Category: Direct-To-Consumer

Chantal Schmelz is a facilitator, strategist, lecturer, and marketer based in Zurich, Switzerland. Chantal explains how she uses the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Method to break down barriers between participants and generate breakthrough ideas. Chantal shares consumer insights based on her work in Europe and the Philippines, and contrasts e-commerce in developed countries with what she sees in the developing world – plus how WEConnect connects women-owned businesses with buyers globally.

Episode Transcript

Adrian Tennant: Coming up in this episode of IN CLEAR FOCUS.

Chantal Schmelz: A very wise man once said perspective is not what you’re looking at, but where you’re looking from. So shifting perspectives in a team can unleash unbelievably creative solutions to problems that seemed impossible to solve before.

Adrian Tennant: You’re listening to IN CLEAR FOCUS, fresh perspectives on the business of advertising, produced weekly by Bigeye. Hello. I’m your host, Adrian Tennant, VP of Insights at Bigeye. A full-service, audience-focused creative agency, we’re based in Orlando, Florida, serving clients across the United States and beyond. Thank you for joining us. Bringing together business leaders, politicians, and journalists to discuss current economic and social challenges, the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting is usually held in January in the ski town of Davos, Switzerland. This year, due to COVID-19, the annual meeting was held virtually, but the WEF’s decision reflected the level of global disruption unleashed by the worst health crisis in more than a century, the aftershocks of which will have profound long-term impacts on many aspects of our consumer-led society. And as my colleague, Dana Cassell, described in Bigeye’s webinar and podcast, a return to “business as usual” isn’t an option. Many organizations have been forced by the pandemic to re-engineer some of the ways they operate. But how do you introduce change strategically, and at scale, within an organization? My guest this week is a change enthusiast who resists the idea of only having one profession. Chantal Schmelz works as a facilitator, strategist, lecturer, and marketing consultant with a very diverse portfolio of projects and clients. But Chantal’s projects always have two things in common: they actively drive positive change, and they only work when the collective intelligence of the team is harnessed. Chantal uses agile methods, tools, and processes to enable co-thinking and collaboration. Chantal has worked with McDonald’s, the Innovation Hub of the University of Zurich, and with startups all around Europe. To talk about her work and playful approach to creative facilitation, Chantal is joining us today from her home in Zurich, Switzerland. Chantal, welcome to IN CLEAR FOCUS!

Chantal Schmelz: Thank you very much for having me, Adrian. It’s a pleasure.

Adrian Tennant: Chantal, you are a facilitator, strategist, lecturer, and marketing consultant. Do you typically work with clients who engage you for just one of your skills or are they looking to take advantage of a multidisciplinary approach?

Chantal Schmelz: So, actually, it most often is kind of an unintentional upselling process. To tackle strategy often sounds too big of a task and facilitation is too intangible for a lot of people or fancy-pantsy for them. So actually, often people come to me with a very clearly framed task, like doing a webpage or getting their teams trained on any specific, marketing communication topic. And once we get to work together by asking a few, probably sometimes uncomfortable questions, we started turning stone by stone. And in the end we mostly work on a rather strategic project together with the help of agile methods. So I’d say most of them are not specifically looking for my multidisciplinary approach unless they have already worked with me, but get to see the value of connecting all these dots and thus creating better outcomes once they’ve overcome the fear of tasks that seemed too big to tackle.

Adrian Tennant: Would you say that you are equal parts facilitator, strategist, lecturer, marketer – or do you favor one role or specialism over the others?

Chantal Schmelz: What a lovely question. I’ve always been a kinesthetic learner, myself. One of the characteristics being that connecting things and spatial thinking has always come very naturally to me. But I had an awfully hard time at school as the system implies that there are natural boundaries between physics and English where in my brain, there are none. All dots are somehow connected. So frankly speaking, I’ve never much questioned whether I’m now working as a facilitator or a marketer only. I like to listen and watch closely and then bring all skills to the table that might help the process. So I see myself rather as a human being, with a toolbox full of very differently shaped tools that all have their benefits and timing and also limitations. Using them resourcefully, that is more important to me than whether a client is referring to me as their marketing consultant or their facilitator. However, I’m not down talking on the difficulties that one faces when, especially I have to position myself clearly, as in this podcast. Ironically, that is something that I try to avoid, against the advice I’d regularly give to my marketing clients when I tell them they have to have a very clear positioning!

Adrian Tennant: Hmm, I like that. So, Chantal, what types of projects have you been working on lately?

Chantal Schmelz: Multidisciplinary ones! I know that’s not the answer you were looking for, but it’s somehow true. So last week, I ran a LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® workshop with 50 people that all work at the overlap of innovation and education. And we worked on the topic of gamification. So it was all mixed and tangled up: multidisciplinary. And I also currently work on two bigger projects with clients that always remind me of Renee Mauborgne’s Blue Ocean Strategy book, because both are existing within long-been-there industries with clear standards and procedures, and also a clear set of thinking or mindset. However, both have unique approaches that lay way outside of the industry norm or what has been known so far. So one is a small fashion label that manages to produce circular fashion. So not just hopping on this sustainability train that the bigger fashion labels have onboarded over the last few years, because it was trendy – where they do textile recycling, which mostly only consists of collecting old clothes, shredding them, and reusing as insulation materials. This small label has managed to really retrieve the raw materials from their clothes and make new ones out of them. And the other one is an even older trade – it’s retail. So it’s a hard discount retailer that is built up in a very similar way to the ALDI concept, from years back. So, old-style retail. However, while ALDI has mostly stuck to industrialized countries for their expansion, they are expanding into the Philippine market with its very unique demographics in a time where the communities there – not only by the pandemic – have already been widely digitalized. They have the need to educate their consumers while not making them feel that they’re being educated. So excellent use cases for multi-disciplinary tasks where I can bring all my skills to the table, not simultaneously, but over the course of time, all of them will be used.

