Jess Gaedeke (00:33)
Welcome to Dig Inspiration. This season, we're doing something new. And each week after we launch an episode where I interview a guest from the brand side, I'm going to take on a dig leader, someone here at Dig Insights, to chat about that episode. So I am very excited this week to be chatting with Rob Volpe.

Rob is empathy activist here at Dig He is the founder of Ignite 360, which we were lucky enough to bring into the Dig family. Gosh, Rob, was this over a year ago, year and a half-ish? Oh my gosh, crazy time flies. So I am so glad to be joined by you today, Rob. We're gonna be talking about Pavi Gupta's episode, and there were some really interesting nuggets in that conversation. I can't wait to dig into them. Thanks for joining me.

Rob Volpe (01:02)
Like over, coming up on a year and a half, yes, yes.

Thanks, Jess, excited to be here. And it was such a great conversation with Pavi and the alligator farm.

I loved that story. It was really a great example.

Jess Gaedeke (01:30)
Yeah, well, and I didn't know where he was going with that. So with these conversations, people might not know, but I don't, it's not like we have a script for these conversations. So I didn't know where he was going to go. I heard weird immersions, alligator farms, irrational fears. And I'm like, what just happened? There's a lot to unpack there. It was phenomenal. But that's where I'd love to start, Rob, because this idea of the irrational fear that he talked about within the contact lens category.

that some people truly just viscerally cannot stand the idea of touching their eye because they're worried they're going to poke their eye out. That might be an irrational fear, but it's a real fear. It's a real thing that people feel. And as we were chatting, do you have this fear? Is this something you experience?

Rob Volpe (02:13)
⁓

Jess Gaedeke (02:16)
Yeah.

Rob Volpe (02:18)
wear glasses, I don't wear contacts. ⁓ But the times that I have had to put contacts in, so when we do drag, and I really do full drag, shave the beard, when you put contacts in, it's really fascinating because it does change who you

You some people will say the eyes are like the gateway to your soul. And so when you change the color of your eyes, you're not you anymore. It really makes a difference. So when I'm doing drag, I do like to try to put in contacts, but I have to allocate at least an hour.

to just the application process because anytime a finger gets near my eye, I'm like, you know, pulling away and it's,

it is irrational, but I can't like kind of pull my eye open enough and hold still and it takes about an hour to get both eyes in. I've even had friends try to do it, my husband and I just, I'm like constantly flinching. So I totally related to that. I got

yeah, and I don't know you, you do wear contacts, don't you?

Jess Gaedeke (03:19)
I do. I had the poorest eyesight. I got glasses at age 18 months. Like I was a baby when I got glasses. I just have very poor eyesight. So I was actually one of those kids that had these Coke bottle glasses. I was so embarrassed because they made my eyes look super huge. You know, I had to take them off when I swam, you know, all that stuff that just as a kid, it like really drags you down. So I could not.

wait to get contact lenses. And my first foray into contact lenses was I was in fifth grade and they were hard lenses because at that time they didn't have my prescription and even soft lenses. And it was the worst experience. I couldn't do it. I just couldn't wear them. And so I was so upset. I was so emotional about it. So when I finally graduated to the point where I could get soft lenses was like a really big deal. And I've been wearing them ever since. I truly, when Pavi was talking about like sometimes, you know, you're medically guided to using contact lenses, but other times

it really is a choice. So in your case, you choose not to wear them. And understanding that irrational fear and how you can adopt your marketing messaging to overcome that irrational fear, I just thought was such an interesting application of research. And I was just curious, like you've been doing this for so long across so many different initiatives. What are some of those kind of surprising irrational fears that you've dug into through research? Are there any things that...

that can come to mind.

Rob Volpe (04:41)
Well, I think a lot of times, and I think that the example Pavi was sharing, when we spend so much time thinking about our product, we're not always focused on the barriers to the product and what might be preventing, or we're talking

our users and not the people that aren't using and what those

are. if you can

out how to, I don't know how you could...

Jess Gaedeke (05:04)
Thank you.

