Adding ‘prosumers’ to your groups can provide a creative boost

In my professional opinion...

Editor’s note: Steve Richardson is director of communications for the Qualitative Research Consultants Association.

A number of years ago, British Airways was looking to challenge American Airlines and Virgin Atlantic for dominance of business-class travel on the airlines’ transatlantic routes. The qualitative research being conducted with consumers was not getting the research team the kind of insights they were seeking. They decided they would need to shake things up if they were going to achieve any breakthroughs that would help British Airways differentiate its business-class travel experience.

The research team took an unusual step. They set up focus groups that involved the usual target - regular business travelers. But they added product-development and marketing professionals who frequently traveled from New York to London, precisely the kind of professional that would typically be intentionally screened out.

After a joint focus group that included both consumers and these “prosumers,” the prosumers group joined the British Airways leadership team for a gloves-off creative session that incorporated what was learned in the focus group, but also took into account the prosumers’ understanding of the types of informed, innovative thinking the research team was seeking.

One of those prosumers, Georgette McAuley, research and development director at Unilever, shared that when she travels, she likes a seat that fully reclines but does not like to be sleeping in full-recline mode next to strangers or business associates. And she presumed that many women travelers would probably agree with her. From that observation, an idea was born. And now, seats that cradle passengers and pullout privacy panels are designed into almost all international business-travel sections.

“Her professional experience - understanding demographics, knowing that we were looking for breakthrough ideas - and her ability to express her ideas in a useful way to the research team made her a key part of the process,” says Christopher Miller, founder of Lancaster, Pa.-based Innovation Focus Inc. “That creative tension, where respondents speak both personally and as a professional, has become the foundation of this process.”

This approach, labeled by Innovation Focus as the “slingshot group process,” was the focus of a presentation given by Miller at the 2008 annual conference of the Qualitative Research Consultants Association. The technique uses four different types of participants (consumers, prosumers, project team members and a facilitator/moderator) and two different processes (focus groups followed immediately by creative problem-solving sessions) in continuous time in an attempt to achieve breakthrough ideas.

McAuley says she found the session invigorating. “For me it was cathartic. As a road warrior, I have a lot of opinions about travel, so it was a relief to get some of those opinions off my chest,” she says. “Having spent many hours in the back room myself, it was fun to be in the front room.”

Creative roles

Miller says there are three characteristics that that make this approach useful. The first is the introduction of prosumers in both consumer and creative roles. Prosumers’ informed opinions and intuitions help researchers better understand the consumer experience. The second is the intentional development of creative tension when prosumers and project team members move from the consumer experience into the role of creative idea generator (the “slingshot”). The third is the close proximity in time of the qualitative research session and the creative problem-solving session. This optimizes the creative tension and the output of ideas and it takes advantage of the immediacy of what was learned in the focus group.

Focus group experiences typically rely on residual memory, which can be colored by natural predispositions. So taking the next step - the creative ideation - right away allows the team to take immediate advantage of the learning that came from the focus groups.

“The core idea here is to involve people who are both naïve and informed,” says Anne Orban, Innovation Focus Inc.’s director, discovery and innovation. “Their professional take on things can be tremendously valuable, and ideas that come out of the creative sessions can be just the breakthrough that researchers and clients are seeking.”

The marketing team at WD-40 Company got precisely that - breakthroughs - when they used the process to help with their product development efforts. Their project involved WD-40 Company professionals, two prosumers and a small group of consumers. In the creative session following the focus groups, it was a prosumer who wondered whether the lubricant could be put in a handheld pen format. That outside-the-box idea is now known as the No-Mess Pen. And another prosumer who needed to cover a very large piece of equipment with WD-40 tossed out the question of whether the product could be put into a bug spray-style fogger. The answer was yes. That business-to-business product is now called the Big Blast Can.

“I enjoyed working both sides of the mirror,” says WD-40 Company Executive Vice President Graham Milner. “Being able to observe in the traditional manner but then also participate together made the process more collaborative and team oriented. We really benefitted from losing the ‘us’ and ‘them’ structure.”

Miller and Orban say that there are several key traits to look for in a prosumer, including no conflict of interest, a consumer connection with the topic area, knowledge relative to the topic, experience with new-product development and creative problem-solving skills. “Getting the right prosumers is not easy, nor is the research itself easier with prosumers,” Orban says. “These groups of professionals can be very smart and cut right to it, but they are also usually tougher and more direct. It’s not the easier road, but the benefits can be enormous.”

Clear understanding

When choosing to recommend the prosumer approach to research, Miller says it is critical to communicate a clear understanding of why the methodology has been selected, how it differs from the typical process and how the expected outcomes can differ as a result. Managing expectations is critical because it is common for those expectations to be high with a high-profile prosumer participant and lower with a lesser-known, although equally qualified, prosumer.

A similar pitfall exists when project teams seek out prosumers who are an exact match for their project. “It is important to bring fresh and challenging perspectives to the table, so consider prosumers whose core competencies are more tangentially related to the topic,” Miller says.

In one example, Miller was working with a manufacturer who wanted to explore diaper-changing contexts, and the client was not initially sold on the idea of recruiting a male designer from Black & Decker even though that prosumer had two children under three years old. At that time, men were not seen as diaper changers. As it turned out, the designer - who had helped create the Black & Decker Snake Light - had a lot of experience changing diapers. His insight as a product designer and diaper changer resulted in his recommendation of needing a “third hand.” That same insight had been instrumental in developing a product to deliver a focused light source when both hands were already occupied. It also had immediate applications in the world of diaper changing.

Quality ideas

Knowing when the prosumer research approach might be the right answer is important for researchers to understand. Miller and Orban say it should be considered when a project topic needs quality ideas in a short amount of time using firsthand consumer insights. Another instance to consider prosumers is when the research process is not yielding the kind of answers being sought - when the research needs a boost of creative new thinking.

“The technique is an effective tool in the discovery phase of product development to identify product opportunity gaps by offering research team members easy exposure to consumers’ needs and then immediately turning those insights into product ideas,” Miller says. He adds that it can be used to jump-start the work of product modifications and extensions by gathering information in focus groups and immediately applying that to solicit ideas for second-generation products.

Many prosumers are advocates of the approach. “It works because I have a sense of what they are after,” McAuley says. “I did not use that knowledge to screen my comments to the group. In fact, I was more direct, and that direct, informed approach produced the kind of insight they really wanted.”

WD-40 Company’s Milner liked the process so much that he has participated as a prosumer several times since. “I loved being part of another business and contributing as both a consumer and prosumer. After seeing this process work for my own company, I’m certainly willing to help other organizations achieve the benefit we’ve seen.”