The Insight of Empathy

In this episode of The Consumer Insights Podcast, we speak with Rob Volpe, CEO of Ignite 360. 

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 really inspiring insights leader joining me for what I know will be an amazing conversation. Rob Volpe is the CEO of Ignite 360, a consumer insights and strategy firm that uncovers the “deeper why” behind everyday human behavior.

Rob, I know you have advised to consider the usage of the word “why”, and we might get into that in the call. Before Ignite 360, Rob was a Managing Partner at Axen Research, and he also worked as the Director of Promotional Marketing for Wild Planet Toys. Rob, thank you so much for joining me today.

Rob Volpe: Thor, thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Thor: Firstly, could you take a couple of minutes to tell us a bit about yourself, your company, and how you got to where you are today? Where did your journey begin?

Rob: My company, Ignite 360, is 11 years old. We're, as we describe ourselves, an insights strategy and training firm. It was really important to make sure we were providing more than data to our clients, that they really understood the action that they could take off of the learning from their consumer, or their client, whatever the constituent group was.

That's actually part of the origin of the name of the company. I was talking to a client a month or so before I launched, frantically trying to figure out the name of the company. She's like, "Well, yes, but what you do really well is you provide the ignition for the teams to make decisions on whatever it is that they need to do." 

As soon as you said the word "ignition", the lights went off and I was like, "Oh, that's a great action word." I already knew I wanted 360 because of that sort of holistic look at people. We provide qualitative, quantitative, do a lot of projects that are tackling some of the bigger business challenges that relate to the consumers that our clients have, and we work across a range of industries. 

We grew up out of CPG but now we work as well in retail and tech, and healthcare, and travel, and financial services because our clients have brought us with them, and they understand that we're really good at getting at that “why”, as you mentioned, and what makes people tick.

The reality is, the same person that's eating Cheerios is also using a Microsoft product and they might be banking at Wells Fargo, and they might be traveling on United Airlines. It's all the same person. It's about understanding those different dimensions and angles of each individual.

Rob's definition of an insight

Thor: In order to get full usage of that understanding, we often talk about insights. As an insights leader, how would you define an insight?

Rob: An insight is a truth about a situation or a person, that if applied across the business, can unlock change or growth.

Fueling growth and counteracting decline with insights

Thor: Solid. On your LinkedIn profile, you mentioned that you've helped companies to achieve double-digit sales growth at retail, and develop new products that buck the winds of declining categories. I'd love to hear a bit more about that.

Rob: Sure. I'll tell you a story. Back in 2010, '11, '12, Greek yogurt became a huge thing and totally disrupted the yogurt category and created a lot of pain for the traditional yogurt brands that were out there, Danone and Yoplait.

Among other factors, it led to changes in business, layoffs, and a lot of corporations got upset because hundreds of millions of dollars were getting lost in revenue to these upstarts.

General Mills is one of our earliest clients, and very appreciative of everything that they've done with us and helped us get to where we are. They had come to us in 2016, and we had done several studies for the yogurt team in the yogurt division to help them understand who that Greek yogurt consumer was, how they could play in that space, how they could take their current product and keep it relevant.

In this one situation, they were doing an innovation sprint. Not in the sort of rapid, fast two weeks sort of innovation sprint. It was over a five or six-month span of time, but they were really going in deep. They wanted to understand who their lapsed consumer was, how they might be able to win them back, where they went. 

We went out and did a series of both online ethnography, and we also did some in person ethnography, bringing the team along with us, and came back with a better understanding of who the consumer was that they had lost, and what that consumer was looking for.

Some of those insights, along with some other guidance that we were able to provide, and then a lot of other research, I'm not going to be egotistical to say, "Oh, it was us, we gave them that one answer." 

It was their own thinking too but we helped provide that inspiration that led to a product called Oui. One of the things that we helped talk with them about was this idea of how consumers view premium products, and the things that they're looking for, and the things you have to hold on to and fight for in your organization.

Oui is actually on the marketplace. People know it in glass cups. Glass has a lot of benefits to it, but it breaks in ways that plastic doesn't. It weighs more so that adds to shipping costs, et cetera, but there's something about the way that it feels in a person's hand that actually has meaning and it signals a premiumness, therefore, it's worth spending more for this and tells you something about the product.

