Chapter 6

Latticing

Finding the Overlap in Ladders

Deep inside us we’re not that different at all.

—Phil Collins

THE FOLLOWING BLOG post was written by Nicole Ovens, one of my colleagues at User Insight, in September 2012. It talks specifically about how social media has helped bridge the gap between individuals. It also supports the notion that we are driven by experiences and issues at our core and looks at how different forces of nurture and nature affect the way we live our lives.

It is just as important to look for these types of intersections, understand why they exist within your consumer groups, and assess how the different clusters interact and act at these intersections as it is to understand each individual cluster’s laddering. This post sums up the difference this latest round of disruptive technology has made to our lives:

We live in an amazing time—one during which social networking has brought attention to health issues that were [once] considered too insignificant to study. [Today’s online interaction has] provided support for those of us who once thought, “Wow, I am so different from everyone else I know.” This digital revolution increased awareness and identified a hidden demand surrounding a health issue that is near and dear to my life.

Thirty years ago, I was diagnosed with celiac disease. It took almost seven years (most of my life, to that point) to discover what was wrong with me. Misdiagnosis after misdiagnosis and invasive test after invasive test and finally . . . the silver bullet: all you have to do is stop eating wheat. Well—wheat, barley, oats, rye, and alfalfa sprouts. That was the advice of the time; [and though it was] simple advice, [it] certainly was not easy.

Back in the early 80s, I had to live with my “special diet.” I also had to say goodbye to my two favorite foods: pizza and Wheat Thins. My mom did her best by making crumbly, bland birthday cakes and packing rice cake and peanut butter (sometimes ham) sandwiches for lunch.

I know correlation doesn’t mean causation, but it’s not a coincidence that life began improving big time right here in the United States starting in 2007. You may ask how I can pinpoint 2007 with such confidence. I can, because, I went to Italy in the fall of 2006. In Italy, every corner farmacia had a gluten-free section and sold over-the-counter “Xeliac” home tests. When in Rome, I learned that all Italian children are screened for celiac. I remember asking myself (and others) why was it that in Italy—where pasta and pizza reign—that people are so aware of celiac disease. I can remember expecting to get ill when I planned that trip—but I never did. I felt great the whole time, because I never once had a meal that was accidentally cross-contaminated with wheat. I also never felt like I didn’t have enough choice, such that I chose to take a risk. I remember coming back home, wishing the United States was so celiac-friendly. It didn’t take long before that simple wish came true.

The very next year, I started hearing that some restaurants in nearby Knoxville [were offering] gluten-free menu items. Then, in 2008, two restaurants in my tiny town of Oak Ridge also opened catering to people with gluten intolerance. Another red-letter day in 2008 happened when Chex cereal, a mainstream brand, started advertising that Rice Chex and Corn Chex were now gluten-free. Prior to all of this the only major brand I remember being so consumer-friendly was Disney—“where all little girl’s wishes come true.”

So what happened to launch this great transformation in 2007? Social networking went mainstream, and took the digital revolution to a whole new level. Online tools proliferated, giving consumers better access to information and an easy way to build communities that broke down geographic barriers and accommodated our busy lifestyles. All of a sudden, patients and parents dealing with hundreds of issues like celiac disease could join virtual support communities, share advice, recommend doctors, and link to news stories and websites with disease information.

Although it’s told from one person’s point of view, there are many players in the story above. And even though each one is participating in different ways and for different reasons, they are all participating in an authentic relationship. Yes, the restaurants and products are making money addressing this need, but they’re doing so based on an awareness of a niche need that they’ve chosen to address. Mayo Clinic researchers estimate that the number of people suffering from celiac disease is about 1 in every 100. Although 1 percent might not seem like enough to warrant a response, it has. In this era of mass customization, addressing this need for those affected and tapping into the goodwill of those who care about them is appropriate and important.

Once you have undergone the laddering exercise and understand what drives each of your individual clusters, you can then take the time to lattice your customer groups. This step will help you identify where they do and don’t overlap, where to focus your efforts, and which initiatives will have the greatest impact. It lets you determine the common starting point for the clusters you seek to reach.

Take into Account Standard Demographics

All of my analysis uses something to indicate a group’s demographic markers, just to see if a pattern exists. Most of the time, the research simply uncovers a propensity for a group to be slightly more male or female. I would say that the split is often more 50/50 on certain markers, our societal norms cause either the male or the female to suppress core tendencies for some of the consumer DNA I have uncovered. For example, one DNA marker is the propensity to project, to let others know about your feelings or emotions. Men have traditionally been raised to learn not to do this. But recent disruptive technology, social media in particular, allows the male who wants to project to do so and to do it without fear of judgment.

