Bringing Segments to Life

A major retailer saw an opportunity to expand its customer base by targeting urban markets. But… their current retail format was designed with the needs, wants, and preferences of a more suburban crowd. To this end, the retailer needed to understand the broader landscape for urban dwellers in order to inform the design of a new urban retail format.

In a two-fold approach, we developed a Jobs-To-Be-Done survey – segmenting occasions based on different motivations. The survey was fielded among diverse urban locations in the US. Using this information, we were able to paint a picture of what truly motivates urban dwellers, as well as identify, size, and prioritize jobs to be done.

Then, using 1-day digital diaries, we spoke to people who were routinely engaged in our prioritized jobs to see how the jobs come alive in their day-to-day experiences. We explored examples of the jobs, ideal scenarios and challenges, as well as the role of retail in solving them.

 

The retailer was able to seize their opportunity in urban markets by utilizing job profiles that helped to inform in-house ideation sessions and design sprints among their team. Job profiles included: the spectrum of common activites urbanites engage in, the type of product purchased and degree of satisfaction in solving for the job – all of which provided a road map for the client to deliver the ideal retail experience for urbanites.