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Marketing is at a crossroads: relying on those two sacred cows--meeting consumer needs and pushing the consumeris no longer a sufficiently creative response to the challenge of conquering new markets. The imperative now is to steer interaction with the consumer. This founding notion is the point of departure for InteraCT's team of eight researchers, and it is InteraCT's mission to decode the hidden dimension of consumer behaviour and to build new frameworks for the business of marketing.

Decoding the hidden dimension of consumption

The needs a consumer is aware of account for only a small portion of the forces behind consumption. The rest remains hidden, although it can often surface after a product or service is put on the market. So the role of innovation is crucial. However, as companies have responded satisfactorily to visible needs, the struggle now is for those that remain hidden. And conventional marketing is not quite up to this new challenge. Decision-makers must therefore rely on alternative methods: sometimes with positive results (Danone, Zara, Findus, Procter & Gamble), sometimes without (new product failure rates vary from 50% to 80%).

Building new frameworks for innovative marketing practices

Research in humanities and management has shown that interaction is at the heart of behaviour and one of the foundations of relations to markets. Conventional marketing approaches are obsolete as they neglect this phenomenon of interaction.

Many recent marketing successes have been founded on this change, but on an intuitive level. Brands are no longer to be conceived on the strength of emotional benefit, seduction, or product advantage, but on social myths (Nike, Puma, Danone, Leclerc). Procter & Gamble's Swiffer and Findus's innovation policy exemplify the necessity to focus on usage analyses rather than on consumer needs as identified by the consumers themselves. This approach favours the innovations that will fuel renewed economic growth.

InteraCT has set itself the goal of extending this vision of a shift in marketing trends by giving it a sound theoretical foundation. The perspective of this work is one of research and development: research, with its academic quality and rigor; development, with its application to company needs. The aim, among others, will be to explore this hidden dimension of consumption and to suggest steering tools appropriate to today's markets.

Current fields of research include: consumer value and experience creation, the design of space, development of customer loyalty, crises and food risk, brands and consumer resistance.

Contact

For more information, contact Joanne Finlay
Email. : joanne.finlay@edhec.edu
Tel. : +33 (0)4 93 18 32 53