Pop culture, digital technology, and entertainment expert Johanna Blakley made this argument in her 2011 TED Talk (www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR4LdnFGzPk). Blakley spoke specifically about how social media is “the end of gender,” how it allows us to escape the boxes that we’ve been putting ourselves and others in. She argues that shared interests and values are more important than standard demographics.

Once you have laddered your consumers, you get beneath even the most superficial categories of interest and values to an understanding of why. And this is always the crucial question to ask because it allows you to speak to your consumers in a language that is basic to their underlying drivers. Why does a group participate in an interest or have a shared value? What are they trying to accomplish? What is their goal? Are they seeking a connection or correction to something in their past? Are they trying to prevent something in the future? Is it based on expectations or failures from their past?

Applying a layer of standard demographic information as an overlay helps us understand how life circumstances affect a group’s core. For instance, having less or more money might compel a spender to allocate his or her money in different ways. It doesn’t change that person’s core DNA of having a tendency to spend; it just changes the mechanisms of spending and perhaps the items purchased.

Common Consumer DNA

There are several factors that comprise the chains of consumer DNA that I commonly encounter. I call it consumer DNA because it’s the building blocks on which I start to evaluate and determine how the user groups relate to one another.

One of the best things about my work at User Insight is the fact that it has allowed me to focus on becoming a specialist on the end user, or the consumer. When I first started the company, clients often asked if our company specialized in a single industry or concentrated on one type of technology or product offering. Because the company was established and has grown during an incredibly disruptive time, if it had been that narrowly focused, it wouldn’t be in business today. The one mantra, the one unbroken rule that I am sure to follow, is that I always talk to users. I never assume anything about the consumer, and I always pay attention to and advocate for the user’s needs, expectations, and desires.

This approach means that my knowledge is several miles wide and several feet deep, which gives me the unique perspective to see if and how clusters map across industries and experiences. And amazingly, I’ve found that they do. The crucial types of factors are consistently the same; they just show up in different sequence for different contexts.

This consumer DNA is what makes the difference in how you communicate with and between different clusters, and they include:

This is by no means an exhaustive list of the different factors that can appear in consumer DNA. However, it does represent some strong patterns I have seen across projects. The factors that are on or off may vary in different contexts, even for the same consumer. You will also notice that none of these markers include items such as money, life stage, or gender. Consumers develop some of these markers as part of their nature (things that have been true about them since they were born) and as part of their nurture (how they were raised and the circumstances they faced throughout their lives).

You can use the major factors that you determine exist within your clusters to start looking for overlap. If you manage multiple brands or experiences within your portfolio, you should analyze the important DNA according to those discrete brands or experiences. You can’t assume the DNA is the same if the brands within your portfolio are different. I will discuss the concept of lensing in more detail in the next chapter. This includes analyzing how people from the outside world truly perceive your brand, which gives you an idea of the attributes that are most important to mapping your clusters. This allows you to build the construct cleanly, without a prejudice toward a brand, experience, or discrete choices. The objective is to understand your consumers for who they are, where they are, and why.

For now, just remember the way that different groups relate to one another is never the same from one context or interaction to the next. You can’t rely on a template or standard construct to present every relationship between groups. It’s crucial that you choose a construct that allows you to explain all of your users within that framework.

Look for Overlap

We all have DNA that overlaps, and laddering works the same way. Once you establish a core understanding of your user groups, you start to recognize which elements are the same between the different clusters. They just won’t be the demographic markers you are used to looking at and using. Instead of paying attention to whether or not a person is male or female, you will look at differences such as, “Does this person project or not?” And, “Is this person interested in authentic experiences, or does he or she like predictability?”

The step of latticing takes a page directly out of the old segmentation or demographic playbook; however, instead of focusing on the attributes that are easily recognizable and part of that old approach—age, sex, gender, income, education, amount of spend, and number of visits—and then looking for patterns, you assess the data you have about your clusters based on their consumer DNA.

Does your consumer cluster care about authentic experiences? If so, your marketing efforts, product, and brand must support their desire to experience things in real life. They must taste, touch, hold, and see whatever you offer for themselves. A digital experience alone isn’t likely to be enough.

Does your consumer cluster need affirmation? If this is the case, make sure your marketing and social media campaigns include a way to acknowledge consumers, especially if they interact with your brand. If you ignore a group that needs affirmation, you’re almost guaranteed to lose them as brand, service, or product champions.

These markers become the new framework by which you can create products, services, and marketing messages and even determine how to provide support.