Adrian Tennant: Excellent. Well, you mentioned the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Method. I know you’re a facilitator and certified in the method. Could you explain what it is and how you came to be using LEGO® in facilitation?

Chantal Schmelz: I have two boys at home, so we were playing LEGO®, not very seriously, at home already. And I’ve seen the benefits with my children talking over LEGO® already. I also have an education degree and with all my consultancy customers and clients, I always hit the same brick wall where they just got stuck because you handed them a blank sheet of paper, where they had to note down bullets or ideas, or, had to, come to decisions based on just talking together. And I felt with the education knowledge in the background, that there must be more opportunities to unleash the potential that lays in these discussions. a friend of mine started doing LEGO® and she was like, that’s going to be that solution for unstacking those discussions. So I took upon a challenge and got certified and have ever since had the most amazing experiences with customers, people just wanting to test the method and being really like, “Oh, I didn’t know all these people in the room, but I now somehow feel connected and we could really, without knowing each other, with very different backgrounds, we could work on one topic together in a very appreciative, highly participative way”. So this is for me is the beauty of LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®. And, also how I came to use it in the first place.

Adrian Tennant: What are some of the most common preconceptions clients and participants have about using- I nearly said playing with – using LEGO®?

Chantal Schmelz: Oh, we always say “let’s play,” because I mean, everyone knows it’s a play and playing comes very naturally to all human beings. So, why not to managers and CEOs? However, especially when it’s a highly hierarchical or highly disturbed team there, you always have people [with] crossed arms, eyes rolling, “Oh, yet another team-building event. And I’ve been to tons of them.” And we try to always just say, “Give it a try. If you don’t like it in half an hour, leave it.” And it doesn’t even take half an hour because most of the people, because they know LEGO® from their kids’ rooms and the painful experience when you stumble upon it then, most of them really think you’re gonna childishly play with LEGO®., but it’s a serious play. So there’s a process behind, there is a dedicated outcome you want to achieve. and it’s just enabling discussions in a very easy way that also perfectly works cross-culturally so I’ve had all these crossed arms and funny faces when I tell them we’re going to do LEGO® now, however, in the end, all of them have been rather fascinated by how easy discussions run throughout a day.

Adrian Tennant: Do you typically work with a regular set of LEGO® bricks or is there one particular set that you give to each participant?

Chantal Schmelz: That really depends on whether we play physical, like in locations on-site or whether we do online sessions. If we play online LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®, we go by the standard LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® exploration packs because then it helps that everyone who’s only connected via screen has the same set in front of them. When you have large groups, around big tables, I just really put masses of LEGO® on there, to have them explore everything because there you have another context. So both work with limitations, whether virtually or physically.

Adrian Tennant: What does the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Method certification process look like?

Chantal Schmelz: Actually, LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® was invented by LEGO® themselves as they were looking for a new innovation process that would enable them to get to new products and innovations faster. They used that for a couple of years and in 2010, they decided to make it available under the custom commons license. So there are, of course, they’re supplying the bricks and have kind of part of the earnings on that, but they are not the ones doing the facilitation. There are various companies, master, chief, black belts, LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® gurus that do certifications, but you’re not certified by LEGO® you’re certified by each of those institutions that do certification rounds. However, you get a “how to use the LEGO® brand” custom creative comments manual that you have to follow once you tell the world that you are now officially a LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® facilitator.

Adrian Tennant: Let’s take a short break. We’ll be right back after these messages.

Seth Segura: I’m Seth Segura, VP and Creative Director at Bigeye. Every week, IN CLEAR FOCUS addresses topics that impact our work as creative professionals. At Bigeye, we always put audiences first. For every engagement, we commit to really understanding our clients’ prospects and customers. Through our own primary research, we capture valuable data about people’s attitudes, behaviors, and motivations. These insights inform our strategy and guide our creative briefs. Clients see them brought to life in inspiring, imaginative brand-building and persuasive activation campaigns. If you’d like to put Bigeye’s audience-focused creative communications to work for your brand, please contact us. Email info@bigeyeagency.com. Bigeye. Reaching the Right People, in the Right Place, at the Right Time.

Adrian Tennant: How do you identify?

Voices: Female, male, gender fluid, cis-gender, genderqueer, non-binary, trans-feminine.

Adrian Tennant: Society is constantly changing and evolving. To understand how Americans feel about gender identity and expression, Bigeye undertook a national study involving over 2,000 adult consumers. Over half of those aged 18 to 39 believe that traditional binary labels of male and female are outdated and instead see gender as a spectrum. Our exclusive report, GENDER: BEYOND THE BINARY, reveals how beliefs across different generations influences the purchase of toys, clothes, and consumer packaged goods. To download the full report, go to Bigeye.agency/gender.

Voices: Nonconforming, transgender, two-spirit, trans-masculine, gender fluid.

Adrian Tennant: GENDER: BEYOND THE BINARY.

Adrian Tennant: Welcome back. I’m talking with Chantal Schmelz, a strategist, facilitator, and marketer based in Zurich, Switzerland. Now you mentioned that you’re involved in a very interesting textile company. Could you explain the philosophy behind the Yarn-to-Yarn® process?

Chantal Schmelz: Probably a lot of people already know cradle to cradle as a concept of the Circular Economy and Yarn-to-Yarn® is kind of the adaptation to the textile industry where you say you use materials that can either be easily separated, once clothes are being returned after use. For example, you need to be very careful what patches you sew onto your clothes, what color imprints you use and what tags you use, what buttons, what zippers because they need to be ripped off before the reuse can start. And also, like with cradle to cradle, it’s essential that you don’t mix raw materials in a way that they cannot be separated anymore. So you don’t glue it, you nail it because then it can be separated. And with Yarn-to-Yarn®, you use fibers that can be separated chemically or, with bio enzymes easily. So that in the end you have cotton and polyethylene fibers, as raw materials in the end. So you can have new yarn created out of the raw materials easily. So it’s the same process as cradle to cradle for the textile industry. And at the moment, it’s based on a bio enzyme process that allows to separate cotton and polyethylene fibers, so that they can be totally 100% reused at the end.

