Consumer Research of the Future
with Squirrels

You know what you want don’t you. You know what you like. It’s like the old saying about art, “I don’t know much, but I know what I like" (usually followed by something resembling, but not convincingly matching, a laugh). 

And so it is that, often, organisations will turn to consumers to find out what they want. It seems a sensible enough thing to do after all, what sort of person doesn't know what he wants? Let's do some market research!

Except that, what we think we want and what we ultimately end up choosing to do are completely different things. There are a number of reasons for this:

Most of our behaviour is unconsciously triggered.  We react to our environment in a way that we have learned is best (safest) for us.  But with no link to the way in which our unconscious mind works, we are not aware of the processes involved in directing our behaviour.

• When we think to the future we can never do so with a total view.  So when we are asked to think about one aspect of our future, such as whether or not we would like a particular product or service, we react to it in a totally artificial context.  We are not thinking about the stresses and strains that will be going on at the time, the fact that we might be having a bad day, that we’re in a hurry, or that we really can't afford to something to go wrong with what we're buying because of the specific application we have in mind.
• There’s no personal risk or opportunity cost involved in answering a question about something. But when it comes down to it, choosing to buy something normally involves some element of not buying something else.  At the very least it involves financial outlay and the risk that we will end up feeling the money was wasted.  
• People can't envisage what all the consequences of something they want will be.  Being able to blend fruit into a delicious smoothie seems like a fantastic thing. But when it comes down to it, having to get the heavy machine out of the cupboard each time to use it, and taking it apart to clean it, are a major chore.
• People tend to focus on the positive.  So when something is presented to them they will work on the basis that what they are hearing is true (and in product development at that stage often there is nothing else to go on; people will assume things will be as they are intended to be).  However, the first time they hear that something has gone wrong for somebody else they will be reluctant to take a chance themselves.

Often I find an example helps, so continue to read an example of this with squirrels…. »

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