Analyzing overlap is important because it allows you to understand which group(s) to target for a certain product, service, campaign, or experience. It also shows you how various groups influence and interact with one another—in other words, what their ecosystem is. Yes, the ultimate goal is to get your message out to the right person. The thought and associated activities behind rolling out a new idea, brand, or concept is far more important, strategic, and complex than in years past. Latticing your user groups and looking for overlap, developing something that I call a lattice construct, tells you how and where to target for the greatest impact. The added bonus of a lattice construct is it can be used to create a timeline and approach for reaching the other groups (see Figure 6.1).

Figure 6.1 Lattice Construct

Thankfully, you don’t need the same level of background I have to successfully ladder your consumer groups. You need only to follow this book’s instructions: start by having broad conversations with your consumers, in their environment. Dive deeper to understand your consumers within the context of your industry or focus. You should know your consumers as well as you understand how your company works, how your products are developed, and how your messages are distributed.

Build your product, experience, service, or marketing strategy starting from who your consumers are at their core by developing an understanding of their DNA and accepting that you cannot change them. Rather, you must conform to them.

My experience has taught me over the years that very few companies view their development and marketing efforts in the correct way. It’s far easier for them to assume that they know their consumer groups than to spend a little time to understand what really makes them tick—and why. Very few bother and merely try to build a generalized profile of their ideal consumer through sales reports or a broad understanding.

By spending some time—any time—talking with your consumers and seeking to understand them, you will be much further ahead than most in understanding what really drives consumers in their relationship with your brand, product, service, or company.

Building the Construct

After you have completed the laddering techniques that allow you to understand your individual users, you will instinctively begin to identify what underlying patterns exist and how these patterns define the difference between the groups. At this point, you should test your instinct and include others to help defend or deny your assumptions.

I call this part of the project a war room. Start by hanging all the pictures of the consumers to whom you have spoken on the walls with a bulleted breakdown of what you know about them. Then, begin trying to match them to one another. What makes them the same? What makes them vastly different? How can you explain them succinctly to others outside of the room who have not participated in the laddering exercises? I use all the standard constructs you are probably used to seeing from consulting firms: Venn diagrams, x/y axis charts, and scatterplots. But sometimes I need to depict a very unique relationship. For example, I affectionately called one of our drawings the batwing because it looked like the symbol that Gotham city uses to summon its masked hero.

The visualization process forces you to really think through what you know. I will sometimes attempt an early version during the laddering process between the initial round of laddering and the confirmation round. This helps in beginning to identify the critical factors, may point to additional information I need to pick up, or highlights parts of the laddering process that are not as important within the context.

Recall the bank study I cited in Chapter 2 regarding the word convenience. I was convinced that money was a factor for this project; after all, I was talking with consumers about where they kept their money. But one of my team members disagreed with me and felt that it wasn’t a driver. I realized that it didn’t make sense to apply money as a factor during my attempts to do so in the war room session, so I dropped it. It wasn’t until I tried to explain how the consumer groups latticed that I was able to clearly see it as an unimportant factor even though it was a common theme in the laddering conversations.

Can a Consumer Move between Clusters?

A cluster can’t live in two places. So if your construct is telling you that they do, then something isn’t right, either with your construct or potentially your context (for instance, it may not be narrow enough). You need to be able to explain how, if ever, a consumer moves from one part of the construct to another.

Identifying how and when a consumer moves from one part of the lattice to another is as important as identifying the different groups. This is the most powerful place to intercept a consumer: when that person is in transit. If the consumer is using a competitor’s product, you can convert this person by providing evidence that you will do a better job of meeting his or her needs while they are transitioning.

This is where models like Groupon often fail. Groupon, and other companies, try to convert consumers to new constructs by offering discounted versions of their product, service, or experience. These types of deals speak to one part of the consumer’s DNA, a desire to get a deal or save money, but they are not targeted to the right consumer DNA groups for the brand. Another mistake merchants make is treating those consumers who use the Groupon deal differently than their regular customers. Groupon users can see through this smoke screen; they know that the deal is a temporary change to the brand, not a conscious decision on the brand’s part to move within this new consumer’s core DNA driver. It’s therefore very unlikely that this person will become a new, permanent customer once the deal is done, unless something speaks to his or her core DNA during the experience with the merchant. The consumer sees the execution for what it is: different than what is normally done or delivered. There is rarely a long-term benefit to either party.

We often see a similar phenomenon in our laddering work, called the try it once, never again factor. This explains the success of a gimmick or the concept of viral videos. People want to participate in the trend or the greater conversation when it comes to something that is having its 15 minutes of fame, but it’s not about developing an additional relationship with new consumers. In fact, just like Chatty Cathy, consumers use these types of gimmicks to satisfy something in their core DNA. These stunts are good for temporary uplift; they don’t go very far in terms of encouraging long-term consumer loyalty from the groups that naturally identify with the brand or company attributes. Most of the time, consumers merely remember the video and not the product or brand being advertised.

