BEYOND THE PLOT: Directing Elevated Insights

Hello everyone and welcome to the October installment of the Accelerant Research Virtual Insights Conference. My name is Bill McDowell. I'm the president of Accelerant Research. I'm going to be kicking us off for today, but get out of the way quickly so that we can get right to presenters and the content that everybody is here for. Um I'm going to play the role of this is a virtual conference. So, if we were in person, I'm the dude at the podium while everyone is filing in with their coffee and Danish's going through housekeeping and announcements. So, I'll do that real quick. First thing is I want to remind everyone Well, I want to thank everyone for attending. If you've never been to one of our Virtual Insights Conferences before, welcome. If you've been here before, welcome back. Um our format is pretty simple. It's all day kind of back-to-back webinars. We encourage everyone attending to be as engaged as possible to certainly ask questions, chat with one another. You know, make it as lively as we can. This is obviously a virtual event and we can't be in person shaking each other's hands and bumping into each other in the buffet line, but you know, we'll sort of do our best as it were, right? Um I want to remind everyone that in four short weeks we'll actually be doing this again. We'll have a November version of this very same conference. If you have not registered for that, feel free to go to accelerantresearch.com, click on the conferences tab, and you can go right to to that registration. That'll be our last conference of the year. We'll take a little hiatus for the holidays and we will bounce back. We're trying to do these about monthly starting in January, February of next year. So, you know, if you have any topics that are that are, you know, on your mind and you'd like to, you know, share or presentations that you'd like to give, please feel free to submit ideas and topics to us. We're certainly open to that. Otherwise, you know, hopefully this is pretty compelling content. So, we'll hope to see you back here to attend another one in the future. Just wanted to go through real quick our ground rules that we have sort of, you know, operated by when we've been doing these conferences. Reminder that we're at the mercy of tech. Our presenters are often remote. None of us are in the same room together and, you know, sometimes stuff happens. I think we all got very used to this during during COVID, but you know, if I don't know if a connection craps out or if there's anything that glitches out, be patient. We'll get back as soon as we can, obviously. Be respectful. This is not something that we often have to really worry about, but you know, virtual conference, there is sometimes the desire or or the tendency to, you know, be behind the keyboard and to be a little bit more aggressive than than one typically would. We tend to have a pretty pretty polite bunch of attendees, so this is not something we have to deal with often, but just keep that in mind. Be respectful to one another. Be respectful respectful to our presenters. Um but that doesn't mean that you should not be engaging to the extent possible. You know, network with one another as attendees. Jump in the chat. Jump in the Q&A. Whether you are attending via the Zoom webinar or you're over on YouTube attending the live stream. You know, jump in that chat Try to try to engage with one another. Introduce yourselves. You know, shake those virtual hands as it were. If you get on the socials, use the hashtag ARVIC to get engaged in that regard. Real quick, I wanted to just run through So, we're about to begin our first presentation. We've got two more that that are happening after that. Original plan was we had four presentations lined up today, but we did have a little bit of a a schedule shuffle Uh uh last minute. We had one who was expected to be our first presenter who had an emergency and had to to bail. Uh so, we Our presenters were gracious enough to do a little bit of a schedule shuffling, and we are now getting started on time, but we're going to end the conference just an hour early uh in the afternoon. I don't think anybody's going to complain about that. Um but after the current presentation coming up at noon Eastern is going to be Denise and Jim doing a presentation on research democratiza-democratization. Uh and that's going to be followed by Julia Swan, who's going to be presenting on internal operations, how startups learn from their own data, and when to call it research. Uh but our first presenter of the day is Loretta, and she's going to be giving us a talk about beyond the plot, directing elevated insights. Um I'm going to stop sharing. I'm going to hand off to Loretta and let her do her thing. >> Hello, everyone. All right, let's see. Thank you, Bill, for organizing this. I just discovered that this exists uh a couple of months ago, and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, this is such a cool program." I'm like, "I want to get on the list now and get all of the invites so I can see." So, thank you for having me. Uh this is uh Well, actually, let me start off by saying who likes movies? And let me see. I'm doing this [clears throat] I'm not sure if I can have my chat open at the same time. But uh so, this is part of that