Adrian Tennant: Chantal, how did you become involved in this particular technology?

Chantal Schmelz: Actually, it started with Facebook advertising. As I said earlier, a very concrete, clearly framed task someone needed to be done. So for a marketing campaign they needed someone to run the ads for them. And by asking more and more questions, and also being asked questions back, we came to “Okay, there’s more to the strategy that needs to be developed, the storytelling needs to be enlarged, needs to be tailored to certain audiences that are already rejecting fast fashion.” So, it’s really that unconscious or unintentional upselling, how I came to be involved. In the yard to yard and process or project as a consultant.

Adrian Tennant: Chantal, I know you’re also very involved in WEConnect International, Could you tell us a little bit about your work with the organization?

Chantal Schmelz: Yes, I gladly do. So WEConnect is certifying women-owned businesses to give the purchasing partner, the certified buyer. Let’s say Walmart, for example, in the US, they have a hard time figuring out which women-owned business could be a potential supplier for us. So WEConnect kind of bridges that gap, giving the buyer insight into what suppliers they are in the specific areas they’re looking for products or suppliers. In the US, I know because WEConnect originates from the US and you have laws that tell procurement purchasing to what percentage they have to buy from minorities. Whether this is the Black community, or women-owned business, or LGBTQ. So they have like these set rules. In Europe, these rules or regulations, laws, do not exist. At the moment there are so many supply chains in Europe that have zero percent women-owned supply in there. And we try to change that. In my role, I do that for the Swiss market. So I try to first certify the women-owned businesses, assess them, and then also get them in touch with potential buyer-side customers so that we can help to diversify the supply chain as well, because that’s a big chunk of the market that is so far in untapped potential for women-owned businesses.

Adrian Tennant: In which areas of business do you see the most untapped opportunities for women?

Chantal Schmelz: So I think studies have already shown plenty of times that female-led teams or female-led companies, as well as diverse-led teams, sustainably perform with a higher return on investment for investors, for example, than all-male-led teams. So there’s generally a lot of potential in the market for female-owned businesses. However, what we see is that a lot of women directly go into the service area of business: training translation, copywriting, marketing consulting, such as I do. And there is a huge demand for products, med-tech. So the more technical areas where I think that the very mindful approach that women give to building up a company could also not only lead to them tapping into this potential or these opportunities but also sustainably changing industries to more sustainable working.

Adrian Tennant: Chantal, thinking about strategy, what are some of the biggest challenges you’re finding that clients are facing right now?

Chantal Schmelz: Even though we often say that we do forward-looking, future-oriented strategy work, we mostly don’t. We look at past data or data trends and then extrapolate it, to generate a strategy that looks into the future. Mathematically calculated, gut feeling extrapolated. Now with the pandemic that hit the entire world at the same time, looking at past data, and data trends, doesn’t do the trick anymore. And even if you say we only look at the years 2020 to 2021, the underlying assumption remains that this is just an exception and the trends might not continue. So, companies are facing now the challenge that they have to come up with strategies from within and still make sure that their mindset remains agile, to the point where they do short sprints, evaluating new problems, new challenges, ideation, prototyping, testing, and then redoing it over and over again. And I think that’s at the moment, the biggest challenge because lots of bigger companies are still used to long innovation cycles, where they do all the research properly and data analysts spend hours and hours on evaluating and benchmarking before they put anything in front of the customer. And I think that has gone.

Adrian Tennant: Yeah, it makes sense. Chantal, in what kinds of ways are you typically supporting clients with strategy?

Chantal Schmelz: I’m really hard on you in many! No, seriously, it is like with children, if you have the same age, same background of upbringing, same schooling, you still have totally different kids. And this also holds true for businesses. I don’t have the one typical approach of supporting them with their strategy, but I found three things to be of the essence for every good or successful strategy process. One is enabling all involved parties to form a joint understanding of the challenge. Because meeting culture, mostly renders this impossible. It’s like meetings are more of a talking back and forth, just staring at the wall battle, than a co-thinking process that would allow teams to capitalize on their joint knowledge. So setting the stage to enable, facilitate people, to really use this crowd wisdom, to jointly understand the problem, and being able to tell one story with one voice as a team really helps to move forward fast with strategy work. The second one is perspective. A very wise man once said perspective is not what you’re looking at, but where you’re looking from, and we are often caught up in own perspectives and probably don’t see the opportunities that lie right next to us, because our standpoint is not into the right direction. So shifting perspectives in a team can unleash unbelievably creative solutions to problems that seemed impossible to solve before. And the third one is getting the teams, the companies, to the mindset that they do strategies in small increments, and test them, right away. Get them in front of the relevant user, customer stakeholder. Because the most beautiful PowerPoints are totally useless unless you get the user, the customer to buy into them. So I think giving that perspective on the importance of testing, because before data analytics was like the key discipline you had to master. Now it’s testing. Testing, and interpreting data you get from testing in order to move forward fast.

Adrian Tennant: So Chantal, thinking about all the projects that you’ve been involved with across several disciplines, which was your favorite and why?

Chantal Schmelz: Actually very interesting story of a female entrepreneur. When I started with her, probably four years back, she was neither tech-loving, nor did she have any web page, online shop, anything like that. But she’s selling household products designed very nicely, high functional, so excellent, innovative products for the mass market and she was not on the internet at that point. Two years later, she became Amazon Entrepreneur of the Year in Germany. And the transition we made throughout all this, and accompanying her throughout this journey. She was on television on one of these Shark Tank shows, so a really exciting story to be part of. And at the beginning, I would not have imagined that we would manage that at all to get her on the internet, selling on Amazon, not in my wildest dreams. And she’s very successfully launching one product after the other now.

