A Bird's Eye View of the Consumer Insights Space

In this episode of the Consumer Insights Podcast, we speak with Priscilla McKinney, CEO of Little Bird Marketing.

What’s the difference between an insights professional and a consumer? Context.

Sometimes a fresh perspective and a reminder of our common humanity are all we need.

In this episode of the Consumer Insights Podcast, Thor is joined by Priscilla McKinney, CEO at Little Bird Marketing.

They cover:

• Why looking at other industries can be a powerful source of inspiration
• How insights help to focus your attention and budget
• The importance of keeping humanity at the heart of market research
• Why the difference between our “work self” and our “consumer self” is simply context
• The difference between bias and tapping into our inner consumer 
• Why social influence is a powerful tool and how social media drives it
• The importance of digital transformation in business
• Why it’s essential for insights professionals to cultivate business acumen
• Why you can’t challenge the status quo without challenging your own mindset first
• Why engaging with groups like Women in Research can help you build connections and boost your career
• The benefits of collaborating with your competitors 
• How to think about insourcing vs. outsourcing insights expertise

If you’re interested in getting a nuanced, bird’s eye view of the insights industry, tune in to this episode of The Consumer Insights Podcast.

You can access all episodes of the Consumer Insights Podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google, or use the RSS feed with your favorite player. Below, you'll find a lightly edited transcript of this episode.

Thor Olof Philogène: Hello everyone and welcome to the Consumer Insights Podcast today. I'm excited to have a brilliant thought leader in the insights industry joining me for what I know will be a fantastic conversation. 

I'm thrilled to introduce today's guest, Priscilla McKinney, CEO and Mama Bird at Little Bird Marketing, as well as the host of not one, but two industry podcasts, the Digital Transformation Success Podcast, and Ponderings from the Perch. Thank you so much for joining me today, Priscilla.

Priscilla McKinney: This is going to be awesome,  Thor. I've been looking forward to this because I have been listening to your podcast since inception, so I was really delighted when your team called and asked me to be on. I feel like I'm very important, so this is gonna be fun. 

Thor: I'm honored. Thank you. But firstly, could you take a couple minutes to tell us about yourself, your journey, and how you came to work and the role you're in today? How did it all begin?

Priscilla: I actually am a cultural anthropologist by trade, so how's that for kicking off a market research podcast? But you know, I understand the basis of market research and I grew up in another culture and so I understand the idea of a different worldview and trying to get someone else's opinion and all the layers of cultural understanding that need to happen there.

I am a marketer, so I'm not a market researcher, but I have really honed my marketing skills and gotten to know this market research industry very intimately so that I can serve market research companies in this industry and helping them really to put their best foot forward and to identify their highly prized, next great client and really get the messaging right for them.

Thor: I think that's something we need. We need that help in getting the right foot forward. Before we dive into more specific questions, I always like to start by asking, how would you define an insight and has that view changed over the course of your career coming from a marketer's background to serving market researchers?

Priscilla's definition of an insight

Priscilla: You know, that's interesting, because like I said, I do listen to your podcast, so I've actually learned a little along the way of what some of your other guests have said, and I would agree with one key thing that has been said in that an insight is not just an “aha” moment. Because there is information we can get from things and we go, “Oh, okay, I didn't know that. “ But does it matter? 

W at for me, an insight really is, “But what am I gonna do with this information?” And I understand that the underpinning of that is to say a really valuable insight is one that helps you make a great decision, but my perspective of it is maybe a little bit different, and it's about “How do I make a different connection?”

And I think this is because I come from outside the industry and so many times I find that I make a very bizarre, creative connection between things that are two different points that other people have thought were unrelated because I'm not kind of too myopic inside the market research industry.

So I am able to see a correlation of something that is a success in another industry and say, “Wait a minute, what's the equivalent over here? How could we make that work if, if business is finding this interesting, how can market researchers make that work?” 

So for me, an insight is not just saying, “Okay, I know something I didn't know and I can take action”, but “Can I make a unique enough action? Can I make something that is gonna be a changemaker based on this, can I set myself really apart from my competitor with this information?”

