There’s No Place Like Home

Pre-COVID most innovation was developed in smaller, first to market brands, whereas big legacy brands were focused on building innovation teams through acquisitions of these smaller brands. In 2020 we noticed a slowdown in acquisitions and fewer emerging brands popping up, but greater pressure on clients to innovate and compete.
As consumer needs evolved at record pace, companies had to follow suit. In August of 2020, we asked our clients about the future of consumer research, and these were the results.
• 57% disagreed innovation had stalled
• 81% saw product innovation increasing in 2021
• 64% expected to see a backlog of testing
Where do people turn after dealing with the uncertainty of a global pandemic, a tumultuous election season, and an economic crisis? Home.
To stay ahead of the curve, companies have to keep a finger on the consumer’s constantly evolving perspective to survive. Yet the shift of “in-context” from the office, gym, and airport to the home has caused consumer insights to be more difficult, but more vital than ever. To provide unfiltered, genuine in-context insights, we transformed our research techniques to mold seamlessly into the lives of the at home consumer — by innovating ourselves. We launched our subscription box offering as an extension to our LifeLabs™ solution, along with our Digital Solutions Toolkit.
Home was the new in context, and to help our clients seize the moment to innovate, we developed a partnership with a monthly subscription company, and circulated products to consumers to create an in-person experience and recorded reactions digitally. Partnering with tools like voice command companies such as Alexa and Siri, and video chat apps like Zoom, allow us to ask consumers questions that create more spur-of-the-moment, organic interactions generating more unscripted product insights. Technology is a bridge to consumers the same way remote workers stay connected to their teams — a means to an end that we will capitalize on as much as possible.
Innovation presents a way for companies to re-imagine and re-create. Companies have two options: to ignore the call to innovate and become obsolete, or embrace it and experience growth. As a consumer insights company, we cannot wait to continue innovating alongside our clients to provide the consumer transparency vital to emerging stronger than ever.