Rob Volpe (05:06)
easy application contacts and what that would look like. But if you could do that, imagine what that could

is about stepping out and thinking, we were just doing some empathy building workshops with a medical device manufacturer client. And this very thing came up. We were bringing in people with different

conditions and that they make devices for and there was just they weren't aware.

of the emotional journey that people were going on and how intense the emotional journey was until they heard firsthand. And in this situation, we curated an experience where the clients got to sit across from a table and talk with these individuals. But it also works when you're doing really good qualitative research or when you're bringing to life quantitative research and you've got some powerful open ends and the story that you're able to craft from it.

to

help the teams realize like, wait, there's so much more to this. Because I'm always thinking about, you know, how do I optimize the product that I've got or whatever

role people play in their organization in support of their brand. But what about the other people and like taking it into account the barriers that are irrational as well as rational and then how you might solve for those through messaging or product improvement.

Okay, but

I just I loved in that discussion, you brought up the like, imagine what this would have been like if you'd gone to Disney World. The thought I had, though, was I have met people that have an irrational fear of it's a small world and that ride, for whatever reason, it creeps them out.

Jess Gaedeke (06:45)
Hahaha

Yeah.

Rob Volpe (06:49)
point of it is there's insights can come from so many different places, you just have to open your eyes

be open to trying new experiences and thinking about how it relates back to your business or the other things that are going on in your life.

Jess Gaedeke (07:02)
Absolutely, absolutely. I, and you know, that kind of ties to the other point I just loved that Pavi made was the idea around how you can, with insights, inspire and provoke. And that almost like the journey, the value of insights starts at that socialization within the organization. And that really spoke to me because it's something that I think we believe pretty passionately here at Dig, right? We don't want to just deliver a research report. We actually want to drive impact.

So I'd love for you to share some of the creative ways, either with Ignite 360 before you were part of Dig but also since being part of Dig, some of the most effective ways that you've seen the deployment, the activation, the socialization of insights, like when it really, really lands with clients.

Rob Volpe (07:46)
Yeah, the first one that comes to mind is the storytelling. It all comes down to the story and how you can inspire people. At Ignite, we always talked about our mission was to help our clients find the one big idea that was going to drive business results.

And in order to do that, to go from that one big idea into business results, it requires a change of thinking and the role of the insights professional, both as a supplier partner, as well as on the internal on the client side. So, you know, it's not just a, let's have a share out of the report of that study. And then we file it away, but actually having an application session. And it's like, okay, you heard this now, what are you going to do about it? How are you going to put this into work streams? How does this affect?

whatever else is going

One of the biggest issues in corporations is inertia. You know, it takes so much energy to get things going and to stand up a team to start a work stream. And so if you can help provide that inspiration

momentum.

coming out of a research project, that's amazing. So we do that and we do it at Dig through storytelling, whether that's just the report itself or we're insights videos or some other creative deliverables or even facilitating experiences. So we're bringing in real consumers for you to meet with one-on-one. We're taking C-suites out in random.

cities in the United States to go meet with their consumers and have an in-home curated experience. That's the stuff that really sticks with

I think we

underestimate the power that, especially on the qualitative side, research can have on

Because what we're doing qualitatively, especially if we're doing one-on-ones, we're building connections, human to human. And I've had so many marketers come up to me years later and say, you know, that in-home that we did together on whichever hamburger helper, that was the highlight of my year.

Jess Gaedeke (09:54)
Yeah.

Rob Volpe (09:55)
like pouring over spreadsheets, doing consumption exercises, nobody, that's not the highlight. The highlight is making the connection with another person. And that inspires you, you carry that person with

So

I think it's always, and if client-side researchers think about how you can inspire your teams, how can you inspire your stakeholders so that they can take action and lean into being provocative. I think that's the other thing Pavi was talking about of provoking. What is it that's gonna really get them going? What's the framework turning things, challenging existing assumptions to get people to move forward? What I'm curious though Jess, what have you seen that's worked in your career?

Jess Gaedeke (10:32)
Yeah.

I think some examples would be even how you deploy, for example, a segmentation type of initiative, right? How can you bring those segments to life in a way that's highly ⁓ illustrative, really personifies them as human beings, which is exactly what segments are at the end of the day, right? So definitely seen some unique ways of doing that.

