Market researchers can use segmentations to find out more about a company's customers to focus on specific business-related concerns. In this episode, we discuss creative communication strategies for successful segmentations. Stay tuned for insights!
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Chuck Murphy 00:00
Hi, everyone, I'm Chuck Murphy and today I'm joined by Maggie B right. And we are going to talk about creative communication strategies for segmentations. Which is a bit of a mouthful, but when you break it down, it's not as complicated as it sounds. We spend a lot of time and effort here working on segmentations. And figuring out ways to communicate them across big organizations have people in different roles and responsibilities. So Maggie and I are going to talk to you about some of the creative ways that you could deploy your segmentation. And we're excited to dive right in. Thanks for joining us. Hi, I'm Chuck Murphy. And I'm joined by Maggie Bright today, and we are going to be talking about segmentations. Today, one of our favorite topics, and something we circle back around on repeatedly. But I'm really excited. So
Maggie Bright 00:59
I'm super excited to
Chuck Murphy 01:01
Are you? We're both coming into this hot too. Maggie had COVID. Last week, I went to Universal Studios all day yesterday. Oh, man. I don't think anyone cares about that. But I will I will say...
Maggie Bright 01:14
There's there's like so many interesting segmentations that could come out of people at Universal Studios or people with COVID. I mean, like think of all the possibilities.
Chuck Murphy 01:25
It's funny the code that we have not done a segmentation that incorporates COVID yet that has to be coming soon, have you?
Maggie Bright 01:31
I mean, we ask questions about that in State of our Health. So we know we can do something. Okay. Okay, we have plenty of data on which to do a segmentation among people who haven't have not had COVID. But we have not yet done one. But maybe, maybe this is foreshadowing.
Chuck Murphy 01:47
Oh, yeah, we just we just manifested it, it'll be a we're gonna get it. We're gonna get an RFP like later today, like something?
Maggie Bright 01:54
I have a feeling that we'll just do it ourselves and not even for any type of profit.
Chuck Murphy 02:00
That was in the State of our Health. I'm embarrassed by myself here.
Maggie Bright 02:03
It's all right. I mean, there's a lot in there. It's a good, it's a good robust study.
Chuck Murphy 02:08
Well, there are a lot of things we could talk about related to segmentation and a lot of different ways we go, but today, we're going to be very, you know, this podcast is still new for us. We're still learning how to do this. But I think our challenge to ourselves today is, can we do a real tight, focused podcast on just communication strategies around segmentation, which seems like a really, you know, niche, nuanced little area. But I'll bet we still find a way to spend at least 30 minutes talking about this.
Maggie Bright 02:37
At least and I have a side challenge to not use the word leveraged too many times. Because I always say you can leverage your segmentation this way. So...
Chuck Murphy 02:47
Oh, look...
Maggie Bright 02:48
So if we say leverage over and over again, then someone's gonna win a prize, I think.
Chuck Murphy 02:55
I don't think I use the word leverage very often. That's not...
Maggie Bright 02:58
Yeah, I can't stop I read it in my proposals. And just think goodness, there's so many simple ways to leverage: utilize, employee, use. But yet leverage, that's all I use. I leverage leverage too much.
Chuck Murphy 03:12
You're over leveraged.
Maggie Bright 03:13
I'm over leveraged.
Chuck Murphy 03:16
Deep in debt over leveraged some people go bankrupt. Today, let's talk about what we're going to talk about today. So segmentation, like, you know, there's there's a lot of different aspects of segmentation, right. And but one of the things, and it's something that has been a specialty of our firm for a long time. So we've, we've done a lot of segmentation over the years, and a lot of times when new companies find us segmentation is often the reason they find us in the first place. And, but segmentation is a really interesting methodology. It's something that is, you know, this maybe too strong a word, but it's polarizing a lot of ways. Right. And I, I can't tell you how often I've had some version of this conversation, right. And, and, and I do a lot of work with technology companies. And so this issue may be more common at technology companies than it is in other industries. But someone in the room will say, hey, we really need a comprehensive segmentation. And someone else in the room be like nah I did that at x company I was at before and it totally didn't work. And then that the whole room dump everyone will have an opinion on this, which is, you know, very rare for marker research. You know, if I, if I bring up something like choice modeling, most people just start to fall asleep, like they would never have an opinion, but with segmentation, everybody's got this story of how, you know, they did it, and it was fantastic. Or they did it and it was a disaster. And I always thought that was really interesting that there's these these sort of issues with it, that a lot of people have had and then the disaster stories are real, like, you know, you'll you'll, you could definitely verify them and, and I'm sure Maggie, I'm sure you've heard a lot of those as well is that..
