TNS Blog

THE ART OF CONSUMER EMPATHY IN INNOVATION - PART IV: CULTURAL COMMITMENT

May 6th, 2010

Cultural Commitment

In Empathy Part III we discussed empathy-building through consumer communities and ethnography. Part IV concludes our journey with tips to building a continuous commitment to consumer empathy in your company.

Assessing Empathy:
1. Does your organization respect consumers across all touch points?
2. Do your approaches to deep-rooted understanding maximize your insight AND empathy?
3. Do you LIVE your consumer?

Do You LIVE Your Consumer? Experience THEIR Value Chain First-Hand?

The highest order consumer-empathic organization is attained when your cross-functional team and senior leadership internalize what it is like to walk in your consumers' shoes at EVERY STAGE of the consumer value chain, and apply that empathy as one input to decision making. Embracing consumer empathy doesn't require that you run a marathon in your consumers' footwear, but it sure helps to walk the proverbial mile.

Some companies believe the best way to establish this degree of consumer empathy is to populate their ranks with members of their bulls-eye target who are already avid brand fans. While this works well for some (think motorcycles and endurance athletic brands), it is not essential, or even possible, for most of us and may risk limiting our objectivity and periphery vision.

Whether or not your team consists exclusively of brand fans, the following activities can be employed to ensure empathy development becomes a stronger part of the team mindset and company culture.

Read more...