I find it useful to think about two types of consumer motivations; those that are explicit, and those that are tacit.
Motivations that are explicit are those that consumers can tell you about directly. For example, if you want to improve your product you can find consumers who use it, and directly ask them what should be improved. These improvements could be things like enhancing ease of use, changing product placement so they can find it easier in the store, adding new features, or delivering the same features in new ways. You can see how you would map out a plan to implement these ideas, and your company can decide how or when to invest in them.
Motivations that are tacit are those that consumers cannot tell you about directly. For example, let's say that the consumer tells you that one improvement would be to enhance ease of use of your product. You may be able to improve the direct experience of using your product, but what if the real motivation behind that comment was deeper than that? What if the consumer lacks confidence in performing the overall task that your product is a tool in accomplishing? If that is the case, then improving the experience of using your product may not help them to achieve their overall goal. You may need to develop an entirely new product that addresses their needs more holistically. Or you may be able to market your product more broadly as a tool within a larger process that you can then own.
When you are thinking about innovating in your company, it is useful to make a clear distinction about whether you want to improve your current products or develop something new and different. This will dictate the type of consumer research you will need to guide development efforts.
Product improvements can be guided by explicit consumer motivations, and they can be discerned through direct research methods. These methods are relatively quick to conduct and interpret, and can guide improvements directly.
Inventing new products, business models, or other types of disruptive innovations are best guided by understanding consumers' tacit motivations regarding your category. These methods are exhaustive in their depth, and require people who are very skilled in this type of work to spend a lot of time analyzing, hypothesizing, and evaluating their conclusions. Getting it right, however, will yield unlimited inspiration by which you can guide innovation efforts and evaluate their potential success.
Hi Ellen,
Great post. Sorry I missed it when it went live. I dropped off the grid for a while.
I also use tacit and explicit in understanding consumer behaviors and agree as I have found this distinction to be VERY insightful and helpful.
I do map them a little differently. I have a third one: latent.
Explicit: That which you can ask directly
Tacit: What a user won’t or can’t tell you but which can be surmised through direct observation
Latent: That which they can not be known until we have an experience with the concepts involved.
ie: You can do a survey of users asking a variety of questions to generate an understanding of the explicit needs and motivations. But through observation of how people answer the questions, or even better, through observation of their interactions with and around a product, you can begin to question that which is not being said.
But now consider an innovation that requires people to see the world differently. The introduction of the iPod is a great example. I never would have foreseen that people would carry a spinning hard drive around with them in their pockets. Or that we would use a music technology that left all physical media out of the equation. So testing for these needs is next to impossible. The audience can’t see the potential. Unless we take them on a journey first (video, re-enactment, imagination) and then when they have the aha moment, they are now open to tacit and explicit exploration on the topic.
Hey Sean, glad to see you’ve popped up for air! Interesting ideas. When I think of latent, I think of latent needs that tend to be the result of tacit motivations. Your example supports that notion for me. Can you explain what I may be missing?