Paul and Gerry - thanks for a terrific interview, I found it very insightful - to think that Coke had missed out on 50% of the meaning of the brand to the drinker - that personal time out/ "space for me during my busy day" source of consumer value. Increasingly businesses are starting to apply sophisticated marketing techniques to the segmentation and delivery of a branded employee experience - I would like to know if Gerry and his team have applied the ZMET approach to understanding " deep metaphors" that employees hold that senior executives and line managers can leverage to really energise and engage their people? Bill Lang

Re Bill Lang's query

Bill, we have applied this technique to a number of organizational issues. These include such topics as: what it it like to be innovative in your company; feelings about a pending organizational restructuring; diversity in the workplace; leading an innovative program; dealing with messy or ill-structured problems in the workplace; knowledge sharing among colleagues; and a day in my life at work. As you would expect there are many deeply held and largely hidden thoughts and feelings about these and related issues that surface.

Very very interesting! Jerry, could we say that this technique reveals the REAL motivations to consume a product/service or is this a very simplistic conclusion on my part?

Re Jorge Castillo's query

Jorge, you raise an important question. The technique does reveal the motivations to consume (or avoid) various goods and services. It provides deep insights into the "anatomy" of a need and the experience people have in addressing that need. In doing so it identifies the emotions, frames, values and attitudes that shape or propels (motivates) how we approach our needs and ways of satisfying them.

The approach is fascinating. How would you compare this an ethnographic methodology? Even with talented interviewers, it seems the reliance on consumer's to provide their own insight is a major challenge to getting accurate feedback. Since both types of research are far beyond what receives funding in my organization, can you suggest an step one?

This is fascinating. How would you compare this approach to ethnographic research? The first seems heavily reliant on consumer insight even with talented interviewers. And to the article's headline, can an organization capture a range of consumers through such an emotional experience? I would expect some failure rate in the questioning, especially if the product or service were touched on personal issues.

re Cherylynne Crowther queries

Your posting has several relevant issues. I'll try to be brief but don't hesitate to ask for clarification. Responses are in no special order:

1. First an important observation: all methods are compromises with reality. The challenge is to select a method or bundle of methods that fit the nature of the problem and avoid inadvertently changing the the problem to fit a familiar or easy to use method.

2. True ethnographies are very valuable. They require spending extensive time with the population of concern. Context is very important and properly done ethnographic work is excellent at providing contextual insights. It permits an understanding of consumers within a larger system of implicit beliefs and other practices. Often resource constraints prevent true ethnographic work from being done. The ethnographic label is used but not the fundamentals of the method.

3. Deep interviews provide a detailed, accurate understanding of the emotions and reasonings occurring within a context. The context might be very broad such as attitudes about shopping or specific such as the checkout counter experience. Insights are obtained about the system of implicit and explicit thoughts and feelings that structure consumer experiences. The larger social context -- where ethnography excells -- is captured less directly. The gain, however, is in obtaining detailed information about how that context is internalized.

4. Fortunately, regardless of approach, the deeper you go in your research -- the more time you allow people to express their thoughts and feelings through nondirective probing or display action -- the more you find common denominators that underlie surface differences. These common denominators are the important shared dimensions around or about which people may vary on the surface. Understanding these common denominators (like deep metaphors, basic values, and needs) is absolutely critical. Validation studies clearly indicate that a small number of consumers can provide the basic dimensions driving the behavior of a much larger population. They are indeed representative.

5. The use of nondirective interviewing is very important in enabling consumers to express their hidden thoughts and feelings -- what they don't know they know. As with true ethnography, this requires time and a highly trained personnel.

6. The information obtained from consumers when they are allowed enough freedom to express themselves in their own way or to be observed appropriately avoids the classic problem of surveys and focus groups of only learning what consumers think about what the researcher gives them to think about (e.g. issues selected for inclusion in a survey) or what consumers think about what other consumers think. Remember, the average air time for consumers in a focus group is only about 10 minutes and those 10 minutes do not build on one another in an in depth way.

7. Finally, budget. Obtaining an important insight about an important question can be priceless. Ask those who control budgets, what is the value of a great idea? And what is the cost of a superficial or poorly understood idea? Research budgets should be established with these questions in mind.

Appologies for the lenghtly response.