Using the Lattice for Better Measurement

Latticing not only helps you identify your opportunities for the next new initiative; it also narrows your focus on what is important to measure. You can use the lattice to unlock your big data and make it actionable and useful beyond being just a collection of information on different groups.

For instance, let’s say that you discover that a cluster’s DNA includes a particular strand. In this case, it’s a tendency for them to share how they feel. This group is connected with another cluster that will comment only on what the first cluster shares; however, the second cluster will not share anything themselves. You can measure a campaign or product experience’s success by monitoring the interactions between these two groups. In other words, it’s not about unique likes, shares, or offline conversations; it’s also about others’ reactions to those occurrences, within their own DNA tendencies and behaviors. It’s crucial to view success by measuring it from the consumer’s perspective.

Different groups’ core consumer DNA lets you define the behaviors you would expect to see (or not see) from each. If the cluster is willing to change and likes to project, a technology or experience that supports these preferences and desires, such as the features in Foursquare that allow people to check in to a location and tell others about their experience, will work well. Conversely, this technology will fail miserably with groups that are unwilling to change even if they like to project.

It’s at this point in the process that you can begin to look at your brand, company, experience, or marketing message. Regrettably, this is where most companies start: by talking and thinking about themselves and their brands. By waiting to start this evaluation process until you can view your company, brand, or product through your end user’s perspective, you really learn how to make a difference in how you reach and communicate with your end consumers.

The next chapter explains lensing exercises, a process that helps you identify where you currently stand with your consumers. It’s a valuable way to evaluate everything you consider doing from your consumer clusters’ perspective and it is the most powerful and rewarding part of the consumer-focused laddering process—the payoff for all your work.

Travel Personas Case Study

One task that technological disruptions have had a dramatic impact on in recent years is making travel plans. Internet booking engines such as Expedia, Travelocity, Kayak, and Hotels.com have revolutionized travel by giving consumers the power to easily gather information from across the Internet and compare prices. Travelers no longer have to depend on a travel agent to make their travel decisions.

These consolidated search sites leveled the playing field and empowered travelers to book their own travel because it gave them access to the same level of information that was previously available only to the experts. Today, the tools available to the average consumer are often even better—and the knowledge richer—than that on most experts’ systems. Combine that with the fact that consumers know themselves better than the travel agent does and it’s no surprise that the travel industry was completely up-ended.

We recognized a trend within the travel sites: most of them focus largely on price. However, as I discussed earlier in the book, we know that money is not really the core driver in making decisions. So then what does compel people to choose to travel somewhere? We undertook a laddering project to understand how travelers were clustering based on this disruption.

We learned a universal truth: all travelers incorporate some type of aggregator site into their research behavior when booking hotels or airlines. However, these sites have very little influence on what airline they fly, where they stay, or the all-important why behind their travel choices.

We started our laddering exercises in the travel space by asking consumers broad questions about their favorite activities and what they do in their free time, where, and with whom. We wanted to get a feel for the influencers and the way these consumers talk about and interact with others in their day-to-day life. We knew this would provide clues about their core consumer DNA.

We then narrowed the scope, asking consumers to describe their ideal vacation; in particular, we wanted to understand what elements would make it ideal and what they valued most about their free time.

We continued to draw consumers closer to our true goal by asking them about actions they were going to take toward their next vacation—what they were going to do and why—in an attempt to figure out how they would plan this trip. We knew we could uncover information about their true behavior by giving them a concrete problem to work on, but we also knew that we could keep the scope wider by doing this than we might if we simply asked, “What sites would you use?”

The lead-up questions garnered unexpected knowledge. It also kept the consumer from figuring out the game, because at this point, we could be talking about any aspect of the travel experience.

We began to see patterns emerge as we asked these questions. The more we talked with consumers, the more their answers started to sound just like someone else’s and clusters started to form around the distinct differences in vacation habits.

The following are the clusters of primary drivers or differentiators that had an impact on their decision:

• There is a group that just wants to relax. These consumers wanted to park on a beach and do nothing—make no plans and have no responsibilities.
• Another group of people were traveling to visit friends and family. They usually picked places to visit based on whether they knew someone there, and many had a contact list of friends who lived all over the world. They were really good at keeping in touch with people.
• A third cluster was all about seeking adventure and never wanted to visit the same place twice. They usually wanted to go somewhere unusual and participate in an authentic or local experience while there.
• The last group was interested in history. They gravitate toward locales with historical significance, want to learn everything there is to know about the places they visited, and had a list of must-sees from previous vacations.

