Mind Mapping Tool

CHALLENGE:

After 25 years of work in FMCG company, I have just started my new job as a Product Manager in  outdoor company. I was responsible for Citylights ad network – several thousand of advertising’s  panels (1,2 x 1,8m) located on cities streets, bus shelters, shopping malls, airports etc.

My first challenge was: make the existing advertising network called ‘ITFAQ’ start selling.

This advertising network consisting of 600 citylights, located near shops and on the parkings of the  largest retailers like Tesco, Carrefour etc, was dedicated to FMCG* advertisers.

The case was that at the beginning many clients (media houses) have included ‘ITFAQ’ to  campaign's media-mix but at the end - nobody bought it. No one in the sales team could explain  the reason, why? Price discounts or extra panels for free didn't work.

SELECTION:

I have decided to use Mind Mapping Tool, because the pivotal stage in my challenge was gathering  a deep understanding of customer needs and broader perspective on how this product should work  to be desired.

This tool allowed me to involve my colleagues, much more experienced in this industry than me, in  order to develop a common mind among them regarding the current reality of my challenge.

This tool was also used due to the very large amount of data I have collected and we had to draw  the most important facts and observations that would lead us to deeper insights.

APPLICATION:

In big conference room I have prepared the ‘ITFAQ - gallery’ – where people could saw and  feel how the citylights dedicated network looks like (pictures of localization), who is our target  (FMCG companies logos), who buy (media houses logos), folders, charts, etc.

I have invited 15 people from sales, marketing, media planners (customers) and stakeholders like:  sales & HR & finance – directors.

I asked them for their intuition. Please go around the gallery on your own and make notes you  believe might inform new ideas.

As a next step, we gathered in 3 smaller groups - 5 people each and after several minutes of self- preparation each person from the team have started sharing their ideas by sticking notes on the  wall.

The next step was to turn these ideas and observations into deeper insights.   We did this in the  next workshop.

INSIGHT:

People were so involved, motivated and cooperative one to each other that it exceeded my  imagination.  I got a feedback that prepared ‘Gallery’ instead of static and boring powerpoint  presentation was as a trigger to look at this product from a different perspective, feel it.

The second positive thing was that the most influential people – the stakeholders – get involved  and cooperate and co-create in search of the best solution.

There was a series of insights that came out of it and finally lead to the big success of new  redesigned product.

The most powerful was discovering what our customers really want to buy. They want to buy an  audience responsible for shopping – and these are WOMEN, not FMCG. This led us later to change  the product name from ‘ITFAQ’ to ‘City Ladies’.

The second discovery was that clients expected citylights network to follow the image of a modern,  energetic woman. This led to the expansion of the places where the citylights were located – instead  of only shops, places such as hairdressers, beauty salons, shopping malls, kindergartens, were  chosen, which in a broader context referred to places where women can be found.

APPROACH:

I think that the tool was chosen correctly, as evidenced by the achieved goal.

I would definitely like to improve the technique of using this tool in the future - what I did before was  very intuitive and I have learned from the course that a step-by-step methodology is available.

I also think that in the future I will go through all the phases of the design thinking process - because  it ensures the highest quality of achievements.

*FMCG – Fast - Moving Consumer Goods – products that sell very quickly, such as food and drinks.

