Marketers Videotaped Them Doing 'What'?
Almost every move that Melissa Regan made on her home computer was watched by Microsoft. Ditto for her husband, Chris, and even their three youngsters.
For nearly two years, Microsoft research gurus visited the Regans' home in Germantown, Md., about every three months. They videotaped dozens of hours of the family working and playing at the computer.
What would prompt Regan, a part-time family therapist, to let Microsoft into her home to tape her family? "As a consumer, I get really frustrated when products are designed poorly," Regan says. She was OK with the intrusion, "because I knew exactly what information they were gathering and what they were doing with it."
So the Regans gave up some privacy to get a free computer - and feel a part of the development of Microsoft's Windows Vista software.
The Regans' experience shows how Microsoft and many of America's biggest companies have discovered what the YouTube generation already knows: Observing consumers unfiltered can be fascinating - and profitable. To learn how people behave at home, companies are rounding up a few willing customers and tapping into technologies that are taking consumer market research to a far more personal level than questionnaires, mall interviews or focus groups.
For its Old Spice line, Procter & Gamble has videotaped men taking showers at home. Kimberly-Clark has placed special goggles or visors with tiny cameras on consumers to videotape how they bathe and diaper their kids.
Arm & Hammer has gone into homes to inspect the insides of refrigerators and the conditions of cat litter boxes. Nissan photographed the cluttered trunks and front seats of consumers' vehicles. And General Mills observes consumers shopping at a faux grocery store it operates in Minnesota.
More than ever, companies are pouring their resources into watching their customers.
Twenty years ago, Microsoft had two researchers who specialized in observing consumers at home or at work. Today, the company has 300 such specialists.
At General Mills, about half the consumer research now involves observing people individually, compared with 10 years ago when about 80 percent of its research was done in focus groups.
Procter & Gamble has increased spending on such personal research fivefold since 2000. It spent $200 million in consumer-focused research last year.
"We're spending far more time living with consumers in their homes, shopping with them in stores and being part of their lives," says A.G. Lafley, P&G's CEO. "This leads to much richer insights."
Tweaking products
The marketing giants say the consumer-approved snooping is designed to knock the bugs out of new products before they hit the shelves. Or to tweak old products. Or to help identify the perfect label, design or ad campaign for a product. The subjects of the research are paid volunteers who often are eager to participate.
The videotaped results are seen by product designers, package designers and marketing executives.
P&G is widely regarded as a consumer research kingpin. Its research department, which in 1923 was among the first created at a consumer products company, now observes or works with more than 4 million consumers annually in 60 countries. P&G has become an even more relentless consumer observer under Lafley.
"It helps us identify innovation opportunities that are often missed by traditional research," he says.
Some wonder where all of this one-on-one research is leading.
"Companies will tell you one thing," says George Ritzer, sociology professor at University of Maryland and author of "The "McDonaldizaton of Society." But the real goal, Ritzer says, "is to figure out what individuals are doing so (companies) can find a way to force more things - more expensive things - down their throats."
One privacy specialist says that although participants volunteer for such research and may be compensated modestly, they often don't realize what they're getting into. If the research takes place in the home, "There may be disruptions in the family," says Robert Ellis Smith, publisher of "Privacy Journal." "And intimate things in the house that a researcher takes note of could be embarrassing," even if they aren't revealed publicly.
Other analysts say such research is necessary for companies to make products consumers will like.
"Any decent product design should be done this way," says Patricia Seybold, author of "Outside Innovation: How Your Customers Will Co-Design Your Company's Future." "Getting customers involved at every stage is critical."
And profitable.
"Consumers are unaware they're often providing something of real value that companies would have to pay consultants real money for," says Jerald Jellison, author of "Managing the Dynamics of Change." "It can be an inequitable exchange."
But, Jellison says, many consumers feel empowered by taking part in such research. People identify so closely with their favorite brands, he says, "It's like having your cousin or brother come and visit."
'A control-freak thing'
That was the case with Microsoft's visit to the Regan home, which began in May 2005.
Melissa Regan says she is an opinion junkie. "I like being asked to give my opinion. It's a control-freak thing."
She says she initially received a phone call from a local research firm for which she'd previously agreed to give her views on various products. Initially, the firm told her only that a software maker was seeking opinions.
When she learned it was Microsoft that wanted her opinion on new software, Regan says, she was eager to participate. "For me, it was an opportunity to give input on a computer system that I knew I was going to use," she says.
Microsoft sent a team to her home, including a researcher and a videographer. Some visits lasted up to six hours. They usually took place in the evening, so the Microsoft team often brought pizza.
