The foundation for this pathway is deep insights that generate a novel understanding of the customer. Campbell’s Soup used these insights successfully to enter the Russian market in 2007. Campbell’s had learned that soup played a deep and complex role in the hearts and stomachs of Russian men. The firm’s researchers found that, in a typical Russian home, it was very common for a pot of meat bones to be boiling on the kitchen stove. Russian wives would spend several days nurturing the rich broth and recovering large chunks of meat and savory fats. This process, Russians believed, puts the dousha, or soul, into the soup. Given this context, bringing ready-made soup into this market was not going to be easy. Several competitors had tried to enter with Western European bagged and premixed soups. Russian women scoffed, and Russian men considered the use of such products unacceptable. These ready-to-serve soups “had no soul.”
As the purveyors of this dousha, however, Russian women were in a bind. Since they worked full time, they could not tend to the soup that had such importance in the Russian household. This was the customers’ problem—and Campbell’s opportunity. Through a process of ethnographic work involving deep interactions with Russian families, Campbell’s developed a product that could offer Russian women a way to solve the problem of preparing homemade soup with packaged ingredients. The Domashnaya Klassika (“Home Classics”) line of soup contains large chunks of meat and visible fat medallions. To a Western eye it looks unfinished. To Russian eyes, it looks authentic and homemade.
The Campbell’s approach exemplifies the robust outside-in innovation process applied by the design firm IDEO to develop new offerings (Figure 2-2):
We will revisit the IDEO process later, but I highlight here the central role of observational or ethnographic methods. The core idea is that latent needs are “evident but not yet obvious.” They require skilled observers who can immerse themselves in the target customer’s world. Many other tools can be used to extract deep customer insights with a directed search, including in-depth interviews, problem identification and metaphor-elicitation methods, and customer experience maps.25 To hear the voice of the customer, firms can also try these methods:
Leverage lead users. These are users who face needs in advance of the rest of the market, and are working to find a solution sooner. Products such as correction fluid, sports bras, and Gatorade came from lead users (professional typists and elite athletes, respectively). In categories such as construction equipment or scientific test instruments, most innovation ideas come from alterations to products or workarounds made by lead users.
Monitor complainers and defectors. Myopia about customers can be combated by learning from unhappy customers, who express frustration when their needs are not met or understood.
Hunt for precursors in the parts of the country or globe where fads, fashions, or technology innovations tend to appear earlier. Companies such as the footwear-maker Converse have used “cool hunters” and trend trackers as an early warning radar, to uncover trends such as the rise of retro in clothing and shoes.
Anticipate consequences of supportive trends. FedEx has found opportunities in “global components handling” enabled by trends in globalized freight flows, outsourcing demands, and Internet availability. Trends may emerge from fringe markets and extend outward. Thus, snowboarding, microbrewers, and extreme sports have become popular with mainstream markets.