Anyway, the team was able to launch Oui. They did such a great job, and they really stuck to their guns. I'm just really impressed with how they kept aligned to what I would call “true north” to what the consumer was looking for. 

Oui, in its first year, was on track to be $150 million in revenue, but they couldn't make it fast enough. They ended up going on what's known as allocation, where they had to stop their advertising, but I think it was reported as a $107 million launch in year 1.

In the CPG space, that's the grand slam home-run. Dollars in yogurt were growing, but the category itself wasn't growing.

In the CPG space, that's the grand slam home-run. Dollars in yogurt were growing, but the category itself wasn't growing. This was an opportunity for them to reclaim some of the dollars that they had lost. I don't know what the actual size of it is at this point, but I know it's actually significantly larger than where it was off of just a year one launch. That's one that I'm always proud of and able to point to.

One more story. There's an olive oil company based in California called California Olive Ranch. You've got General Mills, multinational, multi billion dollars. Here's a smaller olive oil manufacturer distributor. They came to us in about 2012, and they were looking to understand who their consumer was, and what made them tick, and why they liked that particular product.

They had a very limited budget,  they weren't General Mills. We worked with what we had and talked to consumers and were able to bring back key insights that helped them. 

Just by understanding who their consumer was, what made them tick, why they chose that particular brand, what kept them loyal, it fueled them for years and years. Probably three years ago was the last time they came to me and said, "We're still using those insights from seven years ago." It's enabled them. I think they've doubled in size at this point. They're a privately held company.

Just by understanding who their consumer was, what made them tick, why they chose that particular brand, what kept them loyal, it fueled them for years and years.

I don't know all the numbers, but they were able to unlock those insights. They were able to use that to inform packaging as well as advertising decisions. How they were positioning the product in the marketplace, and from a sales perspective as well as to the consumer. 

Even as they've had to expand and go into new products that maybe aren't all single origin or California-based olive oil, how can they actually communicate that to the consumer? Great insights done well can have long-lasting benefits.

Why market and consumer insights are so important

Thor: You've already addressed this implicitly with both the example from General Mills and then the example with the olive oil. What is it that makes the market and consumer insights so important? You've addressed it implicitly, but if you would highlight the core elements here, what would they be?

Rob: I think if we don't have that input and that understanding of who the consumer is, we're going to default to thinking that it's ourselves or how we might want it. There's just so much bias. So often, we are not that consumer. 

What are you going to end up doing? You're going to be throwing darts at a completely different dartboard than the dartboard you need to be targeting and addressing. 

I think if we don't have that input and that understanding of who the consumer is, we're going to default to thinking that it's ourselves or how we might want it. There's just so much bias. So often, we are not that consumer. 

Getting those insights from the consumer and holding onto and learning from past work that's been done too, that's a bug-a-boo for me, is like “What have you already done? Let's not recreate. Let's maybe verify and evolve, but not recreate the past. What do you already know? Then build on that to go deeper and understand. “

If you're able to step into the shoes, have empathy with that consumer, understand where they're coming from, you're going to be able to build better products and services, better marketing campaigns because you're solving a need that somebody has or wants. You're going to make them hopefully want your product if you've done it right.

Solving the empathy crisis

Thor: I think you mentioned here that you need to start with, “What do we already know, and what do we understand?” If we dig a bit deeper on the understanding part, I also know that you're a self-proclaimed empathy activist. 

You're also the author of the book, Tell Me More About That, where you offer guidance on how to solve what you refer to as the empathy crisis. Could you tell us a bit more about that?

Rob: Yes. Superficially, you could say that there's a challenge with empathy in our society. I think we see it all the time now in the way that people are butting heads against each other. There's not the same perceived level of discourse and dialogue that there used to be. So many different causes to that. 

There's actually data though that backs all of that up. Study out of the University of Michigan in 2010, and that was the thing that really got me going, "Oh, my gosh, we've got to do something about this," showed they did a meta-analysis of university student life surveys. 76 universities starting in 1979 through 2009. 

