The Rise of the Urban Baby

The Rise of the Urban Baby

by | Apr 1, 2019 | Innovative Brand Research

Study People. Examine Brands. Explore Culture.

We’ve all seen it, dogs—and sometimes even other furry kinds of companions—in strollers, carseats, at the salon, dressed to impress… the rise of the “urban baby” is real! Sixty-eight percent of U.S. households, or about 85 million families, own a pet. Here is a quick look at some of the trends we’ve seen in retail and services as we continue to “humanize” our fuzziest family members.

Keeping Healthy

In a recent study, nearly 70% of dog owners said they would maintain spending on pet health regardless economic downturn. To put this statistic in perspective, spending on Mother’s Day declined by 10% when the economy slowed. Leading to the question: “is pet health more recession-proof than mothers?” And it’s true, we’ve seen more specialized healthcare services for pets, and hey – if you like your FitBit, now you can get one for your dog too, called a FitBark. Pet parents are also downloading nutrition and vet telemedicine apps to help maintain their best friends’ health.

Tech and the Pet

Speaking of apps, we’ve seen an unprecedented number of pet-related apps hit the downloads lately. Dig is a dog-person dating app, SpotOn is a Lyft-type service that enables safe travel with your fur baby including onboard comforts, Petchatz is a video skype app to let you connect with your home alone pet, among others. More than 40% of you pet owners are interested in installing pet monitoring cameras in your homes, or even a digital tracking device for your dog or cat to see where your best friend is headed at all times.

Getting Spoiled

Professional dog walking, professional pet photographers, professional pet bloggers… things that used to be hobbies or chores have gone mainstream to become careers, with high standards. Since we view our pets as family members, we hire professionals to make their lives better especially with our increasingly busy lives. Grooming is also a growing industry, with mobile spas, salons, all-natural products—and celebrities jumping on the bandwagon like Real Housewives’ Lisa Vanderpump’s dog spa and line of organic pet spa products.

The Furry Foodie

All-natural isn’t just about grooming products, with the rise of the “free-from” food movement traditional pet foods are slowly declining in sales, while pet parents start to opt for raw, fresh and organic, even vegan, diets for their fur children. In fact, 70 percent of us who follow a special diet put our pet on a special diet too, such as organic. Pet food is big business, with the global pet food market expected to be worth $98.81 billion by 2022. 

4 Exercises to Train Your Team to Solve Problems on Their Own

4 Exercises to Train Your Team to Solve Problems on Their Own

by | Jun 13, 2018 | Creative Problem Solving

No senior staff member wants to hold the hands of his or her team. When team members can solve problems on their own, they can fulfill customer needs on the fly, keep customers happy, and maintain a smooth-running business. To foster creative problem solving and sharpen decision-making skills, you need to heavily invest in employee training. Employees need a strong sense of confidence to call shots without second-guessing themselves. Let your team know you’re on their side by supporting choices they make, no matter what. In addition, train your team using these four exercises to encourage independent problem solving:

1) Playing Card Mix-Up

This exercise requires teams with six to eight participants each and two decks of playing cards for each team. Mix the two decks per team at random. Each group must sort the decks without talking. Let the teams start sorting the decks however they wish. After a few minutes, instruct each team to sort the decks a different way. For example, if a team is sorting by suits, tell them to sort by number instead. The team that sorts the deck the desired way within a certain time frame has to share the methods it used to accomplish the task.

2) Create-Your-Own Activity

This exercise asks participants to design their own problem-solving activity. Instruct the participants to work in teams to design their own original problem-solving activity. Tell them to design an activity that would be appropriate for your organization. The activity cannot be something participants have heard of or done before. Teams have one hour to develop and present their activities, as well as to outline its key benefits. Ask each team how they communicated with one another and how they managed their time. As a bonus, this exercise can give you other ideas for future activities based on what the teams come up with.

3) Build a Balloon Tower

First, divide your employees into teams of three. Provide ten inflated balloons and four three-foot long strips of masking tape to each team. The object of the exercise is to build the tallest freestanding tower they can within ten minutes. Teams can break the balloons if they wish. Teams cannot use any additional materials. The winner can either be the team with the tallest tower or the team who completes the task first. Make this exercise more challenging with instructions such as no talking, each team member is only allowed to use one hand, or one team member who cannot touch materials and can only give directions.

4) The Escape Exercise

Encourage team problem solving and collaboration with this exercise. It requires one rope, one key, a lockable room, and five to 10 puzzles or clues depending on how long you want the game to take. The goal is to work together to escape a locked room within the time limit using the clues to find the hidden key. Hide the key and each clue around the room. This exercise requires everyone to work together to create a strategy, manage their time, and brainstorm what the clues could mean. It’s great for team building as well as creative problem solving.

At Big Squirrel, it’s our goal to help and equip teams to solve problems, think creatively and build consensus quickly. We’ve seen what happens when teams get stuck in the same habits– that’s why exercises like these are important. We hope this resource helps move your team in the direction of innovation and progress!