Now that we know what the various clusters are seeking, let’s revisit our original goal: to figure out what the ideal travel website should look like. The travel cluster type is a crossroads as represented in Figure 6.2.

Figure 6.2 There Are Four Drivers for the Broad Topic of Travel

We named the group that wanted to visit friends and family the networkers. The group that wanted to sit on a beach and do nothing was dubbed relaxers. The all-about-adventure group was the immersion seekers, and the group that wanted to know everything about places they visited was (naturally) named the historians.

Those became the major drivers: people, destination, planning, and culture. Some people go on vacation to get away, whereas others do it to get together. Some want an exotic destination, and others crave something familiar. Some people are planners, whereas others live on spontaneity. Some people want to live like the locals; some just want to observe them. The drivers in this case, while similar to the cruise line study are broader because the context is broader and choices wider. Let’s look at the four clusters more closely.

Networker Nancy

Let me introduce you to our networker, Nancy. Although she seeks adventure, she’s always surrounded by friends or family, so people are her primary driver. She wants to experience the local culture from the point of view of her friends. She uses social networks as a way to keep in touch with everyone, but she probably keeps some form of an address book as well.

Features that we would build into a website for Nancy might include a trip tracker or some way to publish where she’s going and where she’s been as a way to help her bring people together. A site that recently piqued Nancy’s interest is Startup Stay. This tool lets her find fellow business owners in other markets who she can stay with and people with whom she can connect when they visit her hometown.

We notice certain trends about Nancy. She wants to be with people; the destination isn’t as important to her; she’s happy to see the culture from her contact’s point of view. We know that her major driver is people, and it’s part of her core consumer DNA to be friends with people who are not like her.

Relaxer Ronald

Ronald is a relaxer. He has a family and is interested in doing the exact opposite of his home life when he’s on vacation; that is, he simply wants to kick back and totally relax. One of Ronald’s major drivers is spontaneity. He doesn’t have time to plan anything, so he’s not going to research his trip very heavily.

Ronald is likely to vacation at the same place every year, even going so far as staying in the same condo. Unlike Nancy, he wants to spend time with people like him. The idea of all-inclusive vacation is appealing to him, because it takes away any requirement for him to think.

Immersion Edna

Next up is Edna, an immersion seeker. She doesn’t like planning, but she knows that it’s necessary to make sure she gets an authentic experience. Edna hates doing touristy things and would never visit the same place twice. She wants to immerse herself in every aspect of the trip: language, culture, and food.

Edna is interested in experience rather than observation; she wants to know where to be rather than what to see. She also wants to know specific details about a location so that she can come prepared. Edna is all about the extremes: she wants to be away from people she knows, in an exotic destination, enjoying an authentic cultural experience—and contrary to how it would seem, she has to follow a schedule so that she’s prepared.

Edna is very interested in authentic experience. She doesn’t want to take pictures of the Eiffel Tower. She’d rather be muddling her way through a failed attempt at ordering in French at some backstreet cafe no one has ever heard of before, a place she found using her smartphone application 5 minutes before she decided she wanted to eat.

Historian Helen

Finally, there’s Helen. She represents our last group: the historians. Helen seeks locations with a sense of history and culture and likes a combination of relaxation and adventure. For example, she would be okay with a day or two on the beach doing nothing. But after a while, she would get bored and want to partake in some kind of planned activity, such as a tour of the area.

Helen does her homework before a trip and picks out some things to do, because she wants to explore culture through historical locations. She is interested in gathering maps of the area or getting recommendations on must-see attractions. Helen wants to go to a location and to see all the sights that are outlined for her, those that are on her bucket list.

One additional group we uncovered is a group we call the compromise group. This is a set of individuals who let someone else take the lead when it comes to travel. They don’t have a strong desire for travel one way or the other. In fact, they would be just as happy having a staycation (spending time at home versus traveling somewhere) as they would be actually going somewhere. This group can transition to one of the other categories by being introduced to an experience that resonates with their core—or by potentially even being introduced to travel for the first time. This group will mention other people in their conversations about travel and travel plans. They are never the person who puts the trip together; they are truly just along for the ride.

You can see how truly different each cluster is as you consider them together. Although there is overlap, the primary drivers are what push people one way or another. It would be a mistake to treat all of these clusters the same way, as many of the aggregator sites do today. It’s far better to use their behaviors as a driver to take them to experiences, information, and applications that match their primary reasons for traveling.

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