Thor: I love that. And given what you just described, the bird's eye view of the industry that you have, both research and brand side. Why would you say that market and consumer insights are so important? What does integrating them allow businesses to do?

What makes market and consumer insights so important

Priscilla: Well, first of all, I love that you say bird's eye view because I love a good usage of my pondering for my Little Bird Marketing, and we call ourselves. But you're right, I do have an interesting perch from which to view what you all are doing.

And it gives me the ability to kind of speak into it in an interesting way. Why it matters for business is simply two big things. Number one, nobody has an unlimited budget. That unicorn of a client does not exist. We all have to make very hard decisions about how we're gonna spend our money, our time, our efforts, our best thinking time, whatever it is.

We're trying to come up with an economy that will work for us. And so on one hand it is an idea of some limitations. And limitations are not a negative thing, they give us parameters, and then we get to spark the creativity from them, right? So it's super important because we can't just do everything.

So we have to do what we can do meaningfully. From my perspective, I often tell clients that they probably come to us thinking they're gonna get the big new creative idea, which we love, but honestly, some of the best creative ideas have come from my clients when I've asked them a question, so I've just kind of been the midwife of it.

You can have a great idea, but I think that the power that we give our clients and that we're hoping to give to the industry as a whole, is the power of saying “No”, and it's not always saying “Yes, let's do this, let's do that, let's do that”, but saying, “Wait a minute."

We can start saying no to those things because it does not actually meet all of our criteria. And so why are insights important? Is because it helps us narrow the focus. It helps us really say no to some things that are distractions.

The difference is a lot of people can have a great idea, but can you execute on it? And so we come alongside and help people execute on that great idea. So you can have a great idea, but I think that the power that we give our clients and that we're hoping to give to the industry as a whole, is the power of saying “No”, and it's not always saying “Yes, let's do this, let's do that, let's do that”, but saying, “Wait a minute."

We can start saying no to those things because it does not actually meet all of our criteria. And so why are insights important? Is because it helps us narrow the focus. It helps us really say no to some things that are distractions.

And if you think that's what's happening for us as firms, that's also what happens for brands. We're delivering to them great insights to help them start saying no to the millions of things that they could be doing to market. And I mean, just think about social channels, just think about social influencers, Just think about TV.

You know, just think I'm just, there's so many channels and the world is so, so, so, so noisy. So the power to say no is what I think comes from really good insights.

Switching between the "consumer self" and "the work self"

Thor: I absolutely love that you put that conversation with the client at the center of it, and you spoke on the podcast about keeping humanity at the heart of market research initiatives, and one of the things I think you really insightfully touched on was how we all have to constantly switch between our consumer selves and our work selves. Can you tell us a bit about that?

Priscilla: Yeah, I think that, here we are driving to work, and typically listening to a podcast and there might be an ad in the podcast and I might listen to that and go, “Oh, let me reach you over here and let me just, you know, forward 10 seconds, forward, 15 seconds, whatever it is.” 

I need to be awake and alive to what I'm doing as a consumer in that moment, because then I come into my office and then I say, “Hey, who wants to buy an ad on my podcast?” 

Well, I need to be very mindful. Why did I just forward through someone else's ad? What happened there? Was there a disconnect? Was it interruptive to me? Was it not relevant? 

Well, I need to be very mindful. Why did I just forward through someone else's ad? What happened there? Was there a disconnect? Was it interruptive to me? Was it not relevant? 

I need to be awake and alive in that moment that I was a consumer and almost like looking objectively at my own behavior, because now it needs to inform what I do as I walk into my office as a CEO, sit down at a marketing desk and now inform people what they should do, but wait a minute, two seconds ago, I was a consumer, and so it is really that battle to be able to say, bring humanity back to it. Would I listen to that? 

And  I'm constantly saying to my team when they deliver different content to me or an email and I say, “Where's the value here? Where, you know, would you open this email if you got it? Come on now, let's be the consumers.”

And I want people on my team to say that to me too, to be asking me, “Are you sure that's what we wanna put out?” So I think that's the value of really saying we need to keep humanity in it, is that we can't just come and simply do our jobs and check things off the list.

The difference between bias and tapping into your inner consumer

Thor: I absolutely love that. And what would you say is the difference between bias and tapping into our consumer?

