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Seeing everything but the consumer insight

January 27, 2015

Seeing everything but the consumer insight

It was one of those moments that for the first time, both Sarah and myself were speechless. On board a flight to Sydney, flicking through the in-flight magazine, we both saw the advertisement for a luggage and couldn’t speak.

The design notes reference the 68cm luggage as “you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide” and then goes onto to ‘sell’ the luggage as “turn heads, breeze through customs and show off your favourite gear”. And if that isn’t enough, the award-winning (their claim) collection is the embodiment of quality, durability, and exhibitionism.

In the BrandHook business, we speak a lot about insights and innovation. A consumer insight is differentiated from what market research produces as an insight gives the business direction moving forward. An insight doesn’t have to be words or numbers, it just needs to be something that can guide a marketing team and business unit or the business in the right direction.

As Sarah and I sat on the plane dumbfounded, we wondered what the insight was that lead to this design.

When we work on innovation projects at BrandHook, we talk about innovations needing to be built on the unmet needs – and the difficulty in the collection of unmet needs – you simply can’t ask people what their unmet needs are as they aren’t aware of them. Our approach is to ethnographic for unmet needs – spend time with the people, observe and monitor their behavior and identify where in their lives, there’s needs not being addressed.

Again, we wondered what the unmet need was that might have led to this innovation. Sure, there’s frustration at the baggage claim when the 15th black suitcase comes out but it’s not too much of a hassle to tie a ribbon, use a sticker or quickly scan the luggage tags for a personal identifier. Yes, this suitcase would make life easier as I’m yet to see one appear but I would be surprised if that’s what drove the product design.

Maybe I’m just not the target audience and missing the point. Maybe I’m just wanting quality and durability when it comes to my luggage and not needing exhibitionism. Maybe it’s the way the shoes are positioned in the suitcase that’s putting me off spending $745 on this luggage. Or maybe I’ve just missed the point.

What do you think?


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