DIALOGUING WITH CONSUMERS AND LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®

In a reality where people are, potentially, increasingly informed and connected, we feel the need to re-look at how the dialogue with consumers and people is led within and by companies.

In my experiences market research, that for its nature is consumer centric, has the opportunity to deploy a more human centric design approach to focus groups by putting people truly in the center of the conversation from the start of the project development phase. In this perspective, the combination of focus groups and LSP has been kind of a very natural first step to move forward (or progress).

Using LSP to facilitate focus groups brings lot of advantage:

• it surprises consumers, especially the so called “professionals of focus groups” and force them to go beyond the “I have to say this” position;
• it excites people granting a more qualitative presence and participation to the discussion;
• thanks to the use of the metaphor, it allows a more effective use of time so that the group can get quicker and more directly to the point compared to  using standard projective techniques.

 

The LSP approach allows consumers to get out of their cognitive thinking and to access the unconscious parts of their minds through playfulness & storytelling. Through this, the answers to specific questions have a stronger link to emotions associated with product usage or shopping experience of a specific brand or product and are less rationalized as it is often experienced with classical consumer research methodologies.

Another benefit is the individual sharing of answers by all participants. This avoids an over-representation of the voice of potential extroverts, as well as group influencing by participants with naturally high involvement in the topic.

Why don’t you start to use new opportunities for your market research?