Priscilla: I talk a lot about personal preference and you know, since I'm usually speaking to an audience of data scientists, I like doing surveys,  so often I say, “Well, raise your hand in the audience if you are a diehard Lyft fan, and raise your hand in the audience if you're a diehard Uber fan.”

And obviously if we're in London, then I'll add black cab, or if we're in New York, I would add yellow cab. The point of asking people kind of puts them in that mindset as a consumer, “What do I choose?”.

And then I say, you know, “When was the last time you got in that Uber, that Lyft, that black cab, that yellow cab, and you said to the driver, “You know what, Just take me anywhere you wanna go?””. Nobody does that like now. Now there's no hands being raised in the audience. 

But what I try to help people understand is that the first question I asked was a matter of personal preference, and the second one was a matter of strategy.

So it doesn't matter where I'm gonna execute this strategy, it matters what strategy I was gonna execute. And so to answer your question there, it is an awakening of the humanity of it all. 

I'm not gonna choose the things for my clients or set up research in a way that is just inherent with all of my assumptions. Instead, I need to pull back for a minute and say, “Where was I trying to go? Well, let's start with the destination in mind and then we'll come back to some preferences and some things like that.” 

And that is not going to eradicate bias, but it is going to help us think more clearly about what we are trying to achieve.

Fueling innovation with insight

Thor: That's an absolutely great way to think about it and a great hack. You know, if you need to hack your own system in terms of as much as possible taking a step away from whatever bias you might have. 

But could you also maybe give us an example of how your team at Little Bird Marketing used an insight to lead a better campaign or project? And give us maybe some context on what the insight was, how you identified it. What type of end result did you get from it?

Priscilla: Yeah, so it's not gonna be a surprise to many people who do actually know me that I'm gonna talk a little bit about social influence, but I do believe very strongly in the power of social media.

Like it or not like it, it has absolutely changed the way we live, the way we work, the way we interact. And I know when I was speaking about it before Covid, a lot of people brushed me off and said, “Well, our teams do really well when they're face-to-face with people and we believe in word of mouth and we wanna make meaningful connections.”

There was always some other things going on and I really wanted to push people to say, “You know, if you haven't brought your entire team through the concept of being digitally transformed and being able to do your job without being face-to-face, then somebody is already eating your lunch, you just haven't been told yet.”

And someday someone will tell you, unfortunately, that message may come on a pink slip. In the US we use that as a euphemism for “You've been fired”. And you know, CEOs can get fired that same way too. And sometimes what we don't know will hurt us. 

You know, if you haven't brought your entire team through the concept of being digitally transformed and being able to do your job without being face-to-face, then somebody is already eating your lunch, you just haven't been told yet.

We don't know that our competitors are excelling at getting to more of their prospects at scale, because we don't see it happening, right? So we might, you know, go to a conference and think, “Our competitor's not here. We must be doing really well.” Or “Your competitor's not here. They don't need to be here because they're doing so well digitally”.

So, you know, this is a long elliptical explanation to give you your answer. We really understand the insight from some studies we did online how it was possible. What it was people were looking for on LinkedIn specifically that would move their career forward, help them push their brand forward, and I mean their personal brand. 

And also just help them execute on their day to day job. And then the last piece was they wanted personal connection. So we really got an interesting study and looked at what people wanted. You know, in this industry, in the speed B industry.

And we took that and said, “Okay, if that's true, then we can actually take so many marketing messages online in a meaningful way.” And so we've been using that to teach teams how to bring digital transformation and increase their personal and business social influence through LinkedIn in order to do a better job.

And I've gotta tell you, somebody who I'm gonna give a shout out to is Ryan Barry over at Zappi because he had me come in and talk to a group of his clients. He rewarded his clients with some of my teaching saying, “Here's how you can wield social influence.” 

So we brought that insight to him, but he turned around and saw a completely different connection. He had me speak to a group of some of his best clients and say, “You can use this information, this insight she has about how you can digitally transform your teams so that you all can get online and collaborate better”.

Even people in the room that were potentially competitors, he could see the beauty of that for opening up and expanding a much bigger conversation online, in the industry, and really helping us all move forward kind of rising tide lifts all boats kind of theme. 