They found that from the start in '79 to 2001, there was a 40% decline in people's ability to positively answer or agree with a question, "I can easily see the point of view of other people or my classmates" in that case.

Then it didn't change, which is good news, but still, it's at this 40% reduced level for the last 8 years of the study. That to me is like college student 2001, today they're in their early 40s at this point. That's a lot of people running around with less empathy skills.

Empathy is so critical to all the skills that we need to have a well-functioning society, and the skills that we need to succeed in business. Empathy became really critical. You have to understand who your consumer is. You've got to get over your judgment. You've got to ask the questions and do all the things.

In some work that Ignite 360 has done, we asked that same question to American adults. How easily can you agree with this statement, "I can easily see the point of view of other people?" Nearly one-third of people were unable to even agree with that question. 

To me as a researcher, I'm like, "That's so easy, obvious." It's not necessarily the question I would ask because it feels like, "Oh, well, of course, I'm supposed to say yes to this. Otherwise, I'm going to be thought of as a freak or a social misfit," but one-third of people couldn't easily see the point of view of other people. That's concerning.

One-third of the adults that you're going to run into today are unable to easily see your point of view, which means if you have a problem, issue, challenge, and you need help, they may not see where you're coming from. That's really concerning to me. I don't think that's good. 

Empathy is so critical to all the skills that we need to have a well-functioning society, and the skills that we need to succeed in business. Empathy became really critical. You have to understand who your consumer is. You've got to get over your judgment. You've got to ask the questions and do all the things.

Constructing a 360-degree view

Thor: I think also building from what you just said that empathy allows you to go from understanding the consumer to understanding the human being, that is the consumer. I think that's super interesting. 

You also describe how your team at Ignite 360 delivers that 360 view to your clients. Tell us a bit more about what goes into building that view.

Rob: If Microsoft is coming to us asking us to talk about that consumer from the perspective of how they're using a device or piece of technology, I'm going to tell them that story. I'm not going to talk about the way they eat Cheerios. However, they might be eating Cheerios while they're using the device. If that had any relevance, then you would obviously bring that in.

For us, as we're looking at the learnings, we're really always thinking about what the story is. “What's the bigger idea?” I think one of the problems we've run into with data and the amount of data that we're able to get-- and it's a beautiful thing, I love it-- is that you can't see the forest for the trees. There's just so many different points of data that your brain can become overwhelmed with.

As we're doing our analysis, we step back and we're like, "What's the big story here that's happening? What's the key question the client had? What do they need to do? What's the data telling us? How do we frame that up in a way that's going to be clear and concise and point them in a direction that they're going to be inspired to take action?" We're always looking for that.

I think one of the problems we've run into with data and the amount of data that we're able to get– and it's a beautiful thing, I love it– is that you can't see the forest for the trees. There's just so many different points of data that your brain can become overwhelmed with.

Then it's using our understanding of story and empathy-building to bring the consumer to life and to give them a voice. If we're doing work on, we've done a segmentation and we're bringing that to life, it's not that, well, this segment, they're called Yoga Moms and they are white women who are 35 to 50 years old. They go to yoga three times a week, and they like a glass of red wine.

There are millions of women that fit that. It's like, who is that person individually? Let's go a level down. Let's find the individual story maybe from one of the consumers we met who fits those broader definitions, but let's get a level deeper about who she is as a person because that's what ultimately makes her relatable. 

Otherwise, you've just got a stereotype, and you need to get a little bit deeper so that they become a real person so that you can have empathy with them and understand better who you're doing that product service campaign for.

Insights as fuel for innovation

Thor: I think everybody can relate with that massive amount of data that you need to siphon through to actually take action and identify insights. Maybe you could tell us a story or give us an example when you and your career have integrated insights that have fueled innovation that has powered a better campaign or project, or a product.

Rob: Product development story is a great one that I like to point to. Also point to the one from California Olive Ranch. There's obviously client confidentiality that I'm always mindful of, but it's really around understanding who that consumer is and what's making them tick, and how you bring that forward. Let me think of an example.