Maggie Bright 04:57
Yeah, not all segmentations are created equal is sort of the bottom line on that.
Chuck Murphy 05:04
And it's funny, a lot of those stories of why things failed, have something to do with the research itself. And we won't, we won't go into that today, because that's a whole rabbit hole that we can put down in terms of how segmentations could be set up and not work. But I think what we want to talk about today was assuming you've done really good work, segmentations are still very hard to sell it because in order for them to be really successful, the organization has to kind of buy into this as a framework as a way of thinking about their category. Right. And that is a big communication challenge over and above the research challenge. And in some ways, like I tell people, especially again, I biased towards towards tech companies, and they have very different culture sometimes than other industries. But you know, sometimes the communication part is actually the harder part. Right? It's, it's making people feel, and people that were not involved in the core research of this, making them feel like they understand it, like they've embraced it, like they're going to use it and and a lot of times changing the framework with what you look at the category has a lot of implications, right? It's got small implications, like, Hey, I've got, you know, I've got to rethink how I do this. But it might have big implications, like, I have to redo all my dashboarding and all my KPIs and a lot of the way things, you know, that that those things might flow down into, like performance reviews, or all these different aspects, it could involve a lot of administrative work for a company. And so there's resistance.
Maggie Bright 06:35
Yeah, I mean, I, it's very hard to turn a ship, right. So if you are, and, you know, to the kind of the opposite side of I do a lot of segmentation work with, with packaged goods companies, and they typically have some sort of framework already established. So it's not just about bringing in a framework, it's about replacing an existing framework or augmenting that framework. And there are, you know, typically, there's been a lot of investment in building the last framework. So changing it is not I mean, it's an uphill battle, at the least. And so it is, you know, I think we can agree that the best segmentation is a segmentation that gets used, regardless of what type or you know, how it was done, or when it was done like a segmentation, a good segmentation that gets used is the best segmentation. And so I agree, I think that, you know, the, the hardest part is, I mean, I think Chuck mentioned a very valuable point, the first hurdle to get over is getting everyone to agree that, that it's necessary and needed, and that you're going to do it, then you do the work, right. And then the last thing you have to do is figure out how to get everyone to accept it, and like it and continue to use it throughout the organization. So...
Chuck Murphy 07:48
And we're just gonna, we're just gonna go ahead and assume, for the purposes of today's discussion, that the first two steps you did successfully, and...
Maggie Bright 07:56
We're gonna assume that you called Murphy research and got a good segmentation done.
Chuck Murphy 08:02
Which is not easy, it's not easy, because there are a lot of, you know, like I said, we will do a whole podcast one time about why these things fail. And a lot of times it has to do with, it's not sub quality research, just a decision that was made early in the process that people didn't think through the implications of making a change like that, and then they hit a wall. But assuming you've done an awesome job here, and you have an awesome kind of core team, both in the brand, the agencies, whoever's kind of driving this bus that that is all on board with it. It's about how do you kind of come up with ways to get buy in from people that were not part of the core team into this new framework? And, and, you know, like, like Maggie touched on, some of that is just like a barrier to them understanding, right? The first step is you have to be able to talk about this in a way that people can retain the information and remember it right, you have to engage them in a way which, you know, is is not easy to do. If you're in a big company that had some framework for you know, let's say three to seven years. There is this, this, it's easier to just kind of go oh, it's the same. Oh, yeah, that's the same as the old segment, you usually see that a lot, right? Like, oh, that's a... They don't want to engage with the differences or they don't understand the differences. And then there's, there's, there's kind of more challenges down there. So Maggie and I made a very, very brief list here of five things that we want to talk about in terms of creative ways to communicate your segmentation.
Maggie Bright 09:33
We're veryproud of ourselves that we got to five things I think like we're proud of. That's brief.
Chuck Murphy 09:41
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's brief, but whatever. So maybe what you're what...
Maggie Bright 09:47
Can I pick one and start?
Chuck Murphy 09:50
Which one shoule we start with?
Maggie Bright 09:51
I feel like the stakeholder inclusion we've already sort of touched on that and I think maybe we elaborate a little bit on that and then move on. So I work for you?
Chuck Murphy 09:59
Yeah, lets do that.