But that's where we took the insights, it changed what we did, but then someone else took it and said, “Now it changes what we do.” And now it's changing what those people are doing in the market research insights. So I just feel like that's such an exponential and a beautiful example of how insights from one team can be moving across and really helping the whole industry.

Essential tools for insights professionals

Thor: I absolutely love that example, Priscilla. And if we think and talk about tooling and what insights professionals require in terms of support, what tools do you believe are essential to support insights professionals and why? And alternatively, which tools do you think holds insights professionals back?

Priscilla: I definitely think that the lack of really understanding how to wield social influence is holding a lot of people back. But the other thing I would say of what is needed, and this is my outside perspective, coming into market research, I believe there is not enough business acumen among market researchers.

I get that they are professionals in what they do, I get that they may be amazing data scientists, they may be the most deep thinking ethnographers and on and on. It may have the most amazing technical platform, but if they don't really understand business in itself, their end user is not going to get as much benefit. 

I believe market researchers need to get armed with more understanding about business KPIs, about strategies in campaigning, and how their insights are going to be used to drive brands forward. They need to get very smart about understanding how to read a P&L, just like some basic fundamentals about what is driving this business.

And I heard something really amazing from an insights gal one time through women in research, and it really stuck with me. But she said, market research professionals often get stuck answering the problem the end client presents with, so I'm gonna solve their problem. “No, no, no, no. What you need to do is solve their boss's boss's problem”.

In order to do that, I believe market researchers need to get armed with more understanding about business KPIs, about strategies in campaigning, and how their insights are going to be used to drive brands forward. They need to get very smart about understanding how to read a P&L, just like some basic fundamentals about what is driving this business.

And that to me is about them gaining the opportunity and really being armed with the knowledge to not only solve the immediate market research problem, but then to solve their boss's boss's problem. And that's when a market researcher becomes invaluable.

Thor: I love that, Priscilla. And I also believe, based on what you just said, that being able to solve your boss's boss's problem, those skills are effectively the skills that the data and insights team need in order to elevate the role of their team within the organization. Would you agree?

Priscilla: I would, and a lot of people are talking about, “Oh, market researchers want a seat at the table”, and I'm like, “Great, get a seat at the table. But when you come to the table, what do you have to offer? Are you waxing on about your findings or are you helping them really truly understand how they're going to activate those?” 

And you know, I'll give you guys a shout out at Stravito in this, you know, I think solving someone's boss's boss's problem and things like this, they need to be listening for. A boss's boss says, ”Didn't we do this research?“

I think this is why you all are a great fit and, and such an important part of the ecosystem for market research is because some researchers are like, “Oh, we'll just do that research.” 

“Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. We already did it. What we need to be able to do is to find it.“ And sometimes I think market researchers will get really happy ears and say, “Oh good, we got another project” without really thinking, “Wait, we did this project 18 months ago”.

If we had it in a system that is searchable, and is somehow, you know a significant library and is user friendly to dig it backup, then we would really be talking because now the next time we do research, it will be new and it will be adding to the issue, not just repeating stuff just simply because we can't find it. And so I think Stravito is a big solution to solving the boss's boss's problem.

Advice on getting involved in the industry

Thor: Preaching to the converted Priscilla. But if you were to give advice to someone looking to get involved in the world of research and insights, what three tips would you give?

Priscilla: Let me think if I can limit it to just three, but number one, get involved in other associations, other groups. First of all, I am such a huge proponent of Women in Research.

It is free to join and you do not have to be a woman to join. This is about advancing women and really giving opportunities and also making the right kind of industry so that women can contribute what women do have. 

So it's amazing. It is free to join and it's womeninresearch.org and I am telling you, we have each other's back, and it is an amazing experience. So I cannot even think of a reason why someone wouldn't join this.

And the next thing I would say is engagement. You get out of this industry what you put into it. I really believe that you need to be looking for places that need help, and I'm not saying that it's all your responsibility, but I think if everybody helps just a little bit in this market, then we can have an incredibly powerful industry and really powerful connections to each other. 