Family members had to try to forget they were being watched - and taped - while using Vista, which would not be introduced to the public until last January.
"We acted like they weren't here," Regan says. The family's key job: let Microsoft know when they liked, or didn't like, something about the software.
By the Microsoft team's third visit, Regan began seeing changes she'd requested in the software.
For example, she hated the word "tools" in the software, which she thought was too much techie jargon. She says she was elated when it was changed to "folders."
The Regans grew so close to Ben Perry, the Microsoft researcher, that they stayed in touch - and sent a tiny Washington Redskins jersey when his son was born long after the two-year testing period.
The Regans were among 50 families in seven countries that Microsoft studied before introducing Windows Vista. The families tested seven software versions and found more than 1,000 problems, about 800 of which were not found by company testers, says Trish Miner, research manager for Microsoft.
"I can see there may be concerns about companies watching people," Miner says. "But ... I think it helps produce better products."
So do these consumer giants:
- Procter & Gamble. It wasn't by accident that P&G's Old Spice line created Old Spice High Endurance Hair & Body Wash, a combination shampoo and body wash.
Last year's launch came after hours of videotaping men (in swim suits) showering in their homes.
"We kept seeing men using body wash on their hair," says Michael Lancor, a research division director of skin and personal care.
For its Olay skin care line last year, P&G researchers hung out with more than 100 women at home and in the office and went out to dinner with them. Researchers asked some of the women to show them their closets, because closets give important clues on common themes in colors, textures and personal style.
Last year, the company's hair care division spent weeks following 40 consumers in China, even living with some.
Before revamping the Herbal Essences brand, P&G spoke with 100 women, including 25 in their homes. It also followed the 25 women as they shopped.
- Kimberly-Clark. The maker of Kleenex tissues, Huggies diapers and Pull-Ups training pants posed a Big Brother-like question two years ago: What if it could see its products being used and abused through the eyes of customers?
The company concocted technologically savvy ways to do that: goggles and visors with tiny cameras. It pays people to wear its Consumer Vision System so it can see and analyze what they're doing with its products.
"It was driven by designers wanting to be a fly on the wall in the consumer's home," says Becky Walter, director of innovation design at Kimberly-Clark.
The snooping goggles showed youngsters struggling to put on Huggies Pull-Ups, prompting a major product redesign.
After viewing tapes of moms struggling to hold babies while diapering them, the company redesigned its Huggies Baby Wipes Travel Pack so that parents can keep one hand on their babies while removing the wipes.
Videotapes also showed parents fumbling to open Huggies Baby Wash while bathing infants, so the company redesigned the bottle for one-handed dispensing.
- General Mills. There's a reason why its Nature Valley Roasted Nut Crunch bar, scheduled to go on sale in August, will be loaded with nuts and seeds.
General Mills researchers went to an REI store last year where they, working with artists, asked customers to describe the kind of energy bar that they wished they could have.
"Artists were drawing as consumers described," says Judy Bowman, consumer insights director.
To observe consumers even more closely, General Mills opened an unusual research facility in Plymouth, Minn., two years ago that it dubbed the Corner Market.
Inside, it looks like a small grocery store. But it's not open to the public. General Mills pays volunteers to "shop" there and has researchers throughout the store who watch how people shop.
General Mills constantly tests new products there. "There's not an hour we're not testing something," says Vivian Callaway, a research vice president. "The store is booked 100 percent of the time."
An example of results: Based on shopper reaction, the company redesigned its Bisquick Shake 'n' Pour container from a square tub to a bottle that looks more shakable.
- Arm & Hammer. The brand sent research teams, including video crews, into 25 homes last summer to investigate everything from fridge odors to litter boxes, says research chief Barry Goldblatt.
In watching cat owners cleaning litter boxes, it saw them miss big clumps of wet litter. That prompted the company to develop Arm & Hammer Odor Alert Clumping Litter with Pre-Odor Indicators, due out in May. It turns blue when wet so owners can see what to clean up.
- Nissan. Before the debut of its 2007 Sentra, Nissan took hundreds of photos of young car owners' trunks and front seats.
One woman in Ann Arbor, Mich., in particular, helped coax Nissan to create more logical storage space, says Ken Kcomt, director of product planning.
In her car's trunk, she had storage tubs filled with sports clothes and equipment. CDs were strapped to her sun visor.
Researchers interviewed her for an hour as she drove her Sentra. Interviews like this helped persuade Nissan to add a CD holder in the Sentra's front seat and divide the trunk into storage areas.
The woman got $50 for her advice. And Nissan got a valuable lesson in how to turn its vehicles into mobile backpacks.
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