How marketers can co-create tomorrow by re-framing the questions better.

Generally, we ask our kids about their future aspirations, either after having just read about some prolific 10year old novelist or 12year old First Class Mechanical Engineering graduate. Sometimes we ask while enjoying the closeness that blossoms soon after you and the family enjoyed a nice film or a nice dinner. Sure… I know we also ask them about their future aspirations if we notice their grades going turpsy turvy and as 21^st Century parents we start wondering if they might turn out, not as the next Elon Musk, Sheryl Sandberg, P-Square but into some perpetually confused kid who routinely joins the work-force without a vision of where they hope to be in a few years time.

Since this blog is generally about marketing you must be wondering about the preamble.

Ok, so I recently asked my son what he would like to become when he grew up. He looked a little vacant then…it hit me. Why was I asking him about the future when he already very likely had opinions and ideas about things affecting him today?

So I changed the question and asked him what he would like to do or become if he had the opportunity tomorrow. He still looked uninterested. 

So I made a little adjustment. Replaced the word 'tomorrow' with 'TODAY' and the magic happened.  His eyes lit up and he said 3 things right away:

“I will like to be a Ninja as soon as possible” Huh? 

Ok he practices Taekwondo passionately and will soon be grading for his junior black belt. His original tutor is a TKD Hall of Famer, Grandmaster Emmanuel Ikpeme. 9^th Dan. Yet, Ninja was rather ‘out there’?

His 2^nd wish was radical.

“I will like to be able to re-create ShopRite here”. ‘Here’ meaning our living room.

Ok…??? So I nodded enthusiastically like I fully comprehended then he continued. “So I can..you know…get what I want when I want it.”

Let us discount the fact that much of what he buys is paid for by either of his parents directly or indirectly via allowances, there is something to note about the motive he expressed.

Re-create ShopRite here. In the living room.

To him, Shoprite is where he sometimes hangs out, plays games, watches movies, eats popcorn, buys Ninjago lego characters games and clothes and eats at Spar. The question he has is why can't he somehow have that recreated for him at home? 

So my thought, using retail as an example is that the survival of retail is more integrated, real-time, portable customer interaction opportunities and it's not going to be happening only at the traditional retail store but also more of it will be happening at home or on the move.

So are marketers asking the right questions from the right sources? I think anyone who influences a purchase in today's connected world should be asked and we just may get some indication of where human expectation has reached and test to see if there is a real demand for the next innovation.

Let us imagine a not so distant (probably already exists in South Korea or japan anyway) scenario in which we have cool designer interfaces at home that allow home customers make premium subscriptions to watch movies same time from the Cinema. This same customer then makes an order for home delivery from the concession stand at the actual cinema. Now, what if this same home screen could depict the shopping aisle in real-time and offer a revolutionary home e-commerce situation? With just one screen multiple things can be done. 

FUTURE CONSIDERATIONS:

What I project is that the next generation of retail will benefit closely from the unplanned intersection of different technologies seemingly separated by the original intent of their creators. From wearable projection systems (think 6^th Sense http://misy3310dogukan.weebly.com) to that interesting thing created by Sharp called the RoboHon. Yep. The Smartphone Robot that looks cute and may appear to actually be useless or another quiet indicator of the changes we are going through as humanity.  Think of the confluence of Virtual reality in shopping. There is a race to deliver simple, reliable Virtual Reality shopping that truly works. 

So, having hopelessly derailed the conversation from the original topic of framing questions, let us head back to that thought and encourage marketers to think about enhancing the NOW and not focusing so much on the future alone when thinking about how to innovate products and services. 

Many of the answers are already with the consumers. We just need to ask them the right questions. A lot of the innovations that are needed will be incremental and address issues the consumers has NOW. Some other innovations will be more dramatic and some truly transformational and in the future.

It's a fine line really but there is some method to the madness of innovation and if the implementation of such initiatives is obsessively done...success can occur.

  

So yes, the Amazon Dash button may not be as crazy as it appears after all my son wants to replicate the whole of Shoprite in our home. Amazon Echo meets Netflix meets VR. LOL.

In my next article, I will share something I found really useful for guiding the innovation process.

Thank you for reading and do feel free to share your thoughts and input in the comment section below.

Dayo is an experienced business leader with extensive experience in marketing, technology for business and business development.