There is more and more pressure to innovate and this creates tunnel vision. The long term is getting shorter and shorter. While we know who our customer is today, we need to understand who our customers are going to be 3-years, 4-years, and 5-years from now. In this presentation, GfK's Shelley Haus talked about how to create an anticipatory vision of the consumer of tomorrow.
Creating an anticipatory vision includes seeing who the consumer is going to be and painting a picture/directing the innovation. Some inputs include understanding the:
- Fundamental forces for your customer (political, societal, environmental, etc. viewpoints)
- How values are evolving for your consumer (GfK use Roeper as their values model - 54 micro values) - measures open mindedness, equality, self-reliance, protecting the family...
- Way your customer sees the world by working with visioneers (science fiction writers, economists, social anthropologists, etc.) to paint the picture of your customer.
Then, it's time to bring what you found above to life. This is done with:
- Personas
- Contextual situations
From there, it's about mapping out the customer journey to bring together all of the findings along with the customer's emotional context. The customer journey is mapped across a timeline where sequenced R&D or innovation initiatives are sketched out for the first few years.
a Master of Science in Creativity, Innovation and Change Leadership
from the International Center for Studies in Creativity at Buffalo State
College and an M.B.A in Marketing from Bentley University. She enjoys
writing about creativity and innovation and is published with Bloomberg
Businessweek, the Huffington Post, The National Association of Gifted
Children, and iMedia Connection. In her role as an award winning,
digital marketer, she uses her passion for creativity and innovation to
develop breakthrough digital and social experiences. You can connect
with Alicia on Twitter @alicarnold.