at the mercy of tech that Bill was talking about. [sighs] But um if you like movies, what is the genre that you are really into? Uh just curious. >> And I can handle that for you, Loretta. I'll give you the voice over. We've got a couple of thrillers, Halloween theme obviously sci-fi psychological thrillers, um Yeah, thrillers and sci-fi, romance. >> Okay, okay. So, are you um the kind of person that is like my husband, where you watch anything? You know, if it's if it's on TV, I just like to have TV on. I'll sit down, I'll watch any kind of movie. Or are you kind of like me? I'm a little bit pickier. It's like, you know what? If there's nothing on, I'm just not even going to turn on the TV. Nothing interesting for me. So, so, which one are y'all? Are you more of the picky kind, or you more of the specific, it's got to be exactly what I want kind? So. Well, think about it. Um and well, today we're going to be talking about movies, and also marketing research insights, because this after all, um Vils company has is is all about marketing research and insights. So, it's like, what does movies have to do with that? And I'll have to I'll get there for you. But, one thing I like to say is my goal today, my personal goal, is to make this the most engaging presentation of your entire day. And I know that's a high bar. I don't think I'll get there, but that is always my goal when I have these um talk to anybody. Okay, so, who is Loretta? Um My this is me, Loretta Hudalou. I married a French guy. My last name is not pronounced the way it's spelled. Um I love to tell stories with data. I get a kick out of that. To me, that's fun. Love to build bridges, and um also uh educate. I like to teach people. And this is the companies that I have worked for over my career. It's always been on the corporate side. Um and in 2018, I started as an adjunct professor at UT Dallas and I've been doing that teaching marketing research. And um I was most recently with Verizon. I left at the end of last year and picked up some more classes and now I'm doing some consulting. Um so this is me. Connect with me on LinkedIn please. I'd like to stay in touch and okay, so you ready for the movie part? And I I couldn't use the Netflix sound. I I looked it up but apparently it's copyrighted and they wouldn't let me. So in your mind, imagine hearing the Netflix uh music when you first turn it on which is Tada! Okay, so that's what you're supposed to be hearing in your mind. Okay, so I'm going to play a game. Do you want to play a game? So what I have is, I have six different movie genres here, and within each of these genres, I'm going to show two movies side by side. And I want you to think in your mind or tell me if you want to write it in, and Bill, you have to be my, uh, translator since I can't see the chat. How are these two movies different? Besides the obvious, but how are they different? So here's the first category. This is superheroes. Aquaman and the Black Panther. How are they different? Hm, they're both superheroes. Both successful in their own right monetarily. Here's another one. Action movies. Fast and Furious versus John Wick. Both very successful. They have both have franchise and gotten lots and lots of movies sold, but are they the same or are they different? There's one more. This one's a little trickier. In the drama category, you've got The Blind Side and then you have Oppenheimer. They are both good movies. Um The Blind Side, there's nothing wrong with that. But is it the same as Oppenheimer? Oppenheimer? I wonder. And then here's the other categories that I've got for comedy, Bridesmaids versus Groundhog, and then for animation, got Despicable Me versus Soul. And then for horror genre, we have Scream versus Get Out. So have you Are you seeing a theme here? One is just They're good ones on the left side and they are elevated on the right. I'm not saying that the ones on the left, they're just average. Except, well, maybe Aquaman, but got Jason Momoa in there, so I can't say it's terrible. But all the other ones, they're good movies. They were successful. Um >> Hey Loretta. >> Yes. >> Sorry to Sorry to interrupt. Um you're you're not sharing slides at the moment. The >> Oh, I am not. Okay. The voice over screen wasn't fine. Let me try this one more time. And I Can I tell you how glad I am that you said that we are at the mercy of tech? >> Always. Always like to introduce like that. >> Okay, can you see this now? >> Uh not yet. >> Oh, let me see. Okay. Uh All right, let me I would How How do I do the presentation? Um Full screen Do I have the ability How do you How do you share the screen here? >> The bottom of your uh Zoom, you should have a share button right in the middle there. Yeah. >> All right. Is this even any better? >> Yeah, it's sharing and in full screen. So, you're good to go. >> Awesome. Okay. Great. So, I apologize. So, this is Beyond the Plot. You can see the Netflix background screen. This is me. This is how you say my name, Huda Low. These are the companies that I've worked for. And please connect with me with LinkedIn. And I am most recently um teaching at UT Dallas and also consulting. Okay, so these are the movie genres. So, this was the good part, the stuff that I unfortunately didn't show you at the same time I introduced it. So, here is the first