Engaging with Experts
Today’s attitudes and perspectives rarely reveal a future view. Talking to experts can provide new perspectives and provide valuable insights.
Experts are people who have worked in a specific domain for a long period of time, where they live and breathe a topic. Over that time, they will have engaged with hundreds and even thousands of people in their role. They can channel a lot of knowledge from just one conversation.
When considering expert engagement, selecting the right mix is important. Too similar, then there’s an overlap. Too extreme, then they can lack relevance. Striking a balance can add the magic you’ve been searching for.
Why we engage with experts.
Experts are a great avenue when brands are looking for something genuinely new to the world. Especially, when you are free from typical consumer research approaches, looking beyond what we know today.
Consumers don’t often articulate what will be useful and desirable for the future. Instead, we look to experts to explore macro and micro topics to give a view on their areas of specialism that can create signals for future direction.
“Consumer research is great at telling you what people did; it’s terrible at telling you what people will do.”
Experts we’ve engaged with.
We’ve called on experts over the last few years, where we have been challenged to consider a longer-term horizon for brands, where today’s consumer perspectives are not likely to have projection and clues required.
We’ve tackled some big topics such as Progressive Masculinity, where we’ve talked to a Men’s mental health coach, a hairdresser, and a Men’s retreat founder & ex-rugby player.
We’ve recently explored emotions that people associate with meal-times, and discussed this topic with a Culinary Coach, a Family Food podcast host & pediatrician, and a Restaurant Founder & General Manager.
Why you should consider expert engagement.
Experts speak to hundreds of people in their domain. That one conversation is a gateway to years of observations and learnings.
They could be linked directly to the project topic or a broader and tangential connection, especially when it comes to longer-term innovation and strategic direction.
They enrich our hypotheses and hunches and bring clues on what might be next, since they are at the forefront of their topic and specialism.