Download our Field Guide to Innovative Thinking 
to help your team think outside the nut!

3 Things to Think About Before Jumping on That Market Trend

3 Things to Think About Before Jumping on That Market Trend

by | May 9, 2018 | Making Sense of Big Data

New market trends seem to happen hourly in today’s competitive business atmosphere. Rivalry is fierce among the hundreds of thousands of new products and services that launched within the last year alone. What successful brands have in common is the amount of research they do before following or disregarding trends. To meet and exceed aggressive company goals while staying on top in the industry, you must weigh each trend’s pros and cons carefully.

Here are three things to think about before you get swept away by the momentum.

1) Will this trend help me achieve my goals?

When a new trend makes waves in your industry, don’t just automatically incorporate it into your business plan. Question your organization’s need for the new trend. Just because everyone else is jumping on the bandwagon does not mean the trend is right for you. To be an insightful, direct, and smart organization, you must have a clear brand destination. Consider what the trend could do for your company, if anything.

Decide whether the market trend is absolutely necessary for your company’s success. The more precisely you define your brand’s destination, the more accurately you can evaluate new trends to see if they will drive success. If the new trend does not help your company achieve your main intent and purpose, just say no. Taking the time to clarify your intent can prevent over-excitement about a new trend just because it’s bright and shiny. But trends that can help you achieve your brand destination more quickly? Those are worth further consideration.

2) Does research support this market trend?

It’s imperative to do your due diligence prior to adopting or disregarding a new market trend. Instantly adopting every new trend can run your brand into the ground. However, ignoring trends on principle gives competitors the opportunity to get ahead. Knowing which trends to drop and which to adopt requires adequate research on your part.

What qualifies as “adequate” depends upon the trend and your company. You need to focus on the big picture, but you must also dive deeply into if – and how – the trend would benefit your brand. Consumer studies, brand examination, and competitor assessment reveal valuable insights and may all be necessary before reaching a decision to commit. You need to know what your consumers find valuable, what the benefit and drawbacks of the market trend, and whether its adoption would push you toward your company goals. Take the time to dive deep into the efficacy of the trend. Remember that gleaning constructive insights will take time.

3) Do the risks outweigh the benefits?

Finally, weigh the risks against the benefits of adopting the new trend. Implementing a new trend often brings a necessary amount of risk. After all, an unproven investment could jeopardize your company’s budget, bottom line, and stability. With patience and smart marketing, however, the benefits of incorporating some trends outweigh the risks. It is up to your team to analyze the trend and determine whether the investment will more likely than not deliver returns. Proper research and assessment of company goals can help you come to the ideal conclusion for your organization.

Why do big brands trust Big Squirrel?
We have a history of cracking some seriously tough nuts. The proof is in our case studies!

Unlocking the Meaning in Big Data: The Key to Deeper Brand Understanding

Unlocking the Meaning in Big Data: The Key to Deeper Brand Understanding

by | Apr 11, 2018 | Making Sense of Big Data

Brand research today is both easier and more challenging than ever before. Oceans of data provide extensive marketplace knowledge, but transforming your data into actionable insights requires the ability to uncover meaningful takeaways from the data you collect. Unlocking useful insights from your data begins by asking deeper, more qualitative questions, even if yours is technically a quant study.

Finding the right questions is the key that unlocks a vault of qualitative insights from your data. But the search for the right questions is often haphazard. A disciplined approach to developing your questions will lead to more impactful qualitative insights – a foundation on which you can build deeper brand understanding.

Design by Design

You’ve heard it before, but “start with the why.” Part of asking the right questions is understanding why you’re asking these questions in the first place. As you undertake the process of identifying your goal, a multitude of priorities vie for attention. Crafting your questions around a narrow objective gives you the ability to drill deeper into your target. By bringing a specific purpose into focus, the answers you receive will provide more effective insights.

As you solidify the purpose of your inquiry, make sure to involve your entire team. Their input will produce greater clarity on the objective and might reveal areas for exploration that directly support their own goals.

Are you talkin’ to me?

You may be eager to learn about your customers, but before you can derive deeper insights into who they are and what they value, you must establish what you already know. All lines of questioning should start with basic knowledge about your target. Analyze what you already know about your intended audience. What are their ages? What brands do they prefer? What’s their preferred method of contacting your organization on social media? Go deeper than simple demographics.

The better you integrate the information you already have about your intended market, the likelier it is that you’ll be able to craft insightful questions that encourage their responses to extend beyond the superficial.

We gather meaningful, influential and real brand insights through
ethnographic research techniques.

Examine Your Assumptions

Even a few customer interviews can provide significant insights and break long-standing assumptions you may have about your user. On the other hand, lack of awareness can lead to asking the wrong questions altogether. When you ask the wrong questions, you stifle your ability to achieve truly meaningful insight– regardless of the amount of time or money you pour into your research project.