category, Aquaman and Black Panther. Here is the second category, the action movie Fast and Furious and John Wick. And then the last one or sorry, the last one on the top row, which is The Blind Side and Oppenheimer. And then down here at the bottom, you have Bridesmaids and Groundhog for the comedy genre. Despicable Me and Soul for animation and then Scream and Get Out for horror. So, what I was saying is that all of these are good movies. They're successful movies, but the ones that are on the right are a little bit different. They just go a little bit above and beyond. So, what makes a good movie versus an elevated movie? Well, in this case a good movie is going to fulfill the genre promise. It's going to deliver on, "Hey, you know what? I want action. I want thrills. I want to be scared. I want to see gorgeous abs like Jason Momoa's." It's going to do that. However, on the elevated side, what they do is they take the genre and then they go a little bit deeper, a little bit elevated. What's the social, the psycholog-psychological, the moral situation going on. The second thing they do is they have tropes that drive the plot. Whereas on the other side, its tropes are used as metaphors. Conflict's pretty clear on the good stuff, but on the good movies, but on the elevated movies, the conflict's inside. It's what's going on in your head. What are the systems? And then finally, a good movie is all about functional quality videos. Gosh, it's gorgeous. You just can't get over the the chase scenes in Fast and Furious. But in the elevated side, it's going to be a little bit more about what's going on in the internal state of the world. All right, this is nice, Loretta, beautiful, wonderful. What does this have to do with research and marketing insights? I say that this can be paralleled over into marketing research. So what we have here is you have good research, and I'm again, I am not talking about crap. I'm talking about stuff that you it's a solid, you get a good grade. What I'm talking about is how do I do research where people walk away and go, "Oh, wow. Yes, that's it. That's it. That's it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. This is exactly what I needed." Well, the difference is between a good and an elevated insights and research is good is about validating your hypotheses. What do you expect? What did you see? What did you actually How is it the same or different? Whereas elevated, it's going to go deeper. What is the reality of, "Hmm, so what?" Then it's going to focus on accuracy and KPI. These are the numbers. This is what you asked for. Here's what the numbers are. But really, what people resonate to more than anything and it stays with them and they win awards, um at least in movie side of things, is human truths and data. How do the human piece of it all connect together? You can have your standardized output. It's going to be a gorgeous presentation, gorgeous deck. But what you're trying to really do in order to make this elevated impact is build a case for how you should change what is currently in place to something that could be better. And then lastly, you can address your stated objectives versus you can say, "Look, we're building towards where we want to go. What is our North Star into the future? What is a macro view that can generate future foresight?" Okay, so you tease it up. Awesome, Loretta. How do I do it? Give me the secret sauce. And this is the part where you're going to go, "Yeah, wait a minute. I already knew that." This is where it's two tools, and they're two tools that you are more than likely familiar with. And I'll warn you. Um they're fairly simple, but they're hard to do, and they're hard to do correctly. Before I tell you what they are, have you ever been in a situation where you give people exactly what they say they want? They ask for something, and you give it to them. "This is what I want." You give it to them, and then like, "Well, thank you very much. I really wanted this concept test. Great. Thank you. I got a concept test. But it's not exactly what they need. So, when you give it to them, they're like,"Thank you."They look you in the eye, and they say,"This is amazing. This is good, but no, it's kind of missing the mark, and I take it back. It's not really amazing. And oh, by the way, it's your fault because you're supposed to know what I'm what I need, even though I can't tell you what it is." I know that happens to me in research. All over. It happens in life. It happens in relationships. It happens everywhere. So, these two tools I have found work for insights as well as all types of situations. It's a five whys exercise or root cause analysis and then also your plain old research brief. Because if you are asking when you talk to people and you say, "What do you want? How can I help you?" Um The five whys exercise I should say is a consulting technique. This is a root cause analysis. It was started by in the 1930s by the owner of um the founder of Toyota. And it was a way to really understand how do we track the symptoms. So you keep asking a question, you probe deeper and deeper until you supposedly get asking it why five times. You don't have to use the word five or why. Um so if I was going to talk to someone and say, "Hey what what can I do for you? We need a new packaging test.""Well, why do you