And so I would say, you know, the second piece of advice is to engage. And when you engage, I would say start with giving, even if it's very, very small.

Don't underestimate the power of collaborating with your competitor. I think I see in so many industries people shine away from their competitors keeping secrets. Now, I'm not saying we get in a room and we give away trade secrets in no way, shape, or form, but you would be surprised how much can be done with your competitors.

And the last thing I would say is, don't underestimate the power of collaborating with your competitor. I think I see in so many industries people shine away from their competitors keeping secrets. Now, I'm not saying we get in a room and we give away trade secrets in no way, shape, or form, but you would be surprised how much can be done with your competitors.

And I'll give another shout out to Sarah Kapa over at Fieldwork because during an incredibly difficult crisis of Covid and not being able to meet face to face, can you imagine what was going on in the face to face market research vertical? Those were incredibly painful days, and she was able to look for opportunities to collaborate instead of just focusing on the negative.

And so looking for that bright spot and seizing it, she pulled together all of her competitors, got them in a room together and said, “You know what? Together, we can keep this industry afloat and we can participate in getting a swell of interest and reminding people of the value of face to face when it is safe for us to come back to it.”

And so I just show that as another really fantastic example of what someone else has done in this industry. And you can follow hashtag #Facetofacemrx to really see what they've been able to do. But these competitors came together and really bolstered their own industry, and I think that's a great example of another way. That's my third tip, just look for ways to collaborate.

Opportunities for insights professionals to make business impact

Thor: Such solid advice. And I know, a lot of people talk about consumer centricity going to the human that is the consumer. What opportunities do you think there are for insights professionals to make true business impact and to challenge the status quo?

Priscilla: Challenging the status quo, I've gotta say, starts at home. So if you're not challenging your own mindset, then I don't think that you can come to the table and ask someone else to really question their own. I think it's a way of engaging with the world, and I would say as a cultural anthropologist, it's also understanding that there's an emic view and there's an etic view.

It doesn't matter what you do, there's always another way to look at things.

It doesn't matter what you do, there's always another way to look at things. I think it's about really tapping into that and saying, “Have you done everything you can in your role at your company with your contacts to get this done? Because otherwise don't expect that you're gonna be able to come and challenge someone else’s view.”

So for me it always starts at home. I say that is my last tip about collaborating, I always look to collaborate if I wanna ask someone else to do that. All three of those tips, those are things I'm actively engaged in. And so no matter what it is that you think needs to be done in this industry, start at home.

Thor: I love that tip. You've already given us some really good examples of other people that do great work. Do you have an example of someone that you think does this really well?

Priscilla: I think Dina Bowen is an amazing leader. I am just in awe of her smarts, she's so incredibly smart. For me, a sign of an incredibly intelligent person is one who can distill that information into very understandable perspectives. She's not someone who walks into the room and either demands the space, or believes that her way is the way that things are going to get done.

But I see her with Fortune 100 company after Fortune 100 company, really walk in and have the ability to distill very complicated issues into something very understandable and I just admire it so much.

Challenges facing insights professionals 

Thor: When you take a perspective of the wider industry and everything that's going on, what would you say, what would you highlight as the biggest challenges that could and are facing insights professionals and the wider industry in the near future?

Priscilla: I love this question. I have seen from a little bit of an outsider's perspective this revolving door happening in market research. “Are we gonna insource all the people? Are we gonna outsource the work? Are we gonna insource, are we gonna outsource?” So it is just like, it just goes around and around.

So as things have gotten more technical, people have said at different times, let's take Coke for example. Are they going to have all of their personnel internal, or are they going to actually outsource certain things, certain, very technical insights that they need.

So I have seen from Koch to everybody, from all the way down to the smallest to try and figure out are we better off having all of our insights team inside or outside. Now in the case of a lot of tech and platforms and things that I think Stravito would fit into that system, like it's an outside tech help that enables something that we're trying to do. 

But some companies would look at that and say, “Oh, a Stravito, oh, we'll build it.” “Really? Is that what you're gonna do with your resources? You're gonna try and build that when it's already been built?”, so I see companies struggling with this and they struggle with it from the big side of tech or from just an expertise.

