From childhood, we learn to answer questions with answers. On the other hand, when an innovation is driven by an offer, it begins to provide answers even before having clearly secured the questions it intends to answer.
Traditional innovation approaches imply that understanding consumer needs precedes the design of offers. A reverse engineering reminiscent of the American television game Jeopardy, and which involves a high-risk approach but which can turn into an opportunity if it is well mastered*.
The practice, however, is more nuanced. And this, for at least two reasons:
In a fast-paced world, taking a step back and being able to take a forward-looking view requires time that product managers have or take up less and less. Pushed by theAgile methods, the marketing response then often precedes the consumer question and the desire to create and launch becomes more pressing than that of hearing and anticipating,
In large organizations, the product manager can sometimes be the late relay of an innovation decided by higher or upstream authorities. He is then forced to start from the answer that he is asked to launch on his market and therefore to find the consumer question, that is to say the most relevant insight.
In both cases, the product manager's reasoning can hardly be compared to the more deductive one, which starts from understanding to lead to innovation.Poorly managed, this reverse engineering can lead to very bad insights:
sewn with white thread: they almost contain the product response and no longer have the virtue of embodying an authentic consumer question,
sometimes written too quickly without delving into the resources that the company has on consumer expectations, it does not carry tension and does not deliver the imagined product benefits,
sometimes finally, there will simply be no insight (which is a very, very bad habit! see our good practices and pitfalls of writing concepts),
Let's now imagine that the product manager, based on a product solution that he already knows in general terms, will nevertheless take the time to take the necessary step back to try to identify the consumer insights to which his offer can respond. This comes down to asking the essential question: why would a consumer want to buy my product? If this work is done conscientiously and methodically (which does not mean that it will delay the project...), it can even present a real advantage. Imagine that you started from the answer to identify an insight. Now take this insight alone, and ask yourself:
Will my offer be the best option available to the consumer to meet this insight?
It is very likely that you will then realize that certain offers (sometimes in universes that did not seem directly competitive to you) can address the insight even better than your own offer. You will then need to analyze in detail in which context or circumstance this offer may prove superior to the alternatives and that you confine your insight to these particular cases. This is when you will be able to effectively position your offer.
Let's take an example: You are a product manager in the food sector and are working on an offer of vacuum-packed pre-cut vegetables: and you are thinking of the following proposition:
«No more chores of cleaning and peeling vegetables, but also the faded vegetables that you throw away before you even have time to cook them! Our vacuum-packed peeled and pre-cut vegetables preserve all their freshness and flavor for two weeks for pure cooking pleasure and a balanced diet. Without preservatives, they have been the subject of a demanding selection to give you the best.»
Before this proposition, let us imagine this insight: “I would like to cook vegetables more often to have a more balanced diet but without the chore of peeling!» or even a tension element of the type “but every time I find the time to cook the vegetables in my refrigerator are no longer fresh».
Now let’s start with these insights. Is our vacuum-packed vegetable offering the best solution to this? No, because most consumers who were exposed to these insights would respond that frozen vegetables can answer them. As such, the anticipated insights have already found a response in the market.
The product manager could then mention that thawed vegetables lose part of their consistency and that vacuum-packed vegetables retain their natural texture. This point is probably a differentiating benefit which deserves to be mentioned in the promise and which also deserves to be mentioned as a tension in the insight. You will therefore be able to take up your evaluation proposal and identify better positioning angles. Poorly controlled reverse engineering poses significant risks to the editorial quality of offers. But used well it can be turned to the advantage of the product manager for editorial better adapted to the differentiating benefits of his offer.
*a previous version of this column was published on the siteVisionaryMarketing.