Thanks for the illuminating answers Jerry. I have two more questions.

In the interview video you give us two examples: a tire linked to the security need and a beer linked to the connection need. Which other strong needs have you detected that can successfully be addressed?

Also, how is ZMET related to the Maslow's pyramid?

Paul,

Pretty interesting interview and a disturbing topic too.

It's a very cool methodology - using the images. Reading your description of the process reminded me of my first two years of design school where we were immersed in (what in hindsight) was basically image creation, decomposition and analysis. Your resulting collage brings to mind Dadaist collages. Now that I think about it, seen in that light, Zaltman's method makes utter sense given that Dada helped set the direction for much of modern commercial advertising and propaganda.

Great new technique to sucker more unsuspecting people into drinking swill. Coke is a terrible product and it's time is up. Health concious people will no longer buy into this garbage that it's good for you. I feel really bad for all the people Coke has been swindling over the years.

Gerry and Paul: Thanks for a terrific interview. Gerry: I also enjoyed your book very much. It was fascinating reading. Recent increases in food and energy prices have had a significant impact on the poor and have created both social and political unrest and new calls for companies to engage with the 4 billion poor who make less than $5 per day. However, companies are facing serious challenges in finding how to benefit from this huge but poorly understood group of customers. What is the potential of ZMET to help companies better understand these potential new customers and expand their operations to previously untapped markets.

Dr. Zaltman,

I am an avid fan of your works and have recommended you to my leaderships.

How would you differentiate your techniques from neuroscience/marketing?

Regards,
Rikk Kretue

P.S. Paul, marvelous interview with Dr. Z!

Dr. Zaltman,

I am an avid fan of your work and have highly recommended to my bosses.

How would you differentiate your methods to neuroscience/marketing?

Regards,
Rikk Kretue

P.S. Paul, marvelous interview with Dr. Z!

Reply to Djordjija Petkoski

At one time I was actively involved with infant nutrition programs in Central America and in parts of Asia. I was often struck by the differences between the poor and the various non profit and for profit organizations attempting to serve them in how they viewed a healthy diet. Furthermore, the different viewpoints were often rooted in very difference knowledge and value systems. In a sense, there were two different "languages" of understanding. This contributed to a mismatch between what was being provided (and how it was delivered)and what was being sought. So, a first step for a company hoping to serve this huge and potentially viable market is to understand the similarities and differences between their language and those of the market they would like to serve. A second step is to understand that it may be necessary to start by speaking the language of those being served. That is, it is necessary to first communicate using the frames or viewing lens of the market before attempting to change them to a nutritionally better informed view. This will result in an earlier acceptance of the offered goods and services.

Reply to Rikk Kretue

Let me begin with the following statement often found in the neuroscience literature: the mind is what the brain does. Thus, any attempt to influence the mind ultimately involves stimulating neural activity. Similarly, any attempt to understand what consumers think and feel -- their state of mind -- ultimately involves understanding the content of their neural activations. A thought is simply a set of neural activations.

I am not sympathetic to the popular use of the term neuromarketing (which you carefully avoided using). All marketing efforts and all research methods ultimately involve affecting and/or decoding the neural activity that gives rise to the mind. Recently, diverse biometric measures of brain activity have been called neuromarketing. They measure the presence or absense of emotions and information processing. This can be valuable. However, they do not reveal, indeed cannot reveal, the actual content of those emotions, feelings, or the meanings that are being created, retrieved or encoded when information is being processed. This is where ZMET comes in. It tell us the content of thought. Using both ZMET and biometric techniques together can be helpful.

Hi Prof Zaltman,
i have been keenly following for the past 5 years the fascinating work you do. congrats.

in the ZMET technique how do you make sure that it is the sub conscious metaphors that are being culled out and not 'false memories' that human brain is known to generate?

it seems to be a shift toward a Freudian slip.
A battle between using behavioural science (finding ways to make people behave/consume in a certain way) versus using Psyche (a man's own structure) in marketing a product.

Hi Jerry,

I feel whole excercise is to make subject(consumer) to delve into those hidden factors which he/she never thought of while making buying decisions.This excercise seem to be more apporpriate in case of impulsive buying where no rational can be given.However i feel this technique can help many companies to design their branding strategies.
Good work Jerry!

Regards
Ritesh Singh Rajput
India