Adrian Tennant: Excellent. Chantal, if IN CLEAR FOCUS, listeners would like to learn more about you, and your work in strategy, facilitation, and marketing, where can they find you?

Chantal Schmelz: Most easily, I’d assume, on LinkedIn. Because there I’m available in all languages that I’m able to speak! 

Adrian Tennant: Perfect. Chantal, thank you very much for being our guest this week on IN CLEAR FOCUS.

Chantal Schmelz: Thank you very much, Adrian, for having me. It was a real pleasure.

Adrian Tennant: Coming up next time on, IN CLEAR FOCUS.

Paige Garrett: In a way that advertising used to be where you trust the channel you’re watching, or you trust the magazine you’re reading, that trust is now in those influencers And not like you’re just getting that content. You’re not just getting served an ad. You’re getting served this person’s entire life or whatever it is that their niche is that they’re sharing about. And that is where that trust is established.

Adrian Tennant: That’s an interview with influencer marketing expert Paige Garrett, next week on IN CLEAR FOCUS. Thanks to my guest this week, Chantal Schmelz: strategist, marketer, and facilitator. You’ll find a transcript with links to the resources we discussed today on the IN CLEAR FOCUS page at bigeyeagency.com. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider following us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Audible, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you for listening to IN CLEAR FOCUS produced by Bigeye. I’ve been your host, Adrian Tennant. Until next week, goodbye.

Bigeye’s guest this week is Ksenia Newton of Brandwatch. Ksenia explains how she triangulates different sources of data, including social listening, to derive fresh consumer insights about shopping behaviors in-store and online. Ksenia shares insights from recent Brandwatch reports and makes some predictions about this year’s holiday shopping season, based on what she’s seeing in her research. We also preview the results of Bigeye’s upcoming study about US shopping behaviors.

Episode Transcript

Adrian Tennant: Coming up in this episode of IN CLEAR FOCUS.

Ksenia Newton: People are willing to spend, and I can see this in the social data. People are all looking for products, so I think that presents a great opportunity for retailers and e-commerce companies to do a little research, understand what their consumers are looking for, and push those deals to test the different offers and kind of start getting them early on.

Adrian Tennant: You’re listening to IN CLEAR FOCUS, fresh perspectives on the business of advertising produced weekly by Bigeye. Hello, I’m your host, Adrian Tennant, VP of insight at Bigeye. A full-service, audience-focused creative agency, we’re based in Orlando, Florida, but serve clients across the United States and beyond. Thank you for joining us. The experience of shopping has been transformed for many of us over the past 18 months as e-commerce has boomed, innovation in retail tech has accelerated, and competition among online retailers has grown. We’ve seen online and offline shopping experiences merge such as order online and pick up in-store. One way of tracking the impact of these changes in consumer behavior is through social listening, enabled by tools that can track information about products, consumers, and purchase intent in real-time. Marketers can use social listing platforms to understand consumer sentiment and improve their own presence on social networks. Our guest today is an expert in this area. A researcher and strategist, Ksenia Newton is the marketing content specialist at the digital consumer intelligence company, Brandwatch. Ksenia likes to think of herself as part social analyst, and part writer, deriving consumer insights from social data and turning those into helpful reports and data-driven stories. To talk about her work with Brandwatch and what she believes the future holds for retail and e-commerce, Ksenia is joining us today from Málaga, Spain. Ksenia, welcome to IN CLEAR FOCUS!

Ksenia Newton: Hi, Adrian. Thank you for having me.

Adrian Tennant: Ksenia, you’re in Málaga, Spain today, but your home base is New York City. What takes you to Málaga?

Ksenia Newton: As a New Yorker, I really tried to extend my summer holidays. Maybe indulge in some paella and finally try out this digital nomad lifestyle, but I’ve also wanted to see Málaga for a long time. I see it has a rich history and beautiful architectural sights, but definitely, paella and wine scored first in my decision-making process. So no shame.

Adrian Tennant: You’re leaving New York City for the first time in months. How does it feel to be traveling again? 

Ksenia Newton: It’s expensive to travel again. Regulations change, you know, basically on a daily basis. So we are traveling, our next point would be Ibiza island which we’re traveling to tomorrow. We just found out that the local government of the island has imposed a new rule that’s in effect from September 8th to September 15th. Everybody who’s traveling from the mainland of Spain has to get a PCR test done. So every PCR test in Europe is over a hundred Euros. So number one, traveling again is very expensive because you just end up spending a lot of money to do PCR tests, no matter where you go from one country to another, from one island to another. Other than that, a lot of people are traveling and what’s surprising is that people actually follow social distancing. A lot of places here require vaccinations, people wear masks, so that’s definitely nice. There’s this little bit of excitement up in the air of people just really enjoying. So I think while we don’t have to talk about the downside of the pandemic, it was devastating, right? Still is, but at the same time, I feel like that gave people just maybe another breath of fresh air because they’re enjoying their life again, right? Before we were able to do all these different things but then once we were no longer able to do anything. And then we are back at traveling, people would just really enjoy their glass of wine, really enjoyed their meal. They really enjoyed the company of their friends. So I think that’s been very interesting to watch, just laughter all around and personal connections, just having a conversation, not a lot of people. And I know, in New York, most of the time people walk around with their phones, just staring at their phone non-stop. In Europe, it’s very different. And I don’t know if it’s always been different, but in Europe, people actually enjoy in-person conversation. Maybe it is an effect of COVID. So hopefully one positive trend that came out of the pandemic is the fact that we kind of just become a little bit more human again. Maybe that’s the case.

Adrian Tennant: Could you explain what Brandwatch is and what types of clients the company serves?

