Developing a Visceral Market Learning Capability for New Product Development

Abstract

As customer needs become more sophisticated, often requiring new elements of psychological satisfaction, this poses the question of how innovation practices can be developed from the rational and mechanistic to take more account of the psychological, social and cultural needs of customers that are captured within successful products. This paper discusses the concept of visceralisation - the ‘gut feel’ and instinct associated with the tacit dimensions of managerial intuition - and develops a model of a visceral market learning capability. This concept draws on related ideas of design thinking and design attitude to improve innovation outcomes. While visceralisation has been discussed from both the consumer and research perspective, little progress has been made in applying the concept for market research and new product innovation purposes. The research methodology utilises an interactive, collaborative approach involving practitioners to assist in the development of the model and an understanding of the visceralisation process. This is further informed by two case studies that support this emerging concept. This paper helps to characterise the concept of visceralisation, and the market and organisational learning mechanisms needed to develop visceral insight, and provides suggestions for market researchers and managers involved in new product development. While further development is required, the paper provides a framework, process and guidelines for the application of this technique in different contexts.

Consumer Co-Creation: An Opportunity to Humanise the New Product Development Process

“…They want a more fine-grained understanding of the complex, social and cultural environment in which consumers reside . Co-creating with consumers provides such an opportunity as it requires 'working with' and 'learning from' consumers (Roberts & Palmer 2012) . Cui and Wu (2016) describe three forms of customer involvement: customers as an information source, which is akin to traditional methods of research; customers as co-developers, where customers develop products with the NPD team; and customers as innovators, where customers design their own products .…”

“…This approach was facilitated by the marketing researchers and consultants . By helping managers experience the world through the eyes of the consumer buddy, they were able to develop an 'empathic understanding' or 'visceral feel' (Dougherty 1992;Roberts & Palmer 2012) for what is important in consumers lives and for what they are looking for in terms of product innovation .…”

Design management as dynamic capabilities: a historiographical analysis

“…Aspects such as cognition, methods and learning abilities include discussions, stimulations of innovation and creativity as part of the knowledge process. In this sense, organisations may be able to develop different techniques and innovative solutions that will be transformed into consumer products (Roberts and Palmer, 2012; Carlgren, 2013; Seidel and Fixson, 2013; Lancione and Clegg, 2015; Mintrom and Luetjens, 2016).…”

Engaging Communities on Health Innovation: Experiences in Implementing Design Thinking

“…This suggests that some degree of bias-a preference for explanations that were "clean" and amenable to more conventional solutions-was present to impact the design process. In fact, Roberts and Palmer 107 have argued that design thinking fosters a visceral type of learning where gut feelings are utilized to steer decision-making, and it is thus possible that for some individuals the reliance on these implicit signals may inadvertently encourage bias, which is a phenomenon that has been suggested elsewhere. 108 Nonetheless, designers varied in the extent to which personal, ingrained perspectives impinged on their analysis of user feedback, and therefore, a key challenge in design thinking is how to regulate group dynamics so that dominant or more easily accepted views do not become perpetuated.…”