Maggie Bright 10:00
Sure I will. Um, so with the with the stakeholder inclusion piece of this, I think there are several touch points that you can that you can leverage. And one of the first ones is really, you know, you have approval on the project. But talking to stakeholders before you even finalize a questionnaire can often help you understand, hey, well, how is the if there is an existing segmentation? What's working really well about it? And what isn't? And then kind of identifying, hey, are there any, you know, big issues or needs that you're seeing within the marketplace that you want to explore more? And what I find to be a really interesting part of this conversation is sort of like, Hey, what are your hypotheses around what the segments could be. And a lot of times, you know, without biasing the final output, you'll get some really interesting thoughts around how they're how different stakeholders have different frameworks for the same marketplace. So some of them could be thinking about it more in terms of, you know, specific usage occasion, some of them could be thinking about it in terms of life stage pieces. And so understanding kind of where their frame of references is a really valuable tool in helping to understand how to best communicate it at the end of the project to so I really like the idea of that early touchpoint with stakeholders.
Chuck Murphy 11:22
Can I jump it there too, because I think it's a I again, I talked too much. I'm just gonna acknowledge that but yeah, that state, right, they're different the thing you just said that different stakeholders have different views of the market is by far the most common scenario, right? And it's actually the end state that we're fighting against it is the problem in and of itself, right? The whole reason segmentations exist is that, if you have, you know, obviously, we're talking about really large companies, right? If you're a super small company, that doesn't matter. But if you're a company with 1000s of employees going off and solving problems, you know, different kinds of problems on different teams, and you're solving like with a different framework, it creates, you know, a little bit of a lack of unification in terms of what the strategy is, that's that's exactly what we're fighting against. And 80 is the most common scenario, it's very rare that we do stakeholder interviews, and we go into these companies, and different people are operating under the same assumption. And that's the whole reason segmentations exist is like, hey, let's decide together, what our target strategy should be, what our target audience is, what strategy we're going to get them. And how do we think about these people? And it's, it is the challenge in and of itself, right? And it's, it's so it's hard, it's really hard to get everyone to buy into this. And so that's, you know, I know, I'm over belaboring your point, but at always excited with people. No, no, we're happy with our current solution. But they talk to different departments, and they have totally different understandings of it. So it's like, Well, hey, something's not working here. Like, let's, let's get back. Let's let's try this again. It's a challenge, right?
Maggie Bright 12:52
Absolutely. And I think the other benefit that you get out of that, that stage is you've now invited the stakeholder to be part of the process. And so when you come back later with the solution, they're like, oh, yeah, you did take my feedback into consideration or Oh, yeah, this does look a little bit different than I thought or, you know, it becomes an easier sell in if you've asked questions in the beginning of the people who are ultimately be using this. And, you know, I would say like, those stakeholder interviews have to go well beyond the insights teams, right? It has to be with, it's a cross functional team that you need to get involved early on, because they're the people who are ultimately going to have to not only use the segmentation, but also advocate for it within their divisions. So their buy in is is crucial. And then I think there's, there's could be a million different touch points with stakeholders. But I think there are sort of, there's at least one more, and I could maybe advocate for two more the depending on kind of who the group is and how the company works, but they one of the things that is interesting is to have the stakeholders potentially weigh in on on different solutions to the segmentation. I think that can be, you know, kind of a Pandora's Box sometimes. But if you have a pretty tight, cross functional team that can kind of say, hey, you know, we can present to them two to three different solutions. And then they can as a team agree on which they'll all make sense, statistically speaking, and mathematically speaking, but um, you know, like, is there one that fits their business case better? So I could, I could see bringing stakeholders in on that piece. But I think that's very company dependent, because sometimes that's too much, because it gets pretty data intense there. And then the third place that I actually there's two more I could advocate for the third place is in the naming of solutions. So once the solutions have been decided, and we don't have this great solution, getting sort of a unified nomenclature that everyone's bought into, that everyone can sort of, you know, feels connected to, I think is really helpful because that nomenclature is going to be used throughout the, you know, sort of throughout the organization. And so if everyone kind of agrees and it fits and it feels relevant, that will go a lot, lot lot further. And then the other the other place that I think is really interesting to bring in even more than just sort of the closest stakeholders, but the organization at large, is once everything's done, and you have a typing tool, like how's everybody take it? Right? Find out where you fit into the segmentation. And what I think is so interesting about that is, then you're like, Oh, I see myself in this segmentation, therefore, I accepted, it's real, it exists because it fits me. I mean, I guess there are cases where someone in your, you know, at your firm could not be a user of your category, and therefore, would not be in the segmentation. But for the most part, I think that that, that brings sort of like, a reality, to the segmentation, it stops being about sort of numbers and X's and O's. And it's like, oh, there are people attached to these segments, and therefore, I can have more empathy for them, and I can advocate for them. Sorry, I went on a tangent there, please weigh in?
