Course Reflection – Learning Launch

Case: My current experiment working in Procter & Gamble!

Challenge & Selection

Learning Launch, from business point of view, is an experiment that tests if an idea intended to solve a  business opportunity and its underlying assumptions fits in the real marketplace, simultaneously  evaluating its real impact and performance metrics. This tool turns handy specially when you have limited  resources and time, as I have on my current role as Market Strategy & Planning on P&G. Daily, we face  multiple sales challenges on the Traditional Channel, where products are distributed by specialized sales  force that visit corner-shops. Salesforce, as an user, also has multiple constraints when visiting points of  sales such as time (6 minute visit) and attention, making Learning Launches a very important tool as it is  iterative, allowing us to deliver executable solutions to our users at a reasonable price!

One of our biggest challenges in the centric region of the country turns out to be Haircare category sales  decreasing trend over the last year, storekeeper drop size has been damaged almost 50%. We pulled out  the data and visited multiple stores along with salesforce members to figure out a huge opportunity in  product visibility and customer decision influencing, as well as a value delivering opportunity towards the  storekeeper. We mind-mapped the complete scenario and brainstormed several ideas to address the  problem such as new product visibility, more aggressive combos, and investing on storekeeper loyalty.

Application

We assumed product visibility on corner shops to be a biggest size of the price, so we tested with huge  posters advertising our new product on corner shops, trying to make customers more aware of our brands  while shopping. We printed material just for a specific distributor to test if this approach fitted salesforce  constraints, corner-shop dynamics and if it improves shampoo sellout for both of our brands. The vital  characteristics for Learning Launch must be cheap and fast, so we designed material inhouse and  produced cheap paper material to test it out, there was really nothing to lose by experimenting! Important  traits for experiments were (1) leaving control distributors with no intervention to know if this was  incremental and (2) determining product sell out and distribution point as success metrics of the  experiment.

During the activity we gained feedback not only from sellout and data, but also from salesforce such as  how hard it was to install visibility material, how exhibiting only our latest product release wasn´t a good  idea to influence customer’s choice and how storekeepers have reacted to product and material  placement, as paper was not long lasting material. This feedback helped us to iterate and design a more  suitable material that could really influence customer’s first moment of truth. On our second iteration,  we decided to test a customer-designed menu visibility and sachet organized exhibitor, just like the ice- cream menu all stores exhibit for customers to pick their desired ice-cream cone. To test this idea, we  printed many Pantene and Head & Shoulders menus and organizers, on small sized and long-lasting  material:

We are currently executing this iteration on our test distributor, but we have had much better feedback  from salesforce as material has very easy installation and can be places inside the store just where  consumers make product choices. Additionally, sales are already giving improvement signs.

Insight

Experimenting with our ideas on the real marketplace helped us to invest out budget smarter and  releasing better solutions that are executable and with profound effects over business metrics. The  insights I have gained from experimenting include learning on every iteration from data AND user  experience, pivot quickly and always keep in mind how to scale a good idea. This approach also has helped

us to manage all other opportunities with an experimental approach: we are releasing this week a  storekeeper loyalty program pilot to find out if this kind of activities may be a needle mover.

Approach

Next time, I would like to have a more agile strategy to test faster and more ideas to find out those needle  movers that I can expand to execute nation-wide. This begins by finding agile suppliers and negotiating  internally to have such flexibility. Also, I have learned not to be such a perfectionist and to find out what  MVPs are to test and pivot cheap and quickly before getting obsessed with my own ideas, as we say locally:  “Our kids are always prettier”.