For example, if your app has more downloads than your competitors, it’s easy to assume that your app is better. However, a few direct consumer interactions might reveal that they chose your product due to a misstep by your competitor, not because they prefer your product. If you had crafted your questions around your flawed assumption of a superior product, it would have skewed your line of inquiry, causing you to miss an opportunity to discover how to truly serve your customers better.

Float like a butterfly…

While your inquiry strives to answer a particular business challenge, an observant researcher may well discover patterns that indicate a richer line of questioning outside your original objective. Should such a vein present itself, be quick to identify this as a new opportunity.

Your research goal is a strong guide for developing the appropriate questions, but don’t overlook qualitative insights that pop up during the process. Maintain an open mind and allow the research to direct your path. Don’t dismiss customer input simply because it steers you toward an unexpected direction.

Inspection Time

Once you have generated your data set, it’s not enough to simply identify trends and statistics. You must translate analysis of your results into actionable intelligence that your teams can apply. This is where an unbiased brand strategy team comes in. By applying an impartial evaluation to your findings, your strategist can provide you with a roadmap–sometimes expected, sometimes surprising–to align your business offerings with what your customers want.

Research is never a “one-and-done” project. It’s an ongoing journey that constantly evolves. Big data is only the first step. Additional lines of questioning that did not match your current purpose can become the springboard for areas of future exploration. By continuing down the path and pushing beyond the numbers, you discover the deeper brand understanding that all those facts and figures are trying to communicate.

Contact Big Squirrel and start uncovering actionable intelligence within your research.

Inspired Leadership: Four Tips to Increase Team Innovation

Inspired Leadership: Four Tips to Increase Team Innovation

by | Feb 21, 2018 | Creative Problem Solving

Most people can think of ways to do something better, faster, or in a manner that’s more cost-efficient. When individuals work together as a team to improve products and processes, the results can be impressive. However, too many organizations settle for “good enough.” Is your organization stuck in this rut? Learn what your business can do to create an environment in which creativity flourishes.

1) Start at the Top

When leaders are focused solely on the bottom line, they inadvertently create an environment that discourages creativity. If the boss applies extreme pressure and has little tolerance for mistakes, employees feel constant tension. They focus on completing assigned tasks as quickly as possible without making errors–and that’s all. This fosters a tense company culture and diminishes creativity. Teamwork suffers, morale drops and productivity declines.

Effective leaders know how to nurture each staff member’s abilities so creative juices can flow. They lead by example, with an easygoing attitude and willingness to listen and ask, instead of giving orders. The resulting positive feedback and constructive criticism builds an efficient and dedicated team of employees.

2) Hire Innovators

When people believe in what they do, their job is not just a means to an end: it becomes a personal mission. Identify your company’s current culture and goals, then hire employees who are passionate about issues that relate to your products and services. Look for team members who can articulate your company’s vision because it aligns with their own.

This doesn’t mean that all hires must think and act the same. Think of diversity beyond gender and ethnicity. Focus on all the factors that inform a fresh perspective. Things like age, veteran status, educational background and hobbies. When your team is comprised of individuals with a wide range of experience and multiple points of view – who are all passionate about what your company offers – you create an environment ripe for innovation to flourish.

To get a sense of the distinct perspectives potential employees can bring to the table, be willing to ask creative questions during the interview phase. Here are some examples:

  • Which major societal challenge would you like to see improved? If you were in charge, how would you go about tackling it?
  • In three minutes, explain to me a complicated issue that you know well.
  • If you had $25,000 to build your own business, what would you do? Where would you start?
  • Tried-and-true solutions sometimes fail. Describe a time when the go-to solution didn’t work. How were you able to solve the problem?

Check out our Field Guide to Innovative Thinking
to help your team think outside the nut!

3) Use Innovation Sprints

People often settle into workplace habits and behavior patterns because it seems like the path of least resistance. Employees are busy answering emails, making phone calls, attending meetings and completing their job tasks. There’s no time to think creatively.

Work sprints are based on an agile methodology that accomplishes tasks in a series of stages. Teams identify a problem to solve, break it down and assign responsibilities, then set a very limited time frame to accomplish a specific goal. At the end of the time frame, team members gather to present their solutions. All stakeholders evaluate progress, suggest refinement, and develop the next goal.

Sprints are the antidote to workplace apathy. They carve out time for focused, intense spurts of innovation. In his book, Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days, author Jake Knapp outlines a detailed process for developing creative solutions in limited periods of time. This structured forward momentum allows your business to cover ground quickly, co-create solutions, and make effective changes.

4) Encourage Positivity

When your team members put more effort into creativity, they open themselves up to judgment from peers and superiors. It’s a vulnerable position. This resultant pressure can become overwhelming and frustrating if teammates respond with negativity. But since creative problem solving necessitates open debate, navigating this landscape can get tricky.

Encourage brainstorming by employing a “no criticism” directive. Provide guidelines for phrasing feedback in a positive manner. When your staff feels supported and respected for their contributions, the pressure they feel can yield positive results.

Big Squirrel helps brands ask the right questions, articulate roadmaps for how to think differently, and ultimately instill confidence to activate ideas. Contact us to “get cracking!”