Chuck Murphy 16:00
I think it's good. The key point you're covering is that the the the, you know, at a high level, who you include in this, it is, it's an area that kind of differentiates the the most savvy client side researchers, for the for the ones that still are learning is, is there's a lot of politics to this kind of stuff of like, who gets it but who it should be included in this who's buy off is critical from where, and a lot of times that might be people that that, you know, the researchers don't know that well, right there. They might, you know, these are huge organizations, obviously, trying to figure out who, B, it's, you know, the way to go back to the way, one of the things that gets these things in trouble sometimes is, you know, someone's voice wasn't included early on, but they're a big voice. And if they dislike the way something was done later, they have the power to veto it, basically. And say, hey, that doesn't work for my department because of x. And then once certain people aren't using it, it's not doing its critical job. So how you get all the critical voices in the room without bogging the process down. It's funny, that's, that's, that's another big problem, right is like you tried to include too many people. Maggie and I both have stories of this. But just as like a quick side note, like one of the biggest ones I ever did in terms of stakeholder voices involved something like 70 stakeholders, and I think we were in questionnaire design for like a year and a half, we were flying all over the country like getting and it was just like, at some point, it's like, oh, my gosh, this is moving so slowly. And granted, it was a huge, huge company and huge product, but it is just you also have to be able to move right? And if you so it's, it's really hard to kind of balance that but and Maggie, I think you covered effectively that this starts before the research starts. And then it continues all the way to the end, right? How do you kind of keep these different people in involved in the design and communication of this from from beginning to end, so they feel like it's theirs.
Maggie Bright 17:56
Yeah, and I think there's, it's not just to like check the box to keep them involved, like bringing in different voices to help you understand what you're trying to solve for, is, is is vital. It's not just about making them feel good. It's about really making sure you're reflecting voices from different parts of the company, you're getting a diverse view of, you know, the people the issues, the marketplace. So I think it only improves your segmentation to A, you know, take the time to get all of this information. And then B, it obviously helps with the selling and it helps you as a researcher figure out what problems are solving for, right? Because if you don't understand the business issue that you're solving for, there's no way you can design research, to get to the insight that you need to solve the business issue.
Chuck Murphy 18:42
Yeah, yeah. Um alright...
Maggie Bright 18:45
We made it through one.
Chuck Murphy 18:46
We got through one in something like 15 or 20 minutes, whatever. All right, that's good. So we're moving super fast here as we typically do.
Maggie Bright 18:54
Right?
Chuck Murphy 18:55
Let me...
Maggie Bright 18:56
You could pick the second.
Chuck Murphy 18:57
I'll go faster through the second because this is one of those things that is not that creative, but we kind of can't leave it off the list either. But there's, you know, a lot of times when when researchers do segmentations they obviously the for 99% of all of these things, the the major endpoint of this process is some sort of final report presentation. Right? And I think that has to be right it's it's just this is consulting, there has to be a closed the book on it on what you did kind of thing. And, and those things have particular elements that are going to be kind of standard to all segmentations because that's what they are right? But there is a lot of room to think about how these presentations are done. And whether you know, like one basically to think about is like who goes to the presentation and are there different versions of this presentation for different teams and and that that's a very simple way to kind of get people buy in if you put 75 people in a room and of those 75 people, you know, they have to sit through two hours of which 15 minutes is relevant to them? Well, that's that's a painful process for almost everybody, right? Because there's very few people that were engaged the whole time. And then they started looking at their phone. So maybe you've cut it up into four different presentations, and each one is tighter and focused on the group at play. Or maybe there's, you know, there's lots of different ways to do this, that don't involve that much extra effort but have a huge impact on the on the people participating.
Maggie Bright 20:29
Yeah,I was going to say one of the thing that instantly pops to my mind in terms of sort of customizing the report for the audience is oftentimes will do within the report some sort of opportunity analysis that helps you identify which segments are most likely to be your target audience. And some of the things we've done is, if we're doing a large category in which the company has multiple brands, you can do sort of unique opportunity analysis by brands. So you might have brand A that that has their own opportunity analysis that's more focused on, you know, maybe it's a more mass appeal item. And so you would look at the segmentation for them. And then brand B might be more like upscale type thing. And so the opportunity analysis would look slightly different for them. And just by changing a few inputs into that opportunity analysis, you have a completely different view of, you know, how that how the opportunities look, keeping in mind that, you know, one company is not going to want to go after 700 different targets, but like, you know, so there can be a thread that connects the two, but, you know, it gives each brand a way to feel that the segmentation is, is customizable enough for it to be unique to them. So I think that's one of the ways that I frequently see that customization come into play.