Thor: I think maybe you could spend time telling us how you identified those core insights. Again, thinking about the audience, thinking about the listeners, just how you went about.

Rob: We're often doing hermeneutic analysis, stepping back, and looking at like, ”Who did we talk to? What did we hear? What didn't we hear? How is all of that laddering up?" I think there's different ways of interpreting data. Some people start to look at the bigger picture first and then dive down into the weeds.

Others like to get into the weeds and build up. We have a mix of those people on our team. The best practice for us, our moderators do the analysis, and then we bring in what we call a storyologist to help create the story. 

You go in and you start to like, "Well, what do we have? What's going on here?" The two people are working in tandem so that there isn't just the confirmation bias of one person and what they felt was right. You do have that dialogue that's happening.

Ultimately, you have to partner with your client. Your client should partner with their agency in that development, because at the end of the day, we're going to give the presentation, and then it's up to the client to then share it and take it forward. If they aren't as fully versed, immersed, aligned to, it's going to be much harder for them.

You also have the storyologist coming in, and quite honestly, we also bring the client in, whether that's through a team, some sort of a working session, a debrief, or something. We also are working with the insights manager. 

Whoever the client is that's hired us, we'll put together, we'll go off, put together an outline of what we think the story is and the key learning, and then come back to them and share, and then work with them.

Because ultimately, you have to partner with your client. Your client should partner with their agency in that development, because at the end of the day, we're going to give the presentation, and then it's up to the client to then share it and take it forward. If they aren't as fully versed, immersed, aligned to, it's going to be much harder for them.

Additionally, they have a better sense of what the roadblocks are that are going to come up in the organization, their landmines that exist in. It's like, "Oh, that's a really political topic. We should frame this way or have a discussion about how we bring this information forward, if we bring it forward." 

Unpacking the question "Why?"

Thor: That's interesting that you say that it doesn't shut things down. That actually goes back to what I alluded to in the very beginning when we talked about the word, why? Maybe we could reconnect the dots there, and you could tell us a bit of what people should be conscious of and think about when utilizing that word.

Rob: I would ask everyone to think about when they first started hearing the word “why” or if there's another language that is their mother tongue, the equivalent word, that when you got in trouble and your parent, your caregiver, whomever it was, a person in authority was interrogating you effectively, what would they do?

They would ask you “Why? Why did you draw on the wall in marker or crayon? Why did you cut your sister's hair?” all the things that we do as kids. What happens at that moment? You're put on the defensive. You're like, "Uh oh, I'm going to get in trouble. Therefore, I need to come up with a reasonable explanation, rationalization of why I did what I did."

Sometimes it's as simple as "I don't know," but other times, you start to come up with these elaborate concoctions or whatever. That dynamic follows us from when we're toddlers to when we are going to school. “Why were you late to class?” “Why were you late with that report?” “Why are you breaking up with me?” “Why, why, why, why, why?” That then continues on into our work life.

Ask why, but not using the word “why”. Use “how”, “what”, “where”, “when”, “who”, and then pay attention to the answers that you're getting as well because you're going to find that you're going to get very thoughtful, reflective answers but they're not coming from a place of trying to avoid getting in trouble from a place of defensiveness.

I learned this when I got trained to moderate it. Naomi Henderson at RIVA brought this to our attention and talked to us about this, where it's putting somebody on the defensive. If you challenge effectively, if you put a respondent on the defensive, they're not going to give you, they're going to try to rationalize in a way and make excuses for, because they're going to feel like they're defending.

The challenge I have for everybody, and the same is true then in the workplace, as you're working with your colleagues, here's the challenge for the day, and you can make this a team exercise, is eliminate the word “why” from conversation. Find the other words. It doesn't mean don't ask the question, but reframe the question, rephrase it. 

Ask why, but not using the word “why”. Use “how”, “what”, “where”, “when”, “who”, and then pay attention to the answers that you're getting as well because you're going to find that you're going to get very thoughtful, reflective answers but they're not coming from a place of trying to avoid getting in trouble from a place of defensiveness.

