It’s tempting for marketers to assume we intuitively know what consumers want. After all, we’re consumers too. But listening to the focus group of one inside our heads can lead us astray. Trying to extrapolate our personal experience to how an audience will respond is risky. Many leaders don’t recognize this blind spot.
This is particularly common in hierarchical organizations that defer to the decision of the most senior person in the room. Google has a maxim to beware of the HiPPO (Highest Paid Person’s Opinions). There’s a classic quote from Jim Barksdale from his time as Netscape CEO: “If we have data, let’s look at data. If all we have are opinions, let’s go with mine.”
Particularly in the realm of digital marketing, everyone has an opinion. We all juggle multiple devices and know our own personal experiences. But all personal experiences are not created equal. To assume that what works for a middle-aged CMO will work for a teenage girl consumer target is lunacy, but it’s common in conference room conversations to to hear that type of personal justification for a decision.
We will frequently have to make judgment calls with limited information. But, increasingly (and especially in digital marketing), we can rely on data and testing to help make more of the decisions rather than our guts.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on how to limit the focus group of one and tame the HiPPOs.
Here’s an early version of this idea I drew 12 years ago:
(Marketoonist Monday: I’m giving away a signed cartoon print. Just share an insightful comment to this week’s post by 5:00 PST on Monday. Thanks!)
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I also want to share that we launched a spanking new Marketoonist.com website this week, as we near five years of doing Marketoonist full-time this October (and 15 years of drawing cartoons). A big thank you to Clif, Wes, and Lauren at CGD for a wonderful collaboration on this new site. A few highlights: mobile-friendly responsive design, better cartoon browsing and searching, easier licensing and credit card payments, a team overview of the Marketoonist studio, a better job showing off some of the content marketing case studies from the last 5 years, and keynote speaking clips. I’m really pleased and would love to hear your thoughts (as well as any bugs that you find too).
Kimmra says
June 29, 2015 at 6:55 amSo true, Tom! Data doesn’t replace judgement and opinion, but definitely should inform them whenever possible. Will use this for sure!
John Stott says
June 29, 2015 at 7:03 amI frequently worked with engineers on project and product development assignments. One of their favorite sayings had to do with “an N of 1″, meaning a sample size of exactly 1. They claimed marketing was too often focused on providing opinion disguised as fact, based upon the most recent experience. They were right more often than not, and we (in marketing) used an ” N of 1″ to promote an idea or reach conclusion quickly, rather than put in the effort to collect data to support a hypothesis. Lesson learned after a spectacular failure of a product – one that had to go back to the drawing board more than once for important customer experience focused corrections.
Charlotte Vicary says
June 29, 2015 at 7:28 amHere at The Customer Closeness Company, our whole aim in life is to build better customer instinct amongst executives by running long-term consumer immersion programmes. We’re about giving the elephant in the room a voice and silencing the hippos! Loved your post….here’s my Elephant in the Room limerick:
The Elephant in the Room was pretty fed up
No-one listened to a blinking word he said
So he just sat trunkulently in the corner
And wished he were in Africa instead.
Off to write one about Hippos now…
John Holcombe says
June 29, 2015 at 7:36 amHi Tom – great post! I wrote a couple of pieces on just this issue. One is on listening, another on slowing down to incubate. Both can be found on my blog at theinsightsguy.com
JH
BC says
June 29, 2015 at 7:38 amAgreed in full! But…
Even WITH data, I’ve seen completely opposite interpretations and indeed, those can still end up skewed in favor of the most powerful opinion of the group. As I like to say, “ask 3 people and you’ll probably get at least 5 opinions.”
I vividly recall being present as a resource in a board meeting where a vote took place. The hallway joke afterward was something like “the vote was 10 to 1 against and the motion carried.” Because the 1 vote in favor was the CEO…
Stephen Macklin says
July 3, 2015 at 5:20 pmI recall once presenting creative for an advertising campaign targeted at teen girls to the head of marketing – a 42-year-old man. His first response was “I don’t get it.” To which I replied, “That’s probably a good thing!”
Steven says
July 6, 2015 at 3:57 pmInteresting – I see the same problem but with roles reversed: most B2B companies sell to middle aged white men, but they hire fresh college grads to “do social media”. Wrote about it here: http://www.beachhead.io/blog/7-deadly-sins-of-demand-generation