need a new packaging test?""Oh, cuz the packaging is ugly. It's just dated. It's it's ugly. I need new packaging test." And then on the research brief side you would say,"Well, what are your objectives? What do you want to do with this?" But if you go deeper and you keep asking why five times um or the equivalent of it, you might find that the reason why they think the packaging is ugly is because well, younger people aren't people aren't they're not buying it as much. It's just old, it's dated, and it feels like we're out of touch. The brand's out of touch. That is a different ask than fix my packaging. And what I do with this in the research brief side, which I found to be very helpful and it's also helpful, um, with students too when I talk to them, is I say,"What do I need to do so that when I am done, you say, 'Oh my gosh, Loretta, you win.'"This is amazing. I want to use you forever. I want to come back to you again and again.'" And what would I have to do? And then I wait. I give an I give time for the for the client to respond and they go, "Hmm, let me think about that." And then they come back and what you're forcing them to do is tell you the number one most thing that you have to do in order to make your project successful. And it's hard because sometimes you can't get a hold of your clients. Sometimes people don't call you back. Sometimes you have to make assumptions and then go back and follow up and say, "Is this right?" Okay, let me show you a case study. Um let's see. So, this is one blinded, but I had a stakeholder who was saying, "Hey look, it was an industrial design team that was in charge of new hardware tech. They wanted to replace an old out outdated version." Basically packaging refresh. And we had several rounds of research. What I was asked to do was test the 2D version of it and then it would go on to a 3D concept test. So, we did a pretty big study. It was 9 1,900 people and it was quantitative. We did MaxDiff. We had eight concepts. We rotated them. It was really great, and this was the output that we got, which, um, on the concept name column, you can see who I blinded them, but the concepts we tested, and then the MaxDiff was the likely to display, and then, like, all the columns to the right are the top two box attributes and, and then you have rows for what was rated top, middle, and bottom. Haven't lost you yet? Kind of dull. Not that exciting. And then there's green arrows where they compared to three or more or one arrow. Is it good? Yes. Is it accurate? Yes. Is it boring? Yes. And people don't want to see that. So, I'm thinking, "Hmm, how do I get this to the elevated space? It's correct. And I know there people that want to see this, especially my key stakeholder. They want to know this data? But it's something's missing. What do we need? So, whenever I get in these situations, like how do I make it elevated? I go back to the most important really most important objective from that research brief for the five wise. What is the number one thing they say they have to happen in order for me to win? So, I was also thinking about the human truths and who is in the room. And this was a very political project. We had one side of the room were designers, people who made the design. And they wanted something gorgeous. They wanted one, the product to win, two, actually um be so beautiful you could display it and people weren't going to hide away cuz it didn't perform as well when it's hidden. And then you have the business people on the other side of the room. And the business people are saying,"You got to make money. Yeah, pretty's nice, but if you don't make money, we ain't going to sell this and it's going to die." So, over here on the right are all the different things that were the criteria I was told that needs to be done um and measured. And I stopped. I thought,"Well, what do these two groups really care about? These two factions or two competing sides, well I should let me say it that way. And they wanted these two things measured. Um How pretty is it? How well can it be displayed? And then is it going to make money? So, I thought, "All right, how do I put this in a story so that's actually interesting?" And at the beginning of this conversation, I asked my I mentioned my goal is to make this the most engaging presentation of your day. And I started off with a game. And I want to do the same thing. I found this works really well whenever I'm talking to people. It's like, "Hey, you want to play a game?" And everyone's like, "Yeah, sure. Keep me awake. I need more coffee. Help me." So, what I did is I said, "All All who do you think's going to win? Here's all of our six concepts. Who do you think's going to win? And again, my key stakeholder who leads, so he was okay with me doing this. Um but I asked pointedly, I asked the business people, who do you think's going to win? And customers are going to say this is the best one. And oh, they say digital clock because it's very functional. I can know the time, it tells me exactly what I need. And then I asked the designers, who do you think's going to win? Oh, panther because panther's sleek and beautiful and gorgeous. And then I go well actually, it was wedding cake. Wedding cake was the one that won. And then everyone's engaged, they're leaning forward, and they