Ksenia Newton: Absolutely. So Brandwatch is a digital consumer intelligence company. We’re based in the UK and while Brandwatch Consumers Research, our flagship platform, can process all kinds of data side-by-side, we are best known for our capabilities in making sense of the voices of billions of people through analyzing different sources, like public social media posts, review sites, video sites, blackboards, and news articles. Currently, we have over 2,000 different clients, from agencies to larger brands, most of them are very well known. Yeah.

Adrian Tennant: Now you’re a marketing content specialist with Brandwatch. What does your role entail?

Ksenia Newton: You can think of me as a social researcher, I would say. So I gather and analyze social data shared publicly by consumers on various topics online. And I turn those insights into posts and reports that are going to help companies and brands better understand and adapt to changing consumer behavior. I think I would call this a social researcher because that’s what I do.

Adrian Tennant: Now you recently wrote and presented a report for Brandwatch, which explores how consumer behaviors have changed since COVID-19 and it looks at their impact on e-commerce for the remainder of this year and into 2022. Ksenia, briefly, could you explain how you obtained data for Brandwatch reports?

Ksenia Newton: Yeah, absolutely. Brandwatch has access to the largest archive of consumer thought and opinion. We’re currently talking about 1.2 trillion public mentions. Our sources include social networks and forums and news sites, review sites, video sites, and as you know, there’s over half a billion new public posts that are being shared every day. And also Brandwatch is a Twitter official partner. So that allows us to access the full fire hose and Brandwatch is the only actual provider who index and stores that entire Twitter data on our servers for instant access. So you can go back all the way back to 2008, I believe, to kind of look at what was happening back then, and then compare those data to the real-time mentions.

Adrian Tennant: So it’s kind of longitudinal data opportunities there as well?

Ksenia Newton: Absolutely. But also, I love reading through data. So sometimes it’s, you know, it wants to sort of look into this. You can fall into that loophole. You just stay there for hours trying to see, “Wow. I can’t believe that actually took place back in 2008.” Right? And how different the world looks like these days. Yeah.

Adrian Tennant: What are some of the most significant trends that you saw evolving during the pandemic and that you believe will prove to have longer-term impacts?

Ksenia Newton: I truly think that the pandemic of 2020 actually has changed the way we do many things, including how we shop. And it’s driven this rapid digital adoption around shopping specifically. So a couple of strands that I can think of right away one is the touch-free, right? We all wanted to have this contactless experience. We don’t want to touch anything. I live in New York. So all of a sudden in New York, our subway has changed from using the regular MetroCard to actually just tapping our card and just paying for it and going through. So people who are looking for this type of experience and I think that is going to be a trend moving forward: touch-free whether, you know, is the experience in-store or online. The other thing that I can speak to is the virtual try-on trend. I think it’s huge. Myself, I’ve purchased products by literally trying them on online. And whether it’s clothing, accessories, there’s also makeup you can do now in 3D, or if you were trying to redesign your space, I think that’s also huge. And the other ones, I would say, is probably social commerce and live streaming. Live streaming is becoming really big, especially in Asia and it’s definitely moving towards the rest of the world. But also the growing power of social marketing and ethical shopping, I think that’s the other trend. I guess we’ve been stuck in the pandemic for so long a lot of people reassess their behavior around shopping. And that also includes social influencers who are, not only promoting certain products, but they also really embrace ethical shopping. So they try to send that message over. So people care a lot more these days about what the brands stand for, what they represent, how ethical they are, and so on and so forth. So I think this is going to be a big one as well.

Adrian Tennant: Bigeye has recently conducted a survey of consumers across the US. And while the data is provisional, it appears that a majority of Gen Z and Gen Y consumers are purchasing based on seeing influencers use, or recommend products. Now, during COVID brands adapted to lockdowns and nonessential store closures by introducing live streaming. Did you see greater adoption of social commerce in your research?

Ksenia Newton: Yeah, I’m actually working on a report right now. It’s the report around COVID-19 and its impact on the consumer behavior moving forward. And something that I currently see in data is not only people shop off to see something that’s being promoted to them by influencers or somebody that they follow. People also shop for a variety of other reasons like impulse buying as well as something to look forward to. So there are a lot of other motivations that I’m just uncovering right now. So I do think there is a greater adoption of social commerce, but people are spending a lot. And actually, I think I read it in Statista. I think it might’ve been an hour extra that people will spend online watching all the different entertainment shows and livestream as well. So, definitely greater adoption, I think it’s going to stay that way because we’ve been through the pandemic for so long that we’ve gotten used to this type of experience. Yeah. I think it’s here to stay. I’ve actually never shopped through a live stream yet. So I’m lagging behind, not an early adopter here!

Adrian Tennant: What kind of impact has TikTok had?

Ksenia Newton: Yeah, as you know, TikTok is one of the world’s fastest-growing entertainment platforms. I know that they’re currently trying to invest heavily in social commerce. They’ve just partnered up with Shopify and I think it’s going to be a great deal because the majority of users on TikTok are Gen Z. So I remember from last year there were a couple of fashion brands that went viral with their little videos on TikTok. And I think TikTok is going to grow. First of all, I think they’re planning on launching new features to compete with Instagram shopping and Facebook shopping. So there’ll be a lot of that. I feel like it links probably advertising, a lot of brand-sponsored content as well. I know they’re in the process of evolving and I really think it is going to actually make a huge difference. I’m very curious to see how it’s going to play.

Adrian Tennant: At Bigeye, we typically categorize social media influences by the number of people following their accounts. So mega influencers have 1 million or more followers, macro influencers are those with 100,000 up to 1 million followers. Micro influencers are those with 1,000 and up to 99,000 followers. And finally, nano influencers are those whose accounts typically have fewer than 1,000 followers. Now in our preliminary research data, we see that in addition to purchasing products based on influencers, consumers are sharing those purchases with their social networks. Ksenia, are we approaching the point of which everyone with a social media account is potentially a nano influencer?

