Why Is Listening Important?
Kristin Bush
P&G Consumer & Market Knowledge
Global Communication & Digital Research Leader
May 2009
The Human Element
• The Company’s DNA has
been shaped by its
relationships with
consumers virtually from
P&G’s founding
• “Consumer is Boss” has
been the key factor behind
the Company’s growth
• Relationships with
consumers built trust in our
brands
Corporate History Video
CONSUMER IS
BOSS
The Present Focus of Research
RESOURCES REQUIRED
EVALUATION
STRENGHTEN
INITIATIVES FOR
DEPLOYMENT
LISTEN/LEARN/
CO-CREATE
LISTEN, SENSE &
RESPOND
CONSUMER INTERACTIONS
We’re Missing the Big Opportunity
• Why have we moved away from the basic concept of
listening?
 We lost focus on the key stakeholder
 Wall Street’s expectations took over
• Bring back the human element:
 Focus more on Co-creation and Sense and respond
 Listen on their time on their ‘turf’ and in ways that
they want to communicate
 Re-establish trust and confidence with consumers
What is Listening?
From the American Heritage Dictionary:
“To make an effort to hear something”
“To pay attention; heed”
What is “Listening”?
Listening n Observing and interpreting
naturally-occurring behaviors to
understand consumer attitudes, lifestyles,
and needs
Why Is Listening Important
• Underutilized source of ‘real’ consumer
behavior and attitudes.
• Consumers in reality often do things
differently than what they say they do.
• Competitive advantage to drive
outstanding tacit consumer insights,
monitoring brand buzz and truly become a
‘listening’ company.
Unleash the power of digital
Digital will transform the way….
1) We listen to our consumers and uncover insights
2) Conduct market research and measure data
3) We do business through new ways consumers will
shop and buy our products online
Social Media is a key source of insight and engagement
with our consumers
So, what is Social Media, exactly?
Definition of Social Media
A working definition
Social Media facilitates interaction
between people.
It describes the online tools that people use to share
content, profiles, opinions, insights, experiences,
perspectives and media itself.
These tools include blogs, message boards, podcasts,
micro blogs, lifestreams, bookmarks, networks,
communities, wikis, ratings, reviews, pictures, videos,
etc.
(adapted from Brian Solis - PR 2.0 )
Caring Bridge
Support & connection
Pantene
Beautiful Lengths
OK, so where’s
the manual?
Umm – there isn’t one …
http://www.flickr.com/photos/98469445@N00/299313394/
A Useful FRAMEWORK
Objectives for using Social Media
• Listening
Learn from online conversations
• Talking
Participate in online conversations
• Energizing
Create Brand ambassadors
• Supporting
Help consumers support each other
• Embracing
Involve consumers in Innovation
(Forrester Research)
Why do we care?
“When consumers are talking
we need to be listening”
‣ What are our consumers doing
with social media today?
•
What are they saying?
•
What insights can we glean from
the conversation?
‣ How can we interact and help
facilitate the conversation with
consumers?
•
What is the right way to engage?
•
What will consumers be receptive
to?
Challenges &
Opportunities
How does Social
Media and digital
impact our world?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/auntikhaki/200757272/
Evolution of Consumer Research
Phone Surveys
Door-to-Door
Online
Intercepts
We still do research in much the same way we did 60 years
ago!
Digital: Extends Our Core Fundamentals
Digital translates, enables, and extends the historic P&G consumer fundamentals
Competency
Translation to Digital
New Questions
Listening
The Unprompted Voice
What new insights can be
uncovered?
New Shelf Model,
Importance of Search
What influences/shapes search
results? What influences
“wisdom of crowds”
How to leverage ‘SSM” for
New platforms and
screens
Can TV copy development be
reapplied in online video
demos, long-form TV copy,
retailer video-content?
(Consumer Understanding)
Shelf Presence
(1st Moment of Truth)
Sight, Sound &
Motion
(TV copy principles)
Making It Simple: Think Digitally Enabled Fundamentals (DEF)
6
Digital: Unveils the Ultimate “Consumer Listener”
Unstructured
Emails, Fax,
Voice/phone,
Snail-mail
YouTube, Facebook,
Blogs, Boards, Forums,
Ratings & Review Sites
Direct
Indirect
Page Views
Site Metrics
Online sales,
Offline sales
Focus groups,
Surveys, Polls,
Comment Cards
(Semi) Structured
Making It Simple: The Unprompted Voice is the New Kid on the Block!
18
Are we really listening?
How is P&G Listening today?
• What we are doing well….
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Communities (Home Made Simple, PetSide, Pampers Village, etc.)
Olay for you- Custom Beauty Consultations
Social Media Lab
Community Manager Pilots (Iams, Pampers)
PR brand monitoring (PR agency lead)
Product ratings and reviews
Etc……
• What we need to do better….
–
–
–
–
More systematic approach to listening
Integrate Consumer Relations more proactively
Listen without boundaries
Integrate into our DNA and business systems
Potential Listening Strategies
Objective
Biz Action
Consumer Insight Generation
Create outstanding communication
ideas and plans
Product Development
Faster idea creation and prioritization
Sense & Respond/Initiative Tracking
Improve launch and forecast
accuracy
Brand Monitoring
Improve initiatives faster and
understand brand PR, good and bad
to leverage or manage
Relationship Marketing/ Community
Building
Grow brand loyalty and advocacy
Potential Role of Market Research
• Developing listening and observational protocols to help
brands extract value from unprompted conversation
• Developing frameworks for concept development and
new idea generation based on the analysis, especially
around line extensions
• Developing protocols for deeper dive analysis around
surface or high level insights – e.g. more qualitative
review of commentary
The Ideal Future Focus
RESOURCES REQUIRED
EVALUATION
STRENGTHEN
INITIATIVES FOR
DEPLOYMENT
FUTURE
INNOVATE/
CO-CREATE
EVALUATION
CONSUMER INTERACTIONS
SENSE &
RESPOND
An Example-Fabric Care
People are talking about Fabric Care
everywhere
The consumer
Currently key topics are not surprising
Stain & Smell Solutions
Value & Cost
Skin Sensitivities
Eco & Ingredient Concerns
So what did we do?
• Used Listening to ask better questions
 Social Media, blogs to inform content and language
 Talk to consumer relations … transcripts of calls, e-mails
• Used Listening to provide richer answers
 Overlay Listening to dimensionalize findings from other research
• Organized a consumer “tour” for the category team
 Online twitter feeds of category-relevant consumer conversation
 Create a shared consumer experience
•
Joined the conversation!- Fabric Care Consumer Council,
Get Satisfaction
CONSUMER-COUNCIL
Fabric Care’s On-Line Consumer Community
A community that is a “living and breathing” source of
inspiration for the category, by providing a capability
for gathering consumer insights, in addition to
providing fast & inexpensive research opportunities.
Capabilities:
• Discussion Board
• Surveys/Polls
• Blogging
• Live Chat Sessions
What should you do?
• Carefully review your ‘IN TOUCH’ approaches
– Do you offer a balance of ‘listening’ and ‘asking’
techniques?
– Do you offer easy ways for brands to stay in touch
and listen to consumers daily?
– What can you offer us to leverage online
communities?
– What do you offer in the consumers ‘turf’?
So what?
“Without transforming our capabilities into
approaches that are more IN TOUCH with the
lifestyles of the consumers we seek to
understand, the consumer-research industry
as we know it today will be on life support by
2012”
Kim Dedeker, Former VP-Global CMK, Procter & Gamble
So Why Is Listening Important?
Consumers reward brands that
value their opinion and engage
in active listening