Futurelab's Marketing Bushido (Alain Thys)

19 Dec 2007 · 3 min

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3:02

In this presentation Alain Thys argues that effective insight research and marketing must consider the entire consumer experience chain—from the first awareness of a product through retail, call‑center interactions, packaging, and after‑sales support—rather than focusing solely on the product itself. He stresses that in a hyper‑connected world word‑of‑mouth has become a powerful currency, making broken brand promises potentially fatal. Thys claims that using agent‑based modelling and gaming‑style simulations can predict future sales with 85‑90% accuracy and allow companies to test new product introductions without a physical launch. He emphasizes that a brand promise must be clearly communicated to, and owned by, the small percentage of frontline staff who actually deliver it, and that involving these stakeholders is essential to keep promises. The talk also highlights the growing importance of authentic, green and socially responsible positioning, urging marketers to be genuinely passionate about such values or risk misalignment with consumers.

Chapters

Insights and insight research and understanding consumers is not about what is the product I can sell. It is about the whole experience chain. And the question I ask you, how many of you actually work on the total experience chain? Look at the whole experience from the first time I hear about your product all the way to the end. And yes, that means the retailer. Yes, that means the call center. Yes, that means the packaging. Yes, that means the after-sales support. Yes, that means all these other 25 things you typically There's no real segments out there in the way we describe, but we come up with them because they make sense, they make our life easier. And the way a Romanian marketeer actually explained it to me a couple of weeks ago is like, yeah, I know it's wrong, but it's the easy way out, and as long as we all keep doing it, we're fine. In a world where we're all connected, In a world where word of mouth rules, and word of mouth is basically becoming one of the most important currencies, breaking promises is suicidal. It is perfectly possible to distinguish the various aspects which contribute to your sales and predict future sales with over 85% accuracy and even 90% accuracy. It's perfectly possible to plan and simulate how new product introductions will behave in the marketplace without ever launching a product. Using agent-based modelling, using modelling out of the gaming industry, sims and all that sort of thing. Use it. You create a brand promise, you come up with it. Only 5% of the people who actually need to make it happen They don't understand what it is. So they need to be included. They need to be in on the secret. What can you do to help the people in your organisation you depend on to deliver on the promises you make and the promises if you fail the consumer will hold against you? What can you do to make the message clearer? That's what usually happens when you say something like that. Somebody goes like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Show me the money. It's nice to be green, it's nice to help the poor people, but yeah, whatever, next quarter. The impact that's going to have on the French consumer in what it means to be green is going to be dramatic. And if you're passionate about what you do, are you passionate enough to basically say, this is the right thing for the company, I'm going to fight for this. Yes, I may make compromises at some point, But frankly, if it's something I don't believe in, well, then maybe this is not the right company for me. Because people see it in your eyes.