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Dig In is your go to source for insights innovation. It's for anyone with a genuine interest in fostering brand and product growth, exploring groundbreaking innovations, and embracing the dynamic world of expanding businesses and brands.
Jess Gaedeke (00:00)
Hi everybody. Welcome to the DIG inspiration episode. I am so pleased today because I had honor of talking with Amy Baer from couple of weeks ago, and she raised some really interesting points around the value of ethnographic research. She talked about experiences and working for companies that are France based companies. And so I thought, who better at DIG to come and join me to talk about that episode than Julian Naggar
SVP of client partnerships in France. So you're the best. guy to me today, Julian. Thank you.
Julien Naggar (00:31)
Hi Jess, or should I say bonjour? How's it going?
Jess Gaedeke (00:34)
Yes,
it's good. Sprinkle in as much French as you can throughout the episode. Okay, promise.
Julien Naggar (00:40)
Sounds great. I'll my plate of frogs legs over here add, you know.
Jess Gaedeke (00:44)
Perfect, So one of the things that Amy talked about that I thought was such a rich place for us to start is the value of ethnographic research. And, you know, she shared the sort of case study or her experience at Bel. But it's interesting in my observation, I'm curious if you share this observation ethnographic or in-home research is often one of the first things to get cut when budgets tighten. However, it surfaces some of the most critical insights, something that surveys, for example,
never So how do clients or do you make the business case for protecting that type of qualitative observational especially in the environment where we're so data obsessed?
Julien Naggar (01:25)
and a former qualitative researcher, I love that Amy was an advocate qual, for ethnography, for that foundational piece. And so many ways to for it because it is so crucial. But I best way, Jess, is let me ask you what's in your pantry right now.
Jess Gaedeke (01:42)
my pantry. my gosh. lot of noodles, of broth is probably stocked up there, a few different snacks probably, and a lot of condiments. That's probably my my pantry vibe.
Julien Naggar (01:42)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
sure are you everything that's in that pantry?
Jess Gaedeke (01:58)
I mean there's definitely broth that when I can stand behind for sure but and I have two teenagers heck knows what's still in there
Julien Naggar (02:00)
Okay, okay. Yeah.
And
what did you have for lunch two Tuesdays ago?
Jess Gaedeke (02:08)
two Tuesdays ago. Can I check on that? Yeah. No idea. No idea.
Julien Naggar (02:09)
Yeah, two, two, two Tuesdays ago. I don't know what I for lunch yesterday. And I'm sure you don't know what you had for lunch. Yeah. And that's the
point, are poor narrators of our own reality. We have bad recall. We're bad at self reporting. We want to represent ourselves in better light. maybe that broth is a organic, healthy broth. Cause you really love caring for your teenagers.
But in reality, if I were to open that pantry, it's the cheapest one you found. that's sort of the point that consumers don't necessarily relay to us exactly the precisions of their experience. And the result is that we miss We get of misrepresented information, and that ends up forming the foundation of our understanding. That ends up forming the inputs that go into our survey. And...
not a good foundation to get to an innovative idea or the right decision. I think the best way to concretize that and you can potentially miss by not doing ethnography an example of some ethnographic field work we did.
a year ago. went out into people's homes and the goal was to really understand indulgence. building out a indulgent platform for a CPG brand that wanted to really understand this space and make something, innovate on a new product that could really so it was really exciting. They wanted to start at the grassroots, understand what is indulgence, how do people engage in indulgent moments and what kind of
experience, but also experiential and emotional experience should define that indulgent moment. we want to do a bunch of houses, which is always just a wild thing. You never really know what you're going to get. we go into one home and this was a lower income, smaller apartment where it was the kind of place where, you know, the kids are in charge.
also did a pre-interview for this. So person had said, yeah, we keep all of our indulgent snacks in this one place. We went to her home. We said, let's get a tour of your indulgent snacks. And she brings us to the place and she pulls out all the Halloween candies that she always stock all year round because that's the best thing to give a treat to the kids. And we get a tour to all different places. We see the whole house. Where do you eat the snack?
what an indulgent moment? What time of is it? I asked her like, so is that everywhere? Is that everything? And she said, with a kind of like a little bit of a smile, like a little bit of a, well, no, I actually have one more place. And so it was above, it was like above the pantry to the right, kind of hidden away, very inaccessible to anyone in the household.
her kids wouldn't be able to access it, her husband would not be able to access it slash I don't think he even knew where anything was in that kitchen. But she reaches in, she pulls out the more expensive indulgent snack. And she says, for mom. And I said, do the kids ever get to try it? No.
