By Jim ChastainIt just happened again. Nestle has just bought Blue Bottle coffee. There will be Blue Bottle coffee drinkers who are crushed by this and there will be Blue Bottle coffee drinkers who don’t pay a lot of attention to it. Who knows what will happen with the Blue Bottle brand from here but […]
1. Write it! (Don’t PowerPoint it) – Writing is thinking. There is no better way to work through insights than by writing the story. Writing forces clarity. It forces you to connect concepts. It won’t allow you to make leaps of logic. It demands flow and coherence. Write the story first. Then use presentation software to visualize the story you’ve written (assuming you’re deliverable is a digital deck).
I used to have a boss in the market research business who would ask, “How do you get interesting insights?” To which he’d provide the answer “Ask interesting questions!”One way to guarantee interesting questions in market research is to stop pursuing Consumer Insights and start pursuing Human Insights.In recent blog posts, we’ve argued that Human […]
By Jim White & Jim ChastainWe use brands to tell ourselves stories about who we are. The brands that are most meaningful to us are those that play a role in our internal life stories, or what psychologists call our Narrative Identity.We’ve spent years listening to people tell stories about how brands fit into their […]
By Jim WhiteI hear a lot of marketers these days say their companies are “consumer-centric.” I used to think this was a good thing. But I’ve changed my mind. Being consumer-centric is good. But it’s not good enough.To be a truly transformative brand — one that enjoys true loyalty, passionate advocacy and a premium price — […]
By Jim Chastain Let’s stop talking to consumers. I have and I don’t really plan to talk with them anymore. They haven’t done anything to make me upset. They haven’t purposely misled me. I just find them to be limiting and not representative of how they really make buying decisions. Sure they offer opinions. Yes […]
Jim Chastain and Jim White, Founding Partners at RealityCheck Consulting, on the advantages of understanding the human behind your consumer and how marketers can benefit.
Jim White on RealityCheck’s unique approach to qualitative consumer research and insights.
Making bold predictions for the New Year is always tricky but our team of insight strategists at RealityCheck is always up for a challenge.It’s hard to make insight predictions in a vacuum. There are too many implications in the air after the US election and the drama of the transition period before Trump’s inauguration. How […]
“Learning about the human being behind his or her consumer urges must be based upon respect for his or her individuality, cultural aspects, lifestyles, beliefs and passions.”This quote is from an article that I wrote 14 years ago when I left my career as a psychoanalist and started my journey into marketing research. At that […]