go, wow, why? Why? Why? Why? And then I take that same information from the grid that might have put you to sleep um earlier, the very sound, logical, co-factually correct grid, and I pull off the information that's most important, and I put this on the two major axes that people care about, likely to display on the bottom, and then willing for on the vertical axis. And then I say, okay, here's how they fall. And then you can see visually what it looks like. And like, okay, where is uh panther? Panther's in the top of the right, but not but just barely. And then clock, digital clock is over there on the left. But you know what you should pay attention to is wedding cake is of the existing ones that we tested, not bad, but our competitors are ahead of us. So, you really need to pay attention to that. I think it gets hidden when it's in that other format. The other thing that I do to keep it really top of mind and elevated so people are going, oh, yeah, I got it. Thank you very much. Is I always put it in a one-pager that sums up the most important thing you need to know. And this is hard because we have all this great data that we're married to that we love. Um what What it look like when you boil it down? It's like, well, I'm going to miss some details. Keep the details. Keep them in the other pages, but have one page that says,"Okay, these are the two ones of the existing one that we suggest that she advance. You need to keep in mind that the competitors are still there and they're doing a better job." So, that's how you deliver something that is needed and gets to an elevated story. And then just lastly here, how does AI play into this? I used AI for this whole thing, this whole deck. I used it as a tool. I used it to help me come up with the categories. I didn't know a lot of these movies. I haven't seen them all, but I wanted to know, okay, what are the common themes? What are the Give me some initial charts that it would look right. And then I added on. This was my idea. I added on the human overlay to it and I connected the whys. I was the one that found the nuance, the outliers, the emotion, the action piece of it and brought that into the story. So, and then lastly, this is a fun freebie takeaway. I told Bill about it, so I sent him this infographic. If you want to know, I pulled in six categories. There's actually 10 movie genres here. You can see uh vampire themes. Oh, by the way, Sinners is amazing. And a lot of the ones that are considered elevated didn't win Academy Awards. And I put the Rotten Tomatoes scores on there so you can see. It's just fun to see. Is your favorite on there? Uh your favorite movie on there? I have heard that where is um The Godfather? They don't see The Godfather on there. But I don't know. Is it elevated? Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. Did I get this right? Did I get it wrong? All right. That is all of my talk. Are there any questions? >> All right, everybody. Questions for Loretta. I am going to, as we are waiting for questions, drop uh the info the aforementioned info infographic into the uh the chat in Zoom here. With any luck. Oops. >> I like this, Daniel McDonald's. So, the TV is on the moment I get up until the moment I go to sleep. [laughter] >> All right. Uh not a question, but just a comment from Lynn. Delightfully provocative. Thank you. Very good. Just checking the chat right now. >> likelihood to display is how likely would you display so they would show the visual and they said,"How likely would you display this in your home if this were available?" Prominently display prominently in your home is what they mean. >> So, we also have a question from Kristen. Uh I rarely find two clear contenders for most important attributes. Uh can you speak more to how you sort those? >> Ah. Then you cluster them into a group. Look for the themes. What is the theme um of this group? Um And sometimes it's difficult. Sometimes it is difficult. And that conclusion might be that you have several that are similar or you have several that are considered winners. What is it about each of these winners that really teases apart? Are they really all the same? Maybe it's the same version of an idea. That you only needed to test one version. But politically you had to test them all. And that happens and you just do that and then you bring it back to them and say can you as my client, stakeholder, see the difference? Do you understand? Is there a functional difference? There might be knowing your business perspective that I don't that I don't have. Or you could just at least say they're all the same. >> Well, that's always a good reminder of you know, the balance between I don't know, research elegance and you know, the stakeholder comprehension, right? I mean you know, you can do the most sophisticated bit of research, but if you can't communicate that to the decision makers who have to actually do based on this, then then what good is it? >> Absolutely. And in the time of AI these days, that's more and more what our skill set is becoming is the ability to do that human squishiness part that AI can't do. I can't Okay, so let me share the page with five lines. Let's see. I do not mind sharing this whole deck. I can give it to you, Bill. How about that? >> absolutely. We can make that available for download. Um if you want to share