Ksenia Newton: I think it’s a good one. You can be an influencer too, right? I think it’s very important. What makes nano influencers different from the rest is first of all, our attention span is nowhere close to what it used to be, right? And you only care about those, that you either know, or they could make a huge impact in your life. I think, for example, I follow a girl from my gym, right? She has just slightly over 4,000 followers on her Instagram, but because I’ve seen her in person, she’s not my friend, but I’ve seen her in person at the gym and then I found her account. I’m a lot more likely to actually pay attention to what she is advertising. So to your point, I do think that nano influencers are going to have a huge impact. And in fact, because their audience is so much more engaged than say, you might have a hundred, thousand followers, but if you look at Instagram, your photo might get maybe a hundred likes and that doesn’t even mean anything, because as we scroll through, we just click, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. So I think nano influences are going to become a lot more important just because their audience is very concentrated, a lot more engaged, they actually pay attention versus just scrolling endlessly mindlessly scrolling through. Yeah. So with my 1,517, I believe, on Instagram. If only I can figure out what the focus should be. I can be a nano influencer too!

Adrian Tennant: Let’s take a short break. We’ll be right back after these messages. 

Seth Segura: I’m Seth Segura, VP and Creative Director at Bigeye. Every week, IN CLEAR FOCUS addresses topics that impact our work as creative professionals. At Bigeye, we always put audiences first. For every engagement, we commit to really understanding our clients’ prospects and customers. Through our own primary research, we capture valuable data about people’s attitudes, behaviors, and motivations. These insights inform our strategy and guide our creative briefs. Clients see them brought to life in inspiring, imaginative brand-building and persuasive activation campaigns. If you’d like to put Bigeye’s audience-focused creative communications to work for your brand, please contact us. Email info@bigeyeagency.com. Bigeye. Reaching the Right People, in the Right Place, at the Right Time.

Adrian Tennant: How do you identify?

Voices: Female, male, gender fluid, cis-gender, genderqueer, non-binary, trans-feminine.

Adrian Tennant: Society is constantly changing and evolving. To understand how Americans feel about gender identity and expression, Bigeye undertook a national study involving over 2,000 adult consumers. Over half of those aged 18 to 39 believe that traditional binary labels of male and female are outdated and instead see gender as a spectrum. Our exclusive report, GENDER: BEYOND THE BINARY, reveals how beliefs across different generations influences the purchase of toys, clothes, and consumer packaged goods. To download the full report, go to Bigeye.agency/gender.

Voices: Nonconforming, transgender, two-spirit, trans-masculine, gender fluid.

Adrian Tennant: GENDER: BEYOND THE BINARY.

Adrian Tennant: Welcome back. I’m talking with Ksenia Newton, marketing content specialist at Brandwatch. In our survey, we asked respondents how likely it is that certain scenarios will happen within this decade. Ksenia, it probably won’t surprise you to know that over one-half of gen Z respondents believe that by 2030, many retail stores will include studio space for customers to create their own videos and show product demonstrations as live streams. We’re also starting to see some beauty retailers set up like this, but do you think it could be the norm sooner than 2030?

Ksenia Newton: I’m really not surprised. Just a few days ago, I was in Madrid, and we went to a local store, I believe it was Burshka. And I saw a big LED ring light right there in the store, that would allow you to take beautiful selfies and model their clothing. And I saw people, definitely on the younger side, just try it on: jeans, jackets, spinning around, taking photos, maybe live streaming.  I wanted to stand behind and watch what they were doing, but I couldn’t. It’s not very ethical, I don’t think 2030 is the year. I think it’s already here and it’s not because it’s happening and I’m sure it’s happening a lot more than I’m aware of. It’s just, I don’t ever go and shop in stores. This is a very rare occasion. I’m more of an online person. but it’s already here and I’ve seen people do this, so it’s definitely here. We don’t need 20 years. It’s happening now.

Adrian Tennant: A trend we’re also seeing in our data is a greater interest in recycling and upcycling. Again, especially among the younger generation. In our survey, approaching one third of generation Z reported buying from a store specializing in pre-owned or vintage clothing in the past six months, with almost two in every five saying they bought pre-owned clothes or accessories from a thrift store. Ksenia, what do you think lies behind this? Is it a rejection of fast fashion or can fast fashion and thrifting co-exist?

Ksenia Newton: Yeah, it’s a great question. Actually, something that I recently read from a Deloitte study and I saw in my data as well, because I am working on this new report right now, while gen Z and millennials were mostly concerned last year about their health and jobs, both generations remain deeply concerned about the environment still. So that’s one thing and also I think the pandemic has prompted many consumers to reassess something that I mentioned earlier as well, to reassess their lifestyle, and in particular, their shopping behavior as well. And I realized just how much garbage I started producing, right? I was shopping for groceries online. I realized that while everything came was delivered to me and perfectly packed boxes and plastic-wrapped and everything was perfectly fine, no damage done to the food, but at the same time, I realized just how much garbage it produces because I see this on a daily basis. So I think there is a new trend. People are reassessing how they shop. And I think fast fashion can coexist with secondhand shopping, but I also do think that a lot of people are reassessing really looking at it and into maybe when it comes to fashion specifically, maybe looking into better fabric, a more ethically produced fabric and something that they can wear over a longer period of time or to reuse the existing items. I do think it’s a new trend.

Adrian Tennant: The increase in spending on e-commerce during COVID-19 has been well-documented with almost every category benefiting from the fact that many consumers like yourself were under stay in place orders. Last year, Walmart captured 25 percent of the US e-commerce grocery market. And eMarketer predicts that Walmart will continue to outsell its main rival Amazon, at least in the grocery category. Ksenia, do you foresee e-commerce revenues in other categories remaining as strong if and or when people go back to shopping in real stores?

