Do you truly understand what your consumers want? More importantly, do you understand them better than your competitors? Research is undergoing a radical transformation with the rise of AI, and video conferencing has already streamlined many processes. But is all this convenience making us complacent? Are we relying too heavily on technology when we should still be getting out and meeting consumers face to face?
Some people find AI a bit daunting, but I find the idea of all that data being stored up over the years even more so. Cybersecurity Ventures predicts that 100 zettabytes will be stored in the cloud by 2025. AI is able, with its enormous processing capability, to put all this data to good use. This is so with design. At the beginning of every project, we ask for all the consumer research our client has relevant to the brief -the reply is normally vast and often unfocused. It takes a lot of human brain power to synthesise and analyse it all. If we then look wider to publicly available research and the task can become overwhelming. AI is, therefore, a welcome tool to quickly and effectively get down to a meaningful set of insights to work with.
This efficiency has a knock-on effect: marketers save time and money—both increasingly precious. Previously, the effort required to sift through existing data often outweighed simply commissioning new, targeted research. Now, AI can surface insights better and faster, reducing the need for fresh studies. But there’s a catch: AI gives everyone access to the same information. Your competitors are asking the same questions of the same datasets and getting the same answers. The insights may be useful, but they won’t make your brand more differentiated or distinctive. If everyone is drawing from the same well, no one stands out.
The answer is simple: don’t forget the old tools of research that are just as relevant. When was the last time you actually went to a store and watched shoppers or talked to them in person, or even visited their homes? Watching a video of them is more convenient, but the technology still gets in the way. You need to sense what’s going on around you. An old colleague of mine, Michael Wolf, once told me about designing a Russian bank identity. After visiting the bank mid-winter, he realised how the biting cold shaped the entire customer experience. His suggestion was to put a stove in the middle of the foyer – a far more welcoming device than a poster of a smiling bank clerk in the window. This insight was only possible with getting a real sense of the place.
We designers will tend to design for ourselves unless we have a strong sense of the end user. This is why we encourage our designers to visit people in their homes. I recall one time a startled young designer watching an old lady sawing off the top of her soap box with a bread knife because her fingers were not strong enough to pull the tear tap. The able bodied designer’s assumption, and the AI research analysis would have probably told you, that most people do not have a problem opening the box ( as few would want to admit they had trouble), yet seeing this first-hand could give the soap brand a clear advantage with the huge over-60s cohort by redesigning the tab to be more inclusive and easy to use.
Brands need to connect with consumers emotionally because rational decision-making is too complex for everyday shopping—people simply go with their gut. The time and money saved by using AI for logical analysis is best reinvested in getting “in the shoes of users,” as my old boss Bill Moggridge used to say. That’s where you discover opportunities to build genuine empathy with consumers, helping you sharpen your brand and make it more relevant, distinctive, and memorable.
