If you run this survey and compile the results, most likely you will get a
negative for an answer. Why on earth would I want to drink carbonated mineral water?
How about this: combine all the leading sports and fashion brands such as Polo
Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, Nike, Fila, Lacoste and Adidas, put them under
one e-commerce website, and target it to web-savvy, fashion-conscious 18 to 24
year olds. Give them the flashiest shopping experience and offer competitive
pricing and free returns if customers are not happy with the products.
At that time (1999) research shows that the spending on such products by the
target group was estimated at USD60b, and online shopping (UK alone) is
£600 million. It should be relatively easy to capture a small fraction of
USD60b and make this a viable venture. In fact, it was forecasted that the
company should be generating USD$51.9 million within 3 years time. Based on positive
research studies, investors such as JP Morgan, LMVH Investment and Benetton
pumped in USD130 million to fund this new setup.
The carbonated mineral water in question is Perrier, that awfully
expensive sky-juice which
restaurants serve. The fashion site is boo.com. If you have
never heard of it, it’s alright. Within 6 months, it went bust. (boo.com
started at November 1999, closed at May 2000, case documented here).
So I am pitching two scenarios here: An idea which research suggests
premature death but has been doing pretty well so far, and the other which
research suggests guaranteed success but failed within 6 months. Zero target
audience vs. USD60b potential spending power. Zero brand existence vs. an army
of highly visible brands.
I have been rethinking about the role of research in creative work.
When I was a university student doing a degree in Economics, research was an
integral part in school work. It provided the backbone (the data, the
statistics and the studies) for deriving insights to deliver properly
structured papers. Camping daily in the library and crunching out stats on the
uni’s computer lab were regular routines.
However, in the creative business, research is an over-emphasised and
over-glorified process that stumbles many designers. I do not deny that
research provides valuable information about target markets and helps refine
communications objectives. I also know submitting design proposals with a heavy
stack of research findings is super impressive (even though I suspect clients
would never get down to read the research findings - the findings are important
supporting documents to validate a higher consultancy fee).
In the creative business, many times we are looking for that special insight
that would spark off a creative direction which could be translated into a
communicative message, strong enough to help the product/services break
away from their competition.
This is how I see it:
(1) Research is useless. Products and services are generally homogenised. Demographics
studies are inconclusive (do you belong to the age 18-25 group with disposable income
in excess of RM1000 per month? If your answer is no, then how do you explain
yourself being a consumer that spends more than RM15,000 per year on school
fees alone?). Most of the time we "already" know the product/services
and we "already" know the challenges faced. Research will not provide
any additional information that will act as the differentiator - so why waste
the time?
(2) A more effective method would be to ask intelligent questions instead of
relying on creative briefs and supplied information. Fish around for specific
insights, since the client would know his products/services well enough. But
like point (1) - many times this will not bring anything new.
(3) Based on existing information, the priority should be on gaining some
new consumer insights which could be used as a direction for creating a
communications program that would connect to the consumers’ emotions.
(4) Research is a very academic thing preached by schools and intellectuals.
It provides an aggregated and cumulative understanding. It is a logical path to
general problem solving. However communications design is about dealing with
real human with all their irrationality. It is to connect on a unique personal
level.
(5) Creative business is about finding that consumer insight that would
provide the emotional connection between the consumer and the
products/services.
For example:
Different brands of cheese are available at the dairy products section in a
typical supermarket. In reality, research will show that there isn’t much
difference among the brands. However some creative person found that
"special insight" about calcium being good for strengthening bones
(and baby’s bones). That was the insight which Kraft used to connect to
customers’ emotions. The emotional pitch - Kraft cheese is high in calcium,
hence good for your bones - boosted the sales figures. What consumers weren’t
aware off is that all cheese is high in calcium,
not just Kraft.
The same goes to the creative who had an insight about consumers buying
vans/mpvs because they wanted space. It was really nothing revolutionary -
space is the reason why people buy vans anyways. However the insight was pushed
further and resulted in the successful Toyota Unser campaign, which positioned
Unser as “spacious”. I supposed the majority of Unser owners never measured the
space of their vehicles against other vans/mpvs. And even if they do, Toyota never claimed to
be the “most spacious”, just “spacious”.
My point is: Research can only provide a generic overview but will not bring
new insights about cheese, vans, soft drinks, car loans, housing loans,
mooncakes, tea, coffee, shampoo, etc. Most likely there would be many
variations of a similar product, and that variation would not be significant
enough to influence buying decisions. The client would most likely know that
they are competing against similar products, but they have no way of adding a
differentiator to their products/services. The creative person’s job is to find
that unique insight and translate that into a communication message that
connects emotionally to the target audience.
In my formula:
((research)+(analysis)) > insight >
brand communications > emotional connection.
Research + analysis could be dropped sometimes and be replaced with common
sense, hence the revised formula:
(common sense) > insight > brand
communications > emotional connection.
We are in the business of creative thinking and this requires more than mathematics
and science. Before embarking on another research, perhaps the question asked
should be what are the expected results from conducting the research? If one could
have roughly guessed the results, I suspect the efforts could be better used
somewhere else, like being the creative thinker instead of being the
researcher.
