Storytelling:

Challenge & Selection:

Storytelling is a tool that I use when working with my clients on the consumer goods sector. Many of  whom have access to great amount of information and little time to rationalize it. I often talk to them to  assure that my ideas match their reality and then I create stories based on observations in order to  “Humanize data” and unlock valuable insights from a great quantity of variables.

Application

I have used storytelling. In strategic analyses for clients, I was trying to explain the different consumer  behavior when confronted with different shopping/Consumption occasions. The companies who I work  with are facing rigorous times in Argentina, a country where consumers have very rigid behavior,  traditional consumer goods categories and brands have to adapt to new economic reality, knowing that  if they choose not to adapt, cheaper brands are going to challenge and take away their market. I tell a  story about how all major consumer goods categories are performing a bad this year, except for one:  Beer.

With that insight, I start my conversation asking my clients:

In a market with a deep recession, how is it possible that beer is growing in double digit numbers when  milk and yoghurt are doing the contrary? Are people drinking instead of eating? What is it that they  doing that expanded their market?

The technical answer will be that Brewers in Argentina were for years accustomed on selling only one  size of Beer (1L Bottle), but decided to have a new approach to stakeholders, they launched Beer Cans  (200ml – 700ml Size).

But why this worked?

Insight & Approach

I tell them a story about me going to a small shop right next to my house that I usually go to have  replenishment purchases before getting home, I usually spend the same amount of money on each  purchase and on those hot summer weekends I will buy a bottle of 1L beer and some snacks to have at  home.

But this last summer, electricity and other services prices were raised a lot, together with unstoppable  inflation of all other services and goods, obviously affected the amount of things that I could buy on this  small shop, but also affected the amount of products the shop could offer and buy from companies.

And then I started noticing how the shop shelfs started to have more B brands, and freezer that one  year later could be filled with 1L bottle of beers, started having more and more beer cans, which were  sometime twice as cheap as the little bottle.

This came like a nut on a bolt for me, I could with my limited budget, not only to buy the same  categories that I was used but also could still have my favorite beer brand to have at home and not  being obliged to buy 1L of beer, leaving the bottle for another occasion when getting together with  friends.

Brewers didn’t just gave a new package to the consumers of this traditional good, they gave them a new  out of pocket, a new occasion of drinking, gave all different trades cheaper products to sell and smaller  amount of space needed to stock.

I tell this story to my clients for them to rethink traditional categories and how consumers think when  buying in different occasions.

This course made me realize the power of how stories can bring powerful insights when transforming  data trends into a human story.

