The story behind the story

Editor's note: Chris Jackson is vice president at Ipsos Public Affairs. Karin O’Neill is vice president of innovation at Ipsos UU. Liza Walworth is vice president, U.S. ethnography center of excellence, at Ipsos UU. 

As anyone who has ever read the online comment section of a newspaper story knows, even the most innocuous subject can quickly turn political and from there turn ugly. That is true now more than ever in our deeply conflicted times.

Where is this polarization coming from?

In simple terms, even though empirically humanity has never been safer, healthier and more prosperous than it is today, we often don’t feel that way on a personal level. Our research has also shown a significant decrease of trust in public and private institutions. 

Americans therefore seek areas where there isn’t as much conflict. We relate to like-minded groups, whether you call them tribes or identity politics. This trend is particularly clear in research and marketing. People respond differently to questions and stimuli than in the past, making assumptions and interpreting ideas in ways other than we intend or expect. 

It appears that Americans are filtering whatever crosses their paths – including ideas and people – and categorizing them as to whether they are for them or against them, victim or aggressor. They are making snap determinations about how to respond, whether to agree, fight or flee. People have difficulty empathizing with the other side, walking in their shoes and often do not have the emotional energy to give anyone the benefit of the doubt.

Because the population is so quick to divide, a brand that takes a stand or is even perceived to be taking a stand risks alienating a significant chunk of its consumer base. So, how can we as researchers guide brands and companies to survive and even thrive in this polarized and politicized environment? We offer a few simple principles. But first an example that shows how tricky these situations can be. Brands, too,can rush to judgement and make snap determinations. That can lead to targeting messages based on the anticipated tribal reactions of their customers. 

The problem is, people are complicated.

In one case, Ipsos worked with a client that wanted to show its support for women’s empowerment. The team and agency felt personally moved to align themselves with this issue and on paper it made sense for their consumer. They had data and trend information that told them that women’s empowerment was a hot topic and that their target consumer was on board. One could even argue, from its history and brand position, that it had the right to talk about women’s empowerment. Sounds great, right? 

We took the creative into groups and showed women in the demographic target a storyboard of the proposed execution, filled with what the client and agency felt were inspiring stories about women. The reaction was indeed immediate and impassioned, just not the way the brand team envisioned. 

Rather than feel like the brand understood them and their values,they felt the brand was trying to exploit women for commercial advantage. One person even questioned whether the brand was trying to say that a woman needed these products to succeed in a man’s world. That was far from the brand’s intent but it was how the campaign was interpreted. This research averted a brand blunder.

Needed to get deeper

In that example, it was true that women’s empowerment was important to the target audience. The campaign made sense at a surface level; however, to execute it successfully, the client needed to get deeper into people’s values and associations. The explosion in big data has heightened the trap of mistaking a wealth of data for insight. Reducing consumers, patients or customers to data points is often a problem that results in shallow understanding. The brand needed to understand how this issue related to women in their daily lives, how they felt about coverage of the issue and how they viewed brands that took a stand.

So, how do you gain this deep understanding of your target consumers? The simplest way is to meet them where they are and listen to their stories. Observe what is in the home, who is important to them, how they spend their time, where their pain points are and the things they do that they do not want to tell you about. Ethnography and immersive interviews are excellent methods to gain this deep understanding.

Exposed to pressures

As researchers, we know that respondents are very sensitive to question wording and the values implicit in words. This is particularly true when researching sensitive issues– like anything adjacent to politics. Sensitive issues are particularly exposed to social or cultural pressures resulting in either defensiveness or evasion on the part of the respondent. Researchers learn to approach these issues from different angles through topics that are easier to discuss.

In a recent ethnography study of middle-class moms in the Cincinnati area, we found that they were isolated into politically homogenous groups. A client that sought to bridge partisan divides might respond by trying to expose them to diverse viewpoints. We might have asked them how often they interact with people whose views differ from theirs and how those interactions make them feel. We know, however, that people can feel pressure to answer questions like these in ways they think will be viewed as socially acceptable – so they might tell us that they feel fine about it or that they enjoy a stimulating debate. 

Upon spending time with these women, we learned that they had, in fact, interacted with different people but felt like the hostile or challenging political arguments were increasingly infiltrating their conversations in venues ranging from Facebook to book club. These interactions bothered them so much that they retreated to like-minded groups. 

In this example, we would have no way of knowing of this pattern of behavior had we not been deeply immersed in their lives. Now that we do know this, we can ask a more specific question that might get a more accurate answer about how this sense of alienation and powerlessness impacts their lives or how people can talk about controversial topics in ways that feel safe. This insight – that tribal political behavior is the result of stress and a sense of loss – suggests a much different action than thinking people just do not take the time to talk to each other enough.

Too close to the idea

Reactions to stimulus in polarized times can be unpredictable, too, as in our women’s empowerment example. Working teams are often too close to the idea to see these reactions coming. If you know everything there is to know about your brand, if you are briefed on its strategy or the strategy for an execution, if you work for its company or an agency that works for its company, you are probably too close to evaluate the idea objectively. You are also likely not a good representation of your target consumer. Consumers will bring their own knowledge and their own opinions to the conversation. They will interpret creative through the lens of their own experience in ways that can be hard to anticipate.

The solution to this problem is simple: iterative consumer learning. With any project, it is important to understand how consumers will perceive the execution not just the idea. This is particularly helpful when people seem to have hair-trigger reactions that can be set off by the smallest detail, like a word or image. Don’t assume that just because the idea makes sense on paper the execution makes sense to the consumer. Don’t assume that the storyboard has been translated into copy in a way that resonates equally well. Don’t assume that your product name will be interpreted the way you think. Don’t assume respondents will emotionally relate to the key visual, or even interpret it, the same way you do. Each piece of an execution has meaning to consumers and teams often underestimate the magnitude of impact of a seemingly small component.

Can fall short

The more difficult the question, the more important it is to triangulate it using multiple data points. In the case of polarization, it is particularly important not to be overly reliant on a single source. Why? When the research question is complicated and layered in identity or values, it is easy to overlook important nuance in the design. Survey data is an excellent way to capture population sizes and establish finite measures. But it can fall short of qualitative investigation when it comes to understanding why people feel a certain way. In these cases, the researcher is more likely to uncover the true issues if looking across multiple pieces of research for common themes and discrepancies.

In planning research and learning in polarized times, it is easy to take the same approach we saw with our Cincinnati respondents – to retreat from the controversy and stick to safer research topics. We have all seen enough recent missteps in the marketplace to know that this is not a good idea. Instead, address the questions with a thoughtful approach: allow for deep understanding of people; ensure careful research design; iterate propositions with consumer input; and triangulate important questions with multiple sources.