And all of a sudden we discovered that this new moment, a moment that was just moms, it was not the indulgent snacks that she shares with the kids. It was not something that was in the common space. And it was not something that she was consciously aware of. It was something that existed in another space that was just hers. And if we had not done that ethnographic work, we would not necessarily have captured that she gets her own moment. She gets a moment to herself after a busy day of shuttling the kids around, doing all the groceries, doing all the cooking.
I know this is like such a stereotypical narration, but like was her reality and she's working a full-time job on top of that and she still reserves a place in the corner for her. And what are the ingredients and story elements that embody that moment that's just for her? So we were able to capture that. And if you were a competitor in that space, guess what? If you didn't do the ethnography, you missed it. You missed the foundation. And if you are building on a shaky foundation,
your house is not going to be able to withstand the changes that are presented.
Jess Gaedeke (05:50)
Well said, but here is the fatal flaw in that lady's plan. Okay. Having it up on his top shelf is all of a sudden one year your kids are taller than you and they can reach up there and get to places that you never thought. And that's where Ella, this exact thing happens in our house. We have a little place we try to scroll away. Our Ghirardelli our brand. That's our special And Ella finds it and all of sudden we're like, who ate all the Ghirardelli? And turns out it's your 16 year old. So word to the wise for that mom out there. You got to find
Julien Naggar (05:54)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
found some more demand spaces out of that.
Jess Gaedeke (06:25)
Look at us with our research
So one of the things that surfaced from what Amy shared is this whole idea you don't question the value of actually being in home with consumers and those insights that you can glean in those scenarios and situations, what about the role of AI and technology, which is giving us these crazy efficiencies and scale, but maybe without the depth that you would get from in homes. So what do you think about that balance between those two things? And I'm curious if your thinking has shifted, especially in last even six to nine months.
Julien Naggar (06:55)
Yeah, I mean, everything's changing, right? when I first was exposed to some of these AI tools, AI interviewer, moderators, I was, I went through the seven stages of grief. I was like, no, no, that's not that's not displacing us. What are you talking about? And then all the way to like, my god, I'm going to be out of a job. What am going to do? And now I've kind of come full circle around it.
As these tools have sort of evolved and their place has become more clear and their utility has become more clear. And where we're at right now, and what I'm hearing from our clients is it's not an either or it's a where does it fit best? Where is the AI needed? Where is the human needed and where are they both needed together? So there is a place
traditional qual, there is a place for AI. And I think what makes dig unique is it's not just those two components. It's also amplifying, say, an ethnographic piece of research with a trends or signal based research to try to understand, okay, we heard this from one person, what is the broader discourse happening? It's not just qual versus trends or versus AI.
It's now we got to measure this. Now we got to pull in all these multi-source elements of information, cross-reference against the emotional truth, and actually take all of that knowledge and data and mess and turn it into a story that actually influences decisions. And this is actually something that Dig does really well. We've got all of those kind of multi-source elements and we've got that storytelling ability.
not only built into our culture, but built into our platform. So I think, you know, my initial fear is now met with excitement, like how do we bring everything together and actually start influencing change, influencing decisions in an ever evolving landscape.
Jess Gaedeke (08:43)
Well, that's a wonderful journey that you shared your journey of being quite the skeptic to now a bit of a believer and hopefully harnessing the power of it to make your craft even stronger. So that's a good place to be. I'm glad you work through your grief. It's So let's talk France
because it was fun to hear from Amy some of the inspiration that she gets from the France market and some of the nuances of working for French organizations and you know French brands carry a lot of prestige around the world but what resonates in France doesn't always translate everywhere else of course so I'm curious you work with some of you know the most significant French companies out there what do see as the biggest challenges those companies are facing right now and where do think some of the biggest opportunities are?
Julien Naggar (09:11)
I hear.
So when I speak to our French clients, I see a lot of the same challenges that we see globally. But as Amy framed it, just with more macarons.
Great job, right? Okay, just a ton of pressure to transform the insights function and to do so quickly. We've seen across organizations, budget cuts, reorgs, just every team having to do more with less, which in itself isn't a new the same thing every year. But combined with that, you're also seeing a requirement to transform professional skill set.
We're no longer data aggregators. We are decision influencers. We are advisors. We are storytellers. We are here to move the needle and move it quickly. Again, this isn't necessarily France specific story. It's a global story. I think what's unique to France is that there's a lot of deliberation, a lot of conversation, a lot of discussion of kind of the philosophical ramifications of some of these tools and how to use them or or not.
and when to use them. we're having a lot of those conversations about that and then about AI more generally the ethics of it or when to use it, how to use it. Again, it's a lot to integrate all at once and you're seeing a lot of transformation, but you're also seeing a lot of opportunity where that comes.