Chuck Murphy 21:46
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And there is. And I think that's the overarching thought is you just have to think about like, how, think about this from the, you know, so it's very simple as researchers to think of us from the researcher perspective of I have to finish this thing. I'd say what it what I did, right, I have to write this presentation that shows what I did. But you can also think about it from the different client groups in the audience, and what would what what do they care about? What would make them interested? And sometimes the best way to do that is to segment your audience and show each person what they're interested in they'll have...
Maggie Bright 22:15
Very clever, very clever there.
Chuck Murphy 22:18
There's lots of different ways to use segmentation. There's lots of leverage segmentation.
Maggie Bright 22:22
Oh stop it. You said it, not me no prizes awarded.
Chuck Murphy 22:27
Comedians call that a callback.
Maggie Bright 22:29
Love it. Love it.
Chuck Murphy 22:32
So yeah, so again, we don't want to spend too much of this because I do think everyone in, you know, that goes into researcher or whether clients that are kind of otherside, knows better presentation and knows how to make that better. But it would also be dumb to leave it off the list. Can I do one more?
Maggie Bright 22:48
Oh, yeah. Go crazy. You were fast.
Chuck Murphy 22:52
And this one is also going to be fast, I'm going to I'm going to cross the two easy ones off the list.
Maggie Bright 22:56
Nice. Leave me with the hard ones. Thank you.
Chuck Murphy 23:00
Just so you guys listeners know, our goal was to try to do this in a half hour, which Maggie and I have a tendency to talk too much. So it's actually really a challenge for us to only talk for half hour about something. And right now we're, you know, 25 minutes into this. And we've covered two of our five topics. So typical, typical, but I'm working to move it move quick.
Maggie Bright 23:16
We have, we're moving faster. Now we're picking up speed.
Chuck Murphy 23:19
There you go. So let's let's also talk about workshops, which in workshops could mean a lot of different things. And I think workshops were some of the earliest attempts, at least that I've seen in my career to, to kind of really wrestle with this communication challenge. And earlier in my career, when when I some of these first workshops I saw, they would invite like, all the different stakeholders, you know, I've been to workshops that had literally hundreds and hundreds of people in them, and they would, there's all different ways to do it. But you're the the general consensus is you're going to take people and instead of showing them some presentation, you're going to immerse them in the segments, you're going to make them you know, there's it's a little bit like summer camp to style where you're like, you know, every 30 minutes, you're at a new exercise and every single one of those exercise has you somehow immersed in either a target segment or some that you're helping to see the world through that segment size, right? Well, yeah, it's all about empathy, right? It's all about like, Hey, we've got these, you know, seven segments, and each of them sees the world different ways. Richard has different needs, or whatever, whatever they are, whatever you're doing, but you basically take people and you physically put them in those roles, you physically have them doing something together the whole company or groups of the company, and some people, there's lots of different ways to do workshops, there's whole businesses that that this is their focus. But they you know, they they might have all these different things, but it's actually great because it does, you know, like we were talking about earlier, one of the biggest challenges you have, you know, if you just if you're too passive here and you just show a big group of people that presentation, it's very easy for different people to walk into that room with totally different ideas in their head and they both think the other think the same thing, right? This is a key communication challenge, if you're in America.
Maggie Bright 25:06
And I think the segmentations that will say last the longest or have the best shelf life, I think it's because the companies have integrated them into everything that they do, whether it be communication strategy, or innovation or you know, product development and refinement, they those segments are at the sort of the starting line of every initiative that they take on. And so if you can fully understand who the segment is, you'll do a much better job of making sure that the proper segments are at the table during your process when you're when you're designing or executing. And I think there's some, this is a really fun thing, as a researcher to design, I've seen some really innovative stuff around how to do this, whether it be you know, like, we pitched one once where it was like, shut up, it was set up, like a talk show. And the segments were the the guests on the talk show and the company was the audience at seven talk show. And there was a, you know, there was a moderator, you know, think of your Oprah. And, you know, and they were allowed to just sort of throw questions out. And, you know, after sort of the, the moderator had an interview with the, with the segment member, and, you know, it's it's a way to sort of make it fun, but also it, you know, really connect with someone who fits the criteria or who personifies a segment. So I think there's like no limit to the imagination you can have in this with these immersive workshops.