Ksenia Newton: Yeah, it’s a great question. And I think consumers have gotten very used to the convenience of getting everything delivered, and going back to shopping may not be the same anymore, because a lot of the time people, even if they go to shop in stores, they actually do this kind of window shopping, right? They look at the product, they test it out, see how it feels, what it looks like, maybe how it smells, and then they go online and buy it for cheaper. So I think it’s a big problem actually for retailers. So I think e-com is going to grow big time. I don’t think it’s going to experience any slowdown whatsoever. And then I got a lot of trends, like I mentioned, the impulse buying, So it’s also there, there are things that I’m seeing right now in my data, such as different types of motivations on why people are shopping online. And that’s, sometimes you shop for something for an essential item, but sometimes you just shopping because you want to have something to look forward to. Or because you’re impulse buying. Where you need a quick dopamine fix. That’s something that I’ve been guilty of as well. So I think e-commerce revenues are going to grow for sure. So yeah, I look forward to seeing how that’s going to affect extra in-store experience and retailers as well.

Adrian Tennant: Well, you were in New York City during the lockdowns. From a personal perspective, how did your shopping behaviors change, if at all?

Ksenia Newton: Yeah. I’ve always been shopping online for the most part. But something that I mentioned already, if you have to go into the office, if you have to leave your house, you don’t necessarily see just how much garbage you’ve produced. So the fact that I was home 24/7, and everything that I’ve produced, I was able to actually see, I realized just how much garbage I started producing. From my experience, I guess the fact was that I started really looking at becoming a little bit more sustainable. And that includes buying, you know, reusable items like containers that I can just store food in, buying organically or ethically or produced food, or, not taking plastic bags and so on and so forth. That’s my perspective. I think my shopping behavior has been definitely shaped by the fact that I started seeing all these different things that I create. and now I’m trying to adjust them, whether it’s buying bottles that are reusable bottles for water or not taking plastic, whatever it is, or maybe not even buying something from a retailer or from a brand that I don’t think if their mission doesn’t really, align with my mission or my views or values. So that’s definitely been a trend in my personal life, 

Adrian Tennant: When we spoke a couple of weeks ago, you remarked that in New York City, you can order all of your essential items online and have them delivered, meaning that you never have to leave your apartment. What do you think retailers are going to need to do in order to entice shoppers like you, who’ve grown accustomed to convenience, back to physical stores for in-person shopping.

Ksenia Newton: Yeah, isn’t that a million-dollar question? I think it’s a great question. I do think the way I can be enticed into going back into the store is if maybe I was offered a special deal of some kind that’s not available online, right? Maybe there is a limited production of a particular product that’s only available in-store at a particular location within a short period of time. That creates that sense of urgency, right? That sense of exclusivity that you have to be there to be one of those people who got that exclusive deal. Maybe it’s creating this great, in-store shopping experience because online shopping is great, but it’s not for everyone, right? A lot of the time you kind of still want to have a feel of the product, the item you’re buying. So whether it’s clothing, you might want to have a good setup that you can see yourself from all different angles, or whether it’s food or furniture, whatever that is, maybe providing some additional services. I think retailers will have to work hard on actually getting their customer base back in real stores. But then again, I think it all depends on the generation. So I’m a millennial. I shop online, but not everybody shops online, so hopefully, retailers can find their audience and maybe build up on them.

Adrian Tennant:  For a report Brandwatch published on customer loyalty, you collaborated with Global Web Index, a syndicated research provider, and full disclosure here, Bigeye is a client of GWI. What did that collaboration look like? How did you use the GWI data?

Ksenia Newton: Yeah, sure. We approached them about the report we were working on. And actually, GWI was very open about collaborating and combining our datasets. So they provided the data we needed alongside the social data we collected, using our platform so we could compare and contrast. I think they worked out very well, because we’re able to compare social data that we have as well as the survey data to represent everyone. That report is actually very successful. We had a lot of great feedback. 

Adrian Tennant: In that study, what factors emerged as key drivers of customer loyalty and what are some of the implications for retailers and brands?

Ksenia Newton: So the three main factors that emerged in the study were price or value for money as well as quality and delivery. And it’s something that really defines whether consumers are going to become loyal or whether they’re going to detract from the brands. So, especially, I think when it comes to delivery again, we’ve gotten so used to the convenience of having a delivery in place that customers can turn away. The customers will praise you for giving them options, whether it’s a curbside pickup or delivery, or any other type of option, but they will also go online and complain if you don’t deliver it according to their expectations. So the implications there would be as we got stuck at home for so long, our expectations started growing in terms of what e-commerce and retail brands should be delivering. So I think the implication here is e-commerce and retail brands should really work hard and kind of addressing these three key areas, whether it’s price, value for money, delivery or quality of products to kind of stay afloat and develop their loyal base because loyalty is really hard to win and consumers have become a lot more, and I know it’s a cliche, digitally savvy. We’ve been digitally savvy for a very long time, but because we’ve been stuck at home for so long, a lot more people became aware where they can buy certain products, how they can buy them, which retailers offer a particular product at a lower price, and what retailer will give them a better deal or a better delivery or convenient to you. So I think, again, branded companies need to work really hard on addressing these three key areas to deliver on the expectations that consumers have. 

Adrian Tennant: Of course it’s that time of year when, as consumers, the holidays are starting to come into view. Ksenia, do you have any predictions you can share about what this year’s holiday season shopping will look like?