The relationship between consumer insights and macro trends 

Thor: I can relate to that. Tell me, you also lead a team of experts who help leading brands identify and understand emerging macro trends and customer sentiment. How would you describe the relationship between customer insights and emerging macroeconomic trends?

Rob: The consumer in a capitalistic society, and you think about the consumer, there's you and me going to the grocery store, buying whatever food products that we buy, and there's that consumer idea, but we're also consumers as we're choosing what companies we want to work with, partner with. 

There's always a consumer or consumption, a purchase decision that's being made. All of those things ladder up and are one of the key things that are informing and driving some of the bigger macro trends in the economy.

To me, if you're not listening to the consumer, you don't have your finger on the pulse of the consumer. It's not just consumer sentiment and a percentage number that's coming out there. It's getting underneath that and asking “Why?” and trying to find out what's driving that. 

That is really critical to understanding that bigger picture. We have a study that we've been running longitudinally since 2020 for over 2 years now, called Navigating to a New Normal.

There's always a consumer or consumption, a purchase decision that's being made. All of those things ladder up and are one of the key things that are informing and driving some of the bigger macro trends in the economy.

There's a quant piece, but then qualitatively, we recruited 16 everyday Americans, a wide cross-section from I think now 22 to 73, male, female, ethnicity differences, urban, suburban, rural. We talk to them once a quarter. I'm actually doing the first interview for this cycle later today.

One of the things we're asking them about, we talked to them in April about inflation and the gas prices and everything. Well, it's just gotten worse, so we're going back. It's like, okay, inflation keeps going up. What are the trade-offs? You only have so much money available.

Unless you're dipping into your savings and you're spending that down, and a lot of Americans don't have a lot of savings, you may be going into debt. Or what are the trade-offs that you're making? What are the things that you're sacrificing?

That is informing where things are headed from that macroeconomic sense. You hear that flight bookings started to trend down in May, June after and airfares were sky high at that point. 

Well, if they've continued to soften, then the travel industry's going to see some adjustments, but people are still cooking dinner at home. What's that mean for the restaurant industry that's seen that repair? I'm really curious to hear from everyone how they're responding to these current conditions, and then doing some thinking about where it's all going to go.

The DNA of a successful insights team

Thor: A lot of our listeners are on insights teams or they might run insights teams. In your experience, having been in the industry for so long, what do you believe is the DNA of a successful insights team?

Rob: Curiosity, number one. Storytelling and that ability to influence, I think is really critical. The insights team is, if you think about the royal courts of 1000 years ago and you had the jester, and the harlequin, who was at the king's side and is like the consiglieri. 

They're at the king's side or the queen's side whispering into their ear, telling them what's really going on, telling them the truth. That's the role of an insights organization.

The insights team is, if you think about the royal courts of 1000 years ago and you had the jester, and the harlequin, who was at the king's side and is like the consiglieri. 

They're at the king's side or the queen's side whispering into their ear, telling them what's really going on, telling them the truth. That's the role of an insights organization.

You need to have curiosity to understand what the truth is. You also have to have that ability to turn it. If it's not you yourself, you've got to have the partners externally or internally that can pull that together, that can find the story, tell the story, help with the influence, and be champions of empathy, quite honestly.

Again, it's not about feeling the feelings. It's seeing the perspective of other people. That's part and parcel to that. I would say those three things. I would probably add strategic. It's all about consultation and being that consultancy at this point. I think all of those things are critical.

I'm not an advocate of not sharing bad news, but there is a way to deliver bad news that might be more palatable. If we can figure that out, that graceful way of sharing whatever the news is so that it doesn't shut everything down so that it can still inspire, that's what we're going for.

How to improve your storytelling skills

Thor: You mentioned storytelling. I know that at Ignite 360, you offer customized training workshops that foster teamwork, collaboration and storytelling. Do you have any quick tips for our listeners on how to become better at storytelling?

Rob: Yes. We have two different types of training. One is empathy camp, which is all empathy skills in the workplace training, and then the story masters training. 

With that, one of the things we always coach is knowing your audience and understanding who it is that you're presenting to, and then understanding where their barriers might be and how to overcome that.

With that, one of the things we always coach is knowing your audience and understanding who it is that you're presenting to, and then understanding where their barriers might be and how to overcome that.