Chuck Murphy 26:38
Yeah, and I think that's the goal is kind of design, design kind of experiences that really make it hard for people to walk away with different opinions and really like kind of force people to kind of say, Oh, I see what you're saying here, like, and, you know, that that is very effective. And the workshops also could be super fun, it tends to be kind of a different type of, of personality, like a person that wants to run a workshop is generally different than type of analysts that is good at doing a quantitative segmentation. And that is, you know, I, I think there's a resistance there among researchers sometimes to kind of embrace, and even client side research as well, right. Like, it's, it's, it's sometimes it's a daunting task. But those those workshops are, they're very effective. And they they The other thing that's nice about kind of the workshop kind of model is they're very repeatable, um, you know, so you could do a workshop, whether it's in different regions, or with a different groups or different models, you could have one for agencies. And there's a lot of different ways to do that, that are fun and interesting. And it's sort of it is the granddaddy in this space, it's the first efforts I saw to really attack this problem. We're kind of in person and not necessary just a person, but that they were kind of workshop, in nature, working working through things together as a group group exercise.
Maggie Bright 27:57
it's like a left turn from a PowerPoint presentation, right? Because it's where instead of sitting around telling someone about the segment, you're like, you need to be the segment, I've given you just enough information to like, you know, be this person. So now let's see where you go with it. It's hard for researchers a lot because it's not as black and white as what we normally do. It's very much in the gray and fuzzy sometimes because you're, you're becoming a segment, right? And if you aren't, naturally that segment, you do have to think about, okay, what would they do in this situation? Or how would how would the segment that I know these attributes about how do I think they would react to something like this? What do I think their needs are, you know, so it's, it's an interesting process. It's fun to watch, too, from a from a moderator perspective to see where people take things.
Chuck Murphy 28:46
Yeah, they are. They're always fun. And yeah, I feel like you learn a lot you remember them, I can remember where segment, you know, types from workshops I did 20 years ago, which is really scary. Alright, so let's see, we got two left, do you have an opinion on which one you'd like to take of those to start the discussion on?
Maggie Bright 29:04
I do think the immersion areas is a nice segue from what we were just talking about. So in addition to sort of, you know, doing a workshop where people immerse themselves into the, the data and the characteristics, you can also build sort of immersive experiences, so to speak, and those can be one of the, I think, one of the pioneers in this space. And I'm sure there are others. But I know that png did some amazing things around how to set up they would set up rooms basically where there would be sort of like it was like an artifact museum right of the different segments. And you could do anything from picking up a phone and there would be like a voice message from someone you know, from an actual, like verbatims from people within a segment or they would you know, they might have what the pantry looks like for someone who's in that segment or you know, if it were clothing, like, what does the closet look like for a person who fits this, you know, who fits within this particular segment. And so it's like, almost as if you've brought an ethnography to life in a space where your employees can actually go in and you know, like, walk through the closet of this person, or look at what's in the pantry of this particular segment, or understand a day in the life of someone who identifies with this particular segment. And I think, again, it builds on what we were just talking about from a workshop perspective, but it's another way to help you understand who the segment is, and what the, you know, what what sort of needs, that segment might have the opportunities there are to connect with that segment, it builds empathy. And I should also say, we've talked a lot about this from an attitudinal perspective. But there's also ways you can do this that are not about people, but about sort of moments or occasions, you can also build a lot of this out around that, too. So it's not, you know, there's there's a lot of flexibility in how you leverage these approaches.
Chuck Murphy 31:05
Yeah, it's funny, the first time I worked on one of these, which was a long, long time ago, because I'm very old, it was an equation based on it was I like the immersion things they take there a lot of effort to put together and obviously, like, I'm sure this is you would have the same thought on this, Maggie. But I've seen very simple versions of this and really elaborate versions of
Maggie Bright 31:27
Yes.