I think that our trends and innovation group also do a bang up job of activating with clients, really getting on site, like touching and feeling the different learnings and finding tangible ways to drive the points home. And I do agree that some of the most memorable insights come from those stories of being in a consumer's home or what you overheard in a qualitative exercise. In fact, several guests have talked about that in the past. Liz Ackerley at Denone talked about

as she was building out the empathy program that they put in place, the fact that someone in her finance team had never really understood the importance and the emotional ties related to the infant formula, especially when there was that shortage during the pandemic. And that person had such a greater appreciation for the role that they played in helping navigate the supply chain and make sure that those products can make it to consumers and

Rob Volpe (11:39)
Yeah.

Jess Gaedeke (11:49)
That one really stuck with me. Brody Dunn at PepsiCo Foods, Frito group, he talks a lot about the value

and really sitting down with your consumers. So something we believe really deeply and it's so fun to hear these guests share their stories about it as well.

Rob Volpe (12:04)
Yeah, it is. And Pavi had some really

great stories as those other guests did too. Yeah, and the other thought that was coming up as you were just talking about that was...

with the segmentation and you're building out and telling the story of this individual segments what I always counsel people is like you don't want to say oh yeah this is this segment and they're you know white women 35 to 55 and they do yoga and drink red wine because you just described millions of millions of people

What are the, like what's that next level down? What are those individual characteristics or attributes that may not be every single person in that segment, but apply to enough of them, but make them distinct and memorable so that you're not just grabbing a stereotype in your head, but you actually can see a real person.

Jess Gaedeke (12:52)
Yeah, absolutely.

that one of the challenges though, Rob, with naming segments, right? Because they then do become attributed to a person. So I'd like to see creative ways around that too these days.

Rob Volpe (13:05)
Yeah,

the past I've advocated

taking one hero respondent, if we're doing qualitative to build out and personify having one consumer be that champion or that face, or even two of

doing a really cool project with a food manufacturer right now where they're trying to take their insights and have them live beyond that point in time. So we're finding a couple of consumers that embody their growth target and their brand champion. And then we're creating...

interviewing them over a longer period, longitudinal period, but then we're putting together content that we're dripping out to the team in a private, sub stack channel so that people can actually engage with it and then get more information. And that keeps, that helps keep the consumer in front of you.

Jess Gaedeke (13:54)
Yeah, definitely. Well, that's an example too of something that you've done that's been pretty unique in that sort of video series about people and tracking people over time. And I think of

a real world type of scenario where you just get super invested in these people's lives, right? That's what you've done with your longitudinal analysis as well, right?

Rob Volpe (14:10)
yeah.

navigating to a new normal. Yeah, it's the same. There's 14 active participants. Now we started with 16, we've lost two, but it's going for five and a half years. And we've had babies born, people have gone through major life changes during that time. And it's such

broad cross section, like we were really intentional about making sure we had different ⁓ ages, ethnicities, income levels, education levels, geographic representation.

is a great bellwether for what's happening in our society as well. I was talking to one of the participants a week or two ago.

She lives in New York city. She buys Starbucks regularly, but she actually went to Dunkin Donuts because her Starbucks was out of a syrup that she liked. And she realized that she liked what Dunkin Donuts had and that it was a dollar 50 cheaper. And that meant she was saving like six or seven bucks a week. And this is an individual that didn't necessarily need to be doing that, but it felt good to save. And given the uncertainty that we've got, she's like, why not? So she is all about.

Dunkin' Donuts now, and so Starbucks has lost a customer. And then it's just an indication, A, of challenges Starbucks is facing, but really what's happening in our society. And you start making all of these little changes, at least in the United States, like where is the economy actually going? And it has such huge implications for brands. So that study's really fun because we get to see those things as they're playing out.

Jess Gaedeke (15:44)
Yeah, yeah, and see how that evolution happens with those individuals. Well,

compelling work. And speaking of compelling, I do hope that our listeners will tune into that episode with Pavi. So many rich lessons in there. So if you want to know what an alligator farm and contact lenses have to do with one another, please listen to that episode. But Rob, thanks so much for joining me to unpack that conversation with Pavi. It's been a pleasure to chat with you today, sir.

Rob Volpe (16:09)
Always, Jess. Thank you so much. It was a really great episode. I hope people check it