screen, you know, real quick and go just go back toggle back to that slide and uh allow folks to screen grab if they wish as well. >> Okay, so this is what um I've done this before. People like this slide and then I'll show the other one. So they typically like this one. So really pushing people beyond the "here's what you asked for"to,"okay, here's what the human piece of it is, and how can you make this change so that it actually is going to make a North Star direction different?" And the other one was... And uh fun, fact if we have to stop, though, I can stop but, um, the fun fact: what I'd like to do with my students, and it always uh surprises them. It takes them aback. It's just like I challenged you to say that I want this to be best presentation of your entire day. I go into class and I say if I'm going to be the most amazing professor you have ever had what do I have to do? And they always stop and then go around and go and it's quiet and then finally some brave soul, usually a guy, will say give me an A. And I'm like great, you want an A. What else do you want? And then that's my version of the five whys and then what you end up finding out is they want a job. And they want to know practical skills that help them get a job. They want to have be entertained. They want to have engaged conversations, they want to go back and use this for other times than just this one class. So, that is my version of the five whys that I do and anybody could do it. You could do it anywhere with anybody. It doesn't even have to be in research. Okay. >> Awesome. We did have one more actually a couple more questions that have come through. Uh Which part of the process did you find most challenging? For example, sorry this Is it about getting clear objectives or developing research brief? >> Um It varies. Typically, it can be both. Uh what I found when I worked with large organizations, um like with Verizon and with Dr. Pepper and even at Brinker, the restaurant company, is you can't always get people's attention long enough for them to tell you things. Um So, it's easy if you're standing in front of someone face-to-face, they'll typically give you an answer, but so much of life is virtual and you can't find people. So, what I've had to do is just swag it, take a scientific wild ass guess, and then say,"This is what I think."And then I throw it in some version that they can respond to, and people will say,"And I'll say, is this what you think? Yes or no?" And that usually works. [laughter] Or they'll say,"Yes, but or yes or no, no, that's not really what I mean." So, when you say,"Here's what I found, this is what I'm going with unless you tell me otherwise."It usually gets people's attention. So, that's kind of what I found is the hardest part of it. Um It's just getting the people to answer. [laughter] Which is that ever had that problem. Uh I think swag uh is a military term. Uh same with SNAFU, systems normal everything effed up. I I I'll bleep the F out for a posterity, but yeah, swag is I believe a military term. >> I think Charlene had a question about how how do you navigate the emotional Sorry, you can say that. >> Okay, sorry. I saw a example of an elegant elevated research brief. Um I actually do. I have I can send that also to you, Ben. Um It is a research brief that I have perfected. When I teach my class, it's juniors and seniors under under typically undergrads at UT Dallas. So, it's an intro class. And when I was at Verizon, I was it was required [clears throat]. You had to use their research brief. So, I took theirs and just made it The main key part of it is what are your objectives, but also what is your main objective? So, that's my version of what is your number one thing you have to do that I have to do, otherwise you come back and say this is a piece of crap or it's just a C or it's just a B. Like if I want an A+ what do I have to do? And that's hard. And sometimes it evolves. Sometimes it changes. What you have in that research brief as your main objective um at the beginning of the study does not stay the same. And it's not because people don't want to tell you, it's because they don't know themselves and they can't tell you. So, part of the consulting process is to help them figure that out. Again, A, I can't do that. We do that. Teams do that. >> Awesome. Just checking to see if any final questions have come in. It's pretty engaging Q&A. Very good. >> Good. Good. Cuz I couldn't get people to I always like this to have some people the last and they're like,"No, my movie's not on it. We're rocking it. Come on." Or why is this one on there? I've never seen in Banshees of Inisherin. Apparently, it's the best elevated funny movie according to Rotten Tomatoes and AI. Hi, Mr. Gemini. >> And who are we to argue, huh? All right, Loretta. Um thank you so much. It's a great kickoff to to today's sessions. Um yeah, much appreciated. Um as mentioned, we'll make uh Loretta's uh materials available for for download to anyone that wishes. Um we're going to hang out. Our next presenter doesn't begin for another few minutes until the top of the hour. So, encourage everybody to grab a cup of coffee, um check your email, uh and then we will circle back at the top of the hour. >> Yes, definitely come back. >> All right, Loretta. Thank you so much. >> All righty, bye.