Chuck Murphy 31:28
And the simple versions are actually pretty easy to put together. Right? Because, you know, it's not that hard. But for the ones that are meant to stay up for years, it can become quite a process to design and, and then to, to kind of execute those designs, you know. But I love the fact that like, it's funny, because I've done a lot of there's, there's no, there's no one way to do an immersion type thing, right? For every second, they're all completely different. I think the key, the key thing to take away is like, it should be in a place that a lot of different employees of the brand or the pass through like, well, you know, coffee shops, lobbies. So it's a good but, but it's funny, like how, you know, we did one of these at a, at a big tech company. And it's still funny, because years and years later, people that work there would be like, oh, you know, they still remember those six, because it was, you know, it was huge. It was it was big part of it was a very physical space. And I think these are really fun tools. And and and the relative cost is not that high, it it, it kind of shows that, that upper management gets the point of this segmentation, right? It's not a box you check, it's a it's a challenge you're given, like, how do we get this universal understanding in our employee base of who our customers are? And what do we need to know about them, and, and you see a lot of different ways to do this with around you see a lot around archetypes. And, you know, things that companies like idea will do or whatever. But it's a really, it's a really effective communication strategy. Because it's, you know, it's so you get so many you know how, like an advertising, they're saying, You need to see it ad seven times. They're...
Maggie Bright 33:17
Just gonna say that. Stole my thunder, but I actually it's probably way more than seven now, right, given how fragmented media is, but it's true, it's like you build awareness, just by repeated exposure. So hence, the need to A have something up and B to have it in a space that is highly populated, or that is, you know, people are frequently walking through I think there's, there's a lot of value to that. And I think we, you see, like, versions of this in almost all major like, if you walk into a big company into the lobby, they often have pictures of key targets, or you know, they may not be calling it their segmentation immersion. But they're they're introducing their employees to these segments all the time through just the marketing they have in their own buildings. And it's a way to sort of strengthen that connection each employee has to the target audience. And I think that's sort of a very elementary form of an immersive experience, right? Like, it's a, hey, here's who the target is, here's what that person likes and dislikes, here's a picture of someone who might fall into that target. I think there can be traps with something that simple, right? Because we all then get like one picture in our mind of who the segment is. So I think, you know, if you if it requires a little bit more than that, I think 20 years ago, that was how we did it, right, we put one picture up and an expression that we used to actually use segment names that had like real names in them, you know, Perfect Patricia or whatever. And I think that like that is antiquated now. And you would need to do a much more, you know, multifaceted view of each segment, but like there are executions of this in place in most companies already, even if they're not actually called that. And so it's just taking those further I think If you really want to integrate the segmentation into further into the organization.
Chuck Murphy 35:06
Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. All right. Should I should I pitch our last our number five? today?
Maggie Bright 35:12
Go for it.
Chuck Murphy 35:13
Yeah. All right. So it's funny because this is this is really a category, you know, not a bullet point. But But obviously, in the same way that immersion is meant to be this kind of repeated exposure to something. There's a lot of creative deliverables that have a much longer lifespan that are more evergreen than traditional presentations. Years ago, I was just thinking about this when I was when we start talking about creative deliverables. But years ago, we actually had a creative deliverable that had creative deliverables on it. Remember that? I actually, don't, we we made it one point. This was actually really rad. We made like, a keychain that had 30 different creative deliverables. Yes, as like, hanging off the thing. That's not...
Maggie Bright 35:58
The binder ring, and then it had the needed cards. We also had a plane deck at some point that had
Chuck Murphy 36:06
I actually don't I have not see what it is. I wonder if...
Maggie Bright 36:09
We've been for 10 years, we've been looking for that.
Chuck Murphy 36:13
That needs to be a 2022 thing. Because when you say...
36:17
Our creative ideas, that's our goal for 2022?
Chuck Murphy 36:19
Yeah, no, I think, well it's funny. A creative deliverable is always a living list. Right? That always said, we could always add a new idea to it. But we used to have all we I used to, like that list we had of all different ideas for people about like, what if you did this, but the underlying goal is an immersion room, like what is a cute way that you could repeatedly expose your employees or your agency employees or whoever is involved in this work with, with these different segments, and obviously, like we, you know, there's a lot of different movies and stuff like this that you could do in this. There's some really creative like drip report ideas you could do around this. There's things like infographics there's coffee table books, the list of what could happen here there's also merch right like which I think is really cute you know, you could kind of combine a having employees take the the typing tool with getting merch for that segment or something there's a lot there's just a never ending list.
Maggie Bright 37:21
What was the Twilight movies where you were like team I don't remember their names. Team whatever and team the other guy. Oh my gosh, Edward and when I can't remember the guys name.
Chuck Murphy 37:32
Oh, I was picturing Twilight Zone and like what is she talking about? Oh no, oh wow. We just had, we just had a moment there were our ages...