I see this revolving door and my feeling right now, especially with the Great Resignation and people are struggling with understanding hybrid roles and trying to figure out so much internally with business itself, the outsourcing is highly appealing and so I see a big trend right now for going and staying outsourced for quite a while.

Think about a UX researcher, a CX researcher, which are really fancy words, the same qualitative researcher, but they try to figure out, “Do I wanna hire this really expensive person and put them on my team when 18 months later we're not doing that kind of research anyway? And now I gotta let them go, or I need it only occasionally.”

So I see this revolving door and my feeling right now, especially with the Great Resignation and people are struggling with understanding hybrid roles and trying to figure out so much internally with business itself, the outsourcing is highly appealing and so I see a big trend right now for going and staying outsourced for quite a while.

And so I would just say that to people in the market research world. Number one, beware. And number two, there’s an opportunity out there. 

If you really specialize and you're the only person that can help, this is a good time to make your case and show how special you are, because recession budgets may be getting tighter, people are pumping the brakes a little bit, so that can be very good for a high priced expert, because people are not as willing to faff about with a lower cost solution when they know they need an answer right now they can rely on. 

So I think the opportunity right now is for very highly specialized people and insights and technology to come in and really show their value, and I think it will stick.

Who in the world of insights Priscilla would love to have lunch with

Thor: Thank you so much for that perspective. Unfortunately, Priscilla, we're getting to the end of our conversation today. And as much as I would've loved to spend more time, I only have one last question for you, which is, “Who in the world of insights would you love to have lunch with?”

Priscilla: Thor, are you kidding me? You're putting me on the spot, you know me enough to know I'm not gonna have lunch with just one person. But I will say this.

Maybe turn your question around just a little bit. I just recently had lunch with Kevin Kruper. He's at Old Salt, an interesting insights think tank. And I've gotta say I would take lunch with anybody because I think there's always something to learn and people all often ask me is like, “Oh, why are you going to lunch with so and so?” 

“I don’t know. I'll tell you after I get back.”, and so I never turned down any of these opportunities. And if you would like to have lunch with me, anyone who's listening to this podcast, I would. And even if you don't know why we should connect, we'll figure it out when we get there. And so I think this idea is kind of superlative, like who would be the best person?

I don't know that there is a best person, because to me it kind of goes against my mindset. I don't know what interesting ideas are gonna come out of the next conversation. I just wanna have that next conversation. 

For me, whoever it is that presents, first of all, they gotta wanna have a really good lunch and really, I mean, we're drinking just so we're clear, if we're doing that, then I wanna have the next great conversation with the next person who is willing to open up and put some cards on the table.

I don't wanna have  a conversation where I'm trying to wiggle something out of somebody, I guess that would preclude me from meeting with some people. But I am up for that next great conversation that opens a door that I just did not see and I couldn't have planned for.

Summary

Thor: I absolutely love that perspective, Priscilla, and I think that there's so many good things that come out of people that have the same mindset as you.

This has been such an interesting conversation, Priscilla. The perspective that you have on the industry, on insights is truly unique, and I think there's so much we can all learn from it. I'm gonna play back some of the things I brought with me from this conversation.

 Uh, I love the fact how you said that an insight is what I'm going to do with the information, why it matters. Nobody has an unlimited budget and we are trying to come up with an economy on how to make it work. It gives you the power of saying no. 

Unfortunately, the industry needs to step up. There's not enough business acumen among market researchers, and if the people that are trying to get a seat at the table do not understand the business itself, if they don't understand how to read a P&L, then they will not be able to solve their boss's boss’s problem. And that's really when it starts to matter. 

If you are looking to get into market research, start by getting involved in communities. As an example, start with women in research. As another step, start to make sure that you have engagement, you get out of the industry, what you put into it. Start with giving. 

And lastly, the third tip, don't underestimate the power of cooperation with your competitor. I absolutely love this, Priscilla. For all of our listeners, I will personally bring forward the suggestion you gave, which is to remember that challenging the status quo starts at home.

Now, I know that I've learned a lot from talking with you today, and I'm sure our audience has as well. Priscilla, thank you so much for joining me today.

Priscilla: It was totally an honor. My pleasure. Thanks, Thor.