Ksenia Newton: Yeah, actually, great question. As you remember, last year, there were shortages everywhere. Right? A lot of people didn’t get their orders in time, not only in time, but it took months to get, whether it’s holiday or not people were ordering furniture, mid-Summer, and they just started getting their furniture maybe seven months later. So when I started noticing my data right now, as I’m working on this new report, a lot of people are trying to make sure that their orders are delivered on time. So they’re already looking for presents around for holidays. a lot of people were actually mentioned pre-order in their conversations. It’s something that I think everybody is trying to get their presence on time to make sure they don’t have any sticky situations. So I think that presents a really good opportunity for retailers, e-commerce, brands to maybe start testing different offers online, whether it’s trying to test different offer or different products. You’re just going to see what works, test it out right now. So then by the time the holiday season comes here, the right offer is in place and they can secure those sales. So the holiday shopping is not going to stop. The holiday shopping is here. I think the last year people held onto to their disposable income, not knowing what’s going to happen. But now that we’ve lived through this pandemic for this long, it has been 18 months, I think we settled, and people are willing to spend, and I can see this in the social data. People are out looking for products, they’re willing to spend. but they do a lot more research. So I think that presents a great opportunity again, for retailers and eCommerce companies to do a little research, understand what their consumers are looking for and push those deals to test the different offers and start getting them early on. Yeah, but I think this holiday season is going to be big for e-commerce.

Adrian Tennant: Ksenia, a significant part of your role is taking social and other types of data and creating stories around them that convey key insights from the data. Could you walk us through your typical process for ensuring that data stories get the points across most effectively for their intended audiences?

Ksenia Newton: Yeah, absolutely. And I think a really good example to that would be what I mentioned earlier about motivations. So for example, right now I’m looking into why consumers are doing impulse shopping. So not only when I go about my research process, not only I look for what’s happening, I’m also looking into why it’s happening. So there’s a number of different motivations to why consumers are doing impulse shopping. So when I personally read reports, as a reader, when I read reports, I’m always looking for that why. What’s the why behind this? So what, and what’s the why. And I think that’s the approach that I’m trying to follow with creating these reports: not only identify what the trend is, but understand what’s behind that trend to give us just a little bit more information, to our readers. What the behavior is like, what’s causing that behavior and maybe what they can do from there. So yeah, the typical day would be really looking into social data, trying to understand what the trend looks like, what are the conversations about, where’s it being used in describing certain trends, but also understanding who is saying what? Because we are able to look at the different demographic data. We can actually split our data in terms of generations. So it’s also very interesting to look at what millennials are saying and what gen Z is saying and how they’re viewing their experiences as well as everybody else. Does that answer your question?

Adrian Tennant: Yeah. It’s interesting the way you describe it. It’s a mix of quantitative and qualitative research all bundled into one, which is unusual. And then we’re used to doing mixed methods research where we might typically start off with a qualitative focus group. To understand the issues and then design a quantitative survey based on those insights to validate at scale. Here you’re dealing quite a lot with historic data, as you say, and what people are talking about online. How do you keep that quantitative and qualitative mindset in play? 

Ksenia Newton: Yeah, it’s a great question. So we have social panels, it’s one of our features in Brandwatch Consumer Research. You can think of it as a focus group, because you can create your own demographics. So you can actually set up the generation that you want to look at. You can put age, you can look for certain criteria, for example, what people say they do. For example, if you only want to look at people who say, people who are in the medical field. So for example, right now, as part of my research, I’m looking into the impact of COVID-19 on medical professionals and the healthcare field. And I’m specifically looking for conversations where people either say, in their bio on Twitter, for example, I’m a doctor, I’m a healthcare professional. Or they say these in conversations: I used to be a doctor and so on and so forth. So in this way you can do this and you don’t even have to get anyone involved because that conversation is already available. Those insights are already available online. We just have to use the right criteria, the right filters to set this up. and Voila! You have all the data available in real-time. I would say, this is a good combination. You can look at the data using just Brandwatch Consumer Research. Look at the numbers behind, look at the mentioned volume, look at the number of how, many mentions of X, Y, and Z word, happened in, maybe earlier this year, but then you can also look at a specific population, whether it’s medical professionals with students or people who said they prefer to impulse buy, and just create the overall understanding about that particular group or that particular population. So I think that’s a good combination. I really like using social panels, especially when I have to look at a very specific subset of the population trying to understand how they feel about a particular aspect or area or product, or service.

Adrian Tennant: Great. Ksenia, if IN CLEAR FOCUS listeners would like to learn more about you, where can they find you?

Ksenia Newton: Absolutely. You’re welcome to find me on LinkedIn, Ksenia Newton. I think I’m the only one. There might be another person, but should be at the top of the search. You can also follow me on Twitter even though I’m not as active. You’d be surprised, but I usually listen. I rarely comment, but I’m going to be there all day long just to listen, read the conversation, understand and follow, but I never really tweet, but yeah. Feel free to follow me on LinkedIn and Twitter, or you can also shoot me an email. If you have a specific question, I’m happy to respond and it’s knewton@brandwatch.com.

Adrian Tennant: And if people are interested in learning more about Brandwatch, where should they go?

Ksenia Newton: Yeah, you guys are welcome to visit our website at www.brandwatch.com. Feel free to check out our blog. We have a lot of interesting insights and we just published our emoji report, which is phenomenal. So it’s brandwatch.com/blog, or also we have a whole resource section that’s free. You don’t need to subscribe, just visit our website. You can read all sorts of reports, trends, blogs, posts, and really have that understanding.

Adrian Tennant: Ksenia, thank you very much for being our guest this week on IN CLEAR FOCUS!

Ksenia Newton: Thank you for having me.

Adrian Tennant: Coming up next time on IN CLEAR FOCUS:

Chantal Schmelz: I go wherever people ask for any kind of change. So I’m, I’m really like, I’m loving the process of enabling people to love change and not be frightened about it.

Adrian Tennant: That’s an interview with Chantal Schmelz, creative facilitator and an expert in using the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Method. That’s next week on IN CLEAR FOCUS. Thanks to my guest this week, Ksenia Newton, marketing content specialist at Brandwatch. You’ll find a transcript with links to the resources we discussed today on the IN CLEAR FOCUS page at Bigeyeagency.com. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider following us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Audible, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you for listening to IN CLEAR FOCUS, produced by Bigeye. I’ve been your host, Adrian Tennant. Until next week, goodbye.