Maggie Bright 37:41
Team Jacob Team Edward and you can be like Team whatever of your segments.
Chuck Murphy 37:46
I'm at that weird age where I completely missed like Twilight in Harry Potter. I'm have this Star Wars age where and I'm like, I don't know.
Maggie Bright 37:56
I somehow covered all the ages I don't know. I went through I went through a long period where I didn't have cable which puts me of a different age right that you had to have cable so I read a lot of books and like the Harry Potter books they those took a while to read all seven.
Chuck Murphy 38:13
It's funny. My kids read them now that's my primary exposure to my kids and I they're really large but it's so this is fresh in my mind because I just went to Universal Studios
Maggie Bright 38:23
when you can be on Team Hermione then and you know I'll be on Team whatever.
Chuck Murphy 38:26
I still haven't figured out the houses and all that even though Murphy research does have a figure out what house you are right?
Maggie Bright 38:31
I'm a Ravenclaw can't believe you don't know your house. Bringing it back to the segmentation though, like that is a segmentation that has been amazingly well implemented. Right? You know, your house you like live by those rules. I mean, it's a typing tool, right?
Chuck Murphy 38:45
If we had $800 million movie budgets, right, we're using scripts and actors, we really could do the same thing with our segmentations right?
Maggie Bright 38:53
Totally with every category right? We could take orange juice to another level if we only had a studio budget.
Chuck Murphy 39:03
I will get to move off the schedule back to the main topic. There are a lot of again, like you know, what are the things we say here all the time as we focus so much creativity, but the bang for your buck that you get on some of these creative little things you could do? They people were can remember them for years, right? And so little time and so little money to come up with, like, different little ways to kind of memorialize, whether it be a segment and occasion. You know, archetype, whatever it is, you're trying to get your stakeholders to remember, there's so many things you could do and it's it's so funny because like so many people get like close to the finish line, and then at the extra tiny little 3% of work, they're like yeah, that's too much extra work or that's an extra you know, $10,000 like they they stop being shy of this but it really is. So it makes such a big difference right like the for for a stakeholder or someone else accompany like the presentation. It's it's the first step, right? They're just seeing the first steps of how do you kind of continue to remind them and, you know, keep thinking and empathizing with these different segments, or these different audience types. And a lot of times, you could come up with some really cute simple ideas that that don't cost a lot and, and really trying to help breathe life into this long term.
Maggie Bright 40:21
Yeah. I think the key is it, if you think about it, like oh, my gosh, I have to get an entire organization to align on a framework that I developed from a survey, it feels overwhelming, but if you just kind of say, hey, I need to introduce people to our, our audience, and you start to do small things, and you know, maybe they grow into bigger things, or maybe you keep doing smaller things, but it's like, I think you mentioned this already tech, it's the little things that can help sort of infiltrate this into your, into your organization. And I realized, as I said, that that was like a lot of like, infiltrate and disseminate. And it sounds like I'm waging a, some sort of battle, but I think it really is, like, I mean, it's, it doesn't take much to start to get people aligned, and then it spreads, right? Once you start to get four or five more people on board, then they can advocate for it. And then you know, it grows outward from there. So it's really just about sort of planting the seed of, hey, this is who we're talking to, and this is who they are. And you know, like Help me Help me spread this word around about who our target is. And then I think people can get excited about it and then you can really see it take off.
Chuck Murphy 41:28
Were you tempted to say help me help you?
Maggie Bright 41:31
Help me help you? Yes, I wasn't but but now I will help me help you.
Chuck Murphy 41:36
It's your fault. I brought that up by the way because you're the one who used the Jerry Maguire blog post and I actually want to go rewatch Jerry Maguire now.
Maggie Bright 41:43
I was thinking the same thing I was wondering if it aged well and then I was also thinking like that movie is applicable to everything that that's the bottom line like
Chuck Murphy 41:51
I haven't thought about that movie in a long time, but then when I read your thing it made me want to rewatch.
Maggie Bright 41:57
Alright, now we have officially digress but,we did make it through all five.
Chuck Murphy 42:02
We did did I think I think this is probably this is probably a good place to end right. We're a little little long of our original goal. But for any of you wonky enough to have you know, listen to 40 minutes on segmentation deliverables. Thank you. Yeah. Should we see you were?
Maggie Bright 42:19
Yes, hopefully we had you at hello.
Chuck Murphy 42:26
On that note, thank you very much. Talk to you next week!
Maggie Bright 42:26
Bye!