Welcome to 10x Insights
A series of inspirations on the art & science of finding what works. On creating insights that show 10x impact. About proven ways to unlock unimaginable growth.
Too bold? I promise these inspirations will deliver beyond marketing lingo and beyond “state of the art”.
Subscribe and take me by the word.
I am Frank Buckler. Happy husband and father of two gorgeous boys. Engineer and AI Programmer for 30 years. Doctor of Marketing Science. Inventor of the Causal AI methodology “NEUSREL”. 15 years in Management Consulting. 9 years in “Corporate America”. Founder of Success Drivers since 2014. Trusted and tested by the world’s most reputed brands from Microsoft, Facebook, Intel, Unilever, and counting.
I don’t do fluff. I don’t do filler. I don’t do emojis.
What I do is running AI with one simple goal:
Finding what works in marketing.
Why “10x Insights”? Don’t we have enough insights already? It’s not about the quantity. It’s about 10x impact on marketing metrics. Here is why 10x is even a modest claim.
“10x is even a modest claim.”
It was spring 2017 and I called Jon Puleston (Director of Innovation at Kantar). I got to know him at Esomar Conference the year before. I caught him at a noisy London place but instead of refusing the call, he said: Frank I need to introduce you to my friends from Mintel.
The company has gathered a rich dataset about all product launches over years with all the information about the products you can dream of. They did this with an ambitious goal. To solve a long-lasting miracle. “Why the hell” just do 5 of a hundred product launches survive two years of shelf life?
The Mintel team grinded the data but hit a solid wall. Explanation power remained around a sobering…
0 percent!
Yes, Nente, Nada, Nix. Nothing was explained.
Fast-forward two months, I am sitting in Mintel London head office to explain the findings. Findings that took me some time to believe myself.
Our Causal AI software NEUSREL came back with results that seemed to be contracting at first sight. Explanation power was high but not a single driver showed an (independent) impact. That made me curious.
Looking deeper into the causal metrics it made click: There was no single reason that could boost success. Only when managing ALL of the six key areas to a great level, then success will happen.
And suddenly everything is so logical:
If the product is not on the shelf (distribution rate) it will not sell.
If it is on the shelf, but it looks not interesting, it will not sell.
If it looks interesting but has inappropriate pricing, it will not be trialed.
If it looks interesting, but it tastes bad when trailing, it will not be repurchased.
If it ticks all the boxes but has not a distinctive brand, consumers will have a hard time to notice the product the next time in the store.
All that is common sense… after you know it.
Success Drivers are dependent from each other. Statistical modeling forces you to assume that causal drivers are independent from each other.
(If you customize the model to consider dependencies, you need to know upfront which driver interacts in what way with another one. This is practically impossible with a hundred or more variables.)
This is why AI is so helpful. With Causal AI we can now be explorative and explain at the same time.
As a result, the Causal AI model could predict with 81% accuracy that a product will be successful.
THIS … is 10x Insights.
It achieves what was impossible before.
“95% of product launches fail.
What does this tell you about the research behind this?“
We learn another great lesson from this case: Often times improvements in certain areas multiply - not add up - with other improvements.
Imagine we improve success in each of these areas by +50% for instance through applying Causal AI-based research. If we 1.5x distribution x 1.5x trial rate x 1.5x repurchase power x 1.5x brand power x 1.5x packaging power x 1.5x price attractiveness = the total improvements would be 10.4x.
Welcome to 10x Insights.
Each week I will come back with inspirations that have the power to contribute to 10x your impact of insights. Subscribe and take me by the word.
P.s. It’s EURO 2024 time - next week I write about how Causal AI is helping innovative soccer clubs to outperform others.