There's a lot of opportunity to, know, Amy is a strategic advisor. Amy gets to influence decisions. Our clients get to start being at the table to actually bring empathy to leads in the organization and be advocates and not just query response tools. We're not just there to say, of course we have this information. We're here to influence decisions.
Jess Gaedeke (11:03)
What are some of the nuances of the French consumers that impact what insights professionals think about for innovation, etc? Can you just share some local nugget?
Julien Naggar (11:11)
Yeah, mean, you know, it changes across categories, but there's, there's just different expectations around, for example, human connection and the desire to say, you know, bonjour, every time you greet someone, merci, every time you leave. there's kind of a formality around the rules of engagement. And that sort of slows things down. means you're, you are going to be in more lines at the grocery store because there's again,
more requirement of the rules of interaction. thing that really impacts consumers lives, and I know everybody everywhere is always in a doing stuff from our car. We're trying to squeeze everything in. But in France, the work days are often pretty long days. And you're not necessarily doing all of your groceries. And I'm thinking specifically of Paris. You're not doing all your groceries at the beginning of the might be doing your groceries
every day after work. all of a sudden your long work day that might start a little after nine and go till seven. And then you're kind of rushing home. You're grabbing your grabbing any other food you might need and then you're making dinner and it's already 8 p.m. And so you can think about how the French consumer has to automate a lot of things, account for all this extra time devoted to
social graces and stuff like that.
Jess Gaedeke (12:24)
Yeah, that's really interesting and impact so many aspects of how brands can meet consumers where they are and be empathetic to that reality of time.
Julien Naggar (12:32)
Yeah. And then, you know, culturally, there's also this huge emphasis on sustainability. it's not just culture. It's the state mandating it. it's companies towing the line and having targets around sustainability. And so that that kind of piece of it becomes part of every conversation. It's not a question of do I recycle or not? It's, know, which bin is taken out which day? And it becomes part of the social fabric.
So that's kind of a more recent, development.
Jess Gaedeke (12:58)
and I thought, Julian, this could be a fun opportunity for me to turn the final dig on you. Like I do our guests and ask you a couple of these impromptu questions, which if you've heard an episode, they're not really impromptu anymore for you. But here we go. What was the last product you bought on impulse in your last trip to Paris?
Julien Naggar (13:13)
funny at the beginning of our conversation, I asked you to recall the last thing you ate and now you're asking me to recall an impulse decision. Honestly, it was probably chocolate. It was chocolate.
It was 100 % chocolate. You can't walk by the chocolate shops in Paris without walking in and spending way too much money. But it's worth it. I say it's for my family, but when half the box is empty by the time I get home, probably maybe mostly for me. Yeah.
Jess Gaedeke (13:37)
Yeah, yeah,
yeah, that can't lie. Well, then you might have the same answer for this next question, but what's a category or a brand you could rationalize any price point for in the French market? You just have to have it.
Julien Naggar (13:49)
Yeah, it's still chocolate. Sorry. Can't
let it go. But I promise for the next question, it won't be a food-related purchase. OK?
Jess Gaedeke (13:52)
Well, let's.
Okay, well let's do it. What's
a French brand that you would date and a French brand that you would marry and it's up to you if they're the same brand or not.
Julien Naggar (14:04)
mean, you interviewed Amy, right? She works at Bel It is very hard not to marry baby Bel. It is a perfect, and I'm not a big cheese guy, but I have an 18 month old whose new favorite word is cheese. And it's very cute. But if I'm blocks from home and he says cheese, I...
gotta have something in that bag and like what better spouse than something that takes care of my child, right?
Jess Gaedeke (14:31)
That's perfect. So you're marrying Babybel. I don't disagree with this at all. You might have heard me really espouse my like, you know, household obsession with Babybel. It's a thing. Is there a brand that's a different brand that you would that you would date?
Julien Naggar (14:39)
It's a thing.
in Paris, there's this, retail, well, it's a grocery chain called a bio co-op and it's basically a normal grocery store, but everything's like organic, but it's like French organic. So you've got the nicest soap and the best cheese. And there's just, it has this very curated feel to it while still feeling a little bit granola. And you know that anything you buy there is going to be
Jess Gaedeke (15:07)
Yeah, that sounds like a wonderful courtship. I support it. Well, thank you for bringing your a qualitative ethnographic standpoint and also just the knowledge of the French market. It's been a fun conversation to bring those two topics together.
Julien Naggar (15:23)
Been a pleasure, Jess. Always great to talk to you.
Au revoir.
It's not the same.