We spend a good amount of time working on that because, it's one thing to talk to your cross-functional team versus talking to your insights function, versus talking to the C-suite, or the board, or whomever constituent group. 

You need to understand where they're coming from, so you've got to have empathy with them. Understand where they're coming from, what it is that they need to hear, what the style is that they're looking for in a presentation, so that you can adapt and be flexible to meet that. That's definitely not easy. That's why we spend time on it.

Opportunities for insights professionals to challenge the status quo

Thor: If we instead look at the opportunities that you think exist for insights professionals, and we take the lens of really wanting to make a true business impact, and to, as much as possible, challenge the status quo, what opportunities would you highlight?

Rob: I think it's that ever-sharpening of skills. I think it's identifying and acknowledging what you individually and your team are really good at, and then figuring out where you compensate through external vendors, partners, whatever platforms.

One thing I'm going to say, and it's relevant for you guys, but knowing where you've been is so critical. I've been in this business for about 16 years now and I've had some clients with me that entire time, client organizations. 

You get a call from somebody that's new and they're like, "Hey, I want to understand this consumer." It's like, "Hey, happy to help. We just did that study three years ago. Let's dust that off and come back and figure out what we already know and then how do we get beyond that."

It's being smart in a 360-view of where you've been as well as where you're going and using all of the things that you've got at your disposal. 

It ends up saving our clients money because sometimes they realize “Oh, this is great. We actually don't even need to do this research. It's like, instead of going out and doing deep dives with 24 people at a cost of $150,000 for all of it, we can spend half that and actually get beyond those initial questions and get to that next level."

It's being smart in a 360-view of where you've been as well as where you're going and using all of the things that you've got at your disposal. 

As you're trying to solve problems, you're looking at syndicated third-party data and you're thinking about what new questions we might be able to ask, but it's like, “What else have we done? It may not have been me. It might be my colleagues sitting the next cube over, or somebody that's rotated onto a different team checking like hey, do you recall anything?” 

I think it's been surprising how few companies have really mastered being able to do that, but the ones that have are much smarter for doing that. They're able to save money and spend their money more wisely.

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

Thor: I think that's core, right? Understanding what you already know before you venture into anything new and then apply that understanding to the benefit of whatever project you're going into. We're getting to the end of this conversation, and I've had a really nice time. 

There's one question, one last question I want to ask you before wrapping up, which is, who in the world of customer insights would you love to have lunch with?

Rob: A consumer. I probably surprised you. That is the answer.

Thor: I love it. I think it was a brilliant answer.

Rob: You learn so much. I've always said, and even at the start of my book I talk about, there's so much to learn from the people that are around us all day long.

They're not celebrities, they're not influencers, they're everyday people. If we just take the time to stop and listen, ask the questions, and then listen to the answers, it can unlock so much understanding. I think it would be much more fun to do a luncheon with a group of six consumers, and have a fun conversation about something.

Summary

Thor: Rob, I hope you would invite me to that dinner. I think it's going to be insightful for me also. This has been such a great and insightful conversation, Rob. It's really been fantastic to hear about your empathetic approach.

I think the data you shared, that Michigan study from 2010, showing the 40% decline in empathy shown when asked, "I can easily see the point of view of other people," even though it has stabilized, it's shocking. I think that should be a wakeup call for all of us.

Rob: I totally agree. We have to be honest with ourselves. “Where do we fall in that and how do we sharpen our empathy skills, and what do we need to do? I liken it to a muscle. How do you strengthen those?” That's part of why I wrote the book, to share my own stories.

Thor: Appreciate that. I also see that you gave us some really good hacks by also telling us to eliminate the word “why” from conversations. Try and re-frame, try and rephrase. Pay attention to what you'll get. I think, as Rob says, you'll probably get thoughtful answers at a level you've never had before.

I personally am going to take that advice, and I encourage you to do that too. Thank you so much, Rob. I know I've learned a lot from talking to you today, and I'm sure our audience has done as well. Thank you for joining me.

Rob: Awesome. Thank you, Thor. It's been great talking with you.