Fresh Perspectives
Director, Account Management
Lisa is an Account Director providing consulting expertise in brand strategy, design strategy, retail and consumer goods. Lisa’s strengths are in using consumer understanding to deeply interpret a brand’s associations, perceptions and imagery, and then applying these insights towards the creation of powerful new brand positions and experiences. Over the last decade, Lisa has directed global teams of consumer researchers and innovation strategists to build insightful, new approaches towards consumer understanding and design. Lisa also has experience delivering brand strategy and innovation planning services to companies in industries as diverse as apparel, food and beverage, print and broadcast media, Internet, microprocessors, financial services, beauty and cosmetics, entertainment, resorts, and nanotechnology.
10 February 2007
I remember a time not too long ago when traveling to Europe or Asia meant being transplanted in an entirely different landscape filled with new foods, products, advertising, you name it. There was newness everywhere and it was an incredible source of inspiration. I always felt like such an adventurer, scouting for the next big thing to share with my peers. Trendspotting tended to be focused around identifying stuff that was emerging, hot, different or just timely. It was easier.
The world is a much different, much smaller place today…
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Consumer Technology
by Lisa Leckie, 0 comments
24 April 2006
I came across a blog written recently by Grockwell that characterized digital ethnography as a “catchy idea for doing cheap ethnography,” but I strongly believe there is more to it than this. There can be cost efficiencies to doing digital ethnography, but its real value lives elsewhere.
Specifically, digital ethnography:
- allows us to understand consumer behaviors in real time, as they happen
- creates access to situations and experiences we might not normally get to see -- digital technology helps us capture moments that a researcher may indirectly influence if present
- allows us to explore the true nature in which technology is used and applied by people
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Methods & Techniques
by Lisa Leckie
26 January 2006
Long gone are the days when a company could reliably build consumer loyalty through traditional advertising or PR. While traditional tactics for gaining consumer awareness and positioning brands are still relevant, they don't consistently unlock the doors to the development of deep and meaningful customer relationships.
Technology is one of the biggest catalysts in consumers’ changing relationships with brands. Because of technology, consumers have more power over their interactions with brands. They are using text messaging, blogging, online communities and digital capture devices to engage with brands in different ways as well as share information and communicate about them.
Digital ethnography is a methodology Cheskin has invented and pioneered to understand these changing consumer relationships better. At the same time technology is evolving consumer relationships with brands, it is also creating new connecting points for understanding them. Digital ethnography leverages new forms of technology to understand consumers faster, deeper and in more relevant ways.
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Methods & Techniques
by Lisa Leckie
25 July 2005
It must be something in the air. Like Terri Ducay, I've been looking for change in my life. Unlike Terri, I decided to get it from fashion rather than four wheels. Also unlike Terri's experience, I can't find the exact thing I want waiting for me in a showroom. I have to create it myself.
Today, the most fashionable consumers are those capable of experimenting. They can't just adopt a luxury brand or a new designers' unique look. The top "fashionistas" are capable of creatively assembling clothes from many sources, both old and new, cheap and expensive and seeing how it works for them. Their fashion reputation is based on their personal decisions about color, texture, design and brand pairing. Those who are good at this have an amazing skill for putting things together in innovative ways; for example, combining a feminine vintage top with a emerging brand of fashion jeans, or their Dad’s 70’s leather coat (made in Siberia) with a pair of striped tube socks and knit scarf from H&M.
At its essence, this is about creating personal meaning through selection and combination of clothing and accessories. It's fun for me, but what does this have to do with innovation in the marketplace and why would my clients care to read about this?
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Posted in
Innovation & Design
by Lisa Leckie, 1 comments
6 June 2005
Today’s speculation is about TOLERANCE. My sub-conscious, flying-at-an-imperceptible-latitude kind of radar for picking up popular news and other patterns within the media says tolerance is a hot idea, and worthy of more attention (uh huh…even more than it’s received to date).
I would argue tolerance is one of the key differences between younger and older generations today. We do a lot of work at Cheskin that aims to understand these differences relative to fashion, technology, retail, etc. And, while this isn’t a direct insight from our work, it’s a presumption I have about the state of the world and how it’s changing. Tolerance is also a function of a more media rich and global economy.
Here are some hypotheses I have about how tolerance is appearing in our daily lives (and more readily appearing with younger generations):
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Posted in
Consumer Technology
by Lisa Leckie
12 January 2005
“Thin slicing” is the subject of Malcolm Gladwell’s highly awaited new book – Blink. In it, he says that thin slicing is a new kind of rapid cognition – an intelligent way of filtering through your perceptions and understanding of something. “Getting it” in the blink of an eye. Paying attention to what really matters only, as opposed to waiting for all the data to come in before you act on it.
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Etcetera
by Lisa Leckie
10 December 2004
The title of this blog is the slogan for iRobot – an exceptionally cool robotics company with “big, innovative ideas and brilliant mad scientists who make them work in a variety of applications.”
Roomba is our new pet. I think it’s a he. I know so because he’s very straightforward and rationally minded—he rarely does something he hasn’t fully thought through first and he’s an incredible problem solver. He shows little emotion unless he’s in the worst of situations—these tend to involve a floor mat or an oven with a four inch crawl space underneath.
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Posted in
Innovation & Design
by Lisa Leckie
2 December 2004
Okay…I just have to…one more post about Tivo…
I'm undeniably hooked. The day our refurbished Tivo arrived on our door step I honestly wasn’t quite sure what all the hype was about, and it’s now been ten weeks.
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by Lisa Leckie, 0 comments
2 July 2004
Cheskin was recently asked to provide some insight towards an article in the New York Times News of the Week in Review section. The topic we needed to address was the future of the television commercial---specifically, how do teens view and embrace television commercials? What are the predominant influences shaping teens’ interactions with TV? Is the television commercial likely to evolve, and if so, how will teens engage it? What role will it have within their television experience? Their lives? We culled our thoughts, and came up with the following hypotheses:
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Posted in
Consumer Technology
by Lisa Leckie, 1 comments
26 April 2004
On my way to work this morning, I encountered three men handing out flyers. As I approached them, they stuck their mechanical arms out in front of me hoping to block my passage and be heard. They came within inches of my mid-section and then retracted at the last second as if some kind of sensor had indicated I was within a mere 25 millimeters. They quite possibly could have been deaf or mute because they didn’t say a word to me – didn’t identify why they were blocking my route, what they were handing me, or why they thought that I should listen to them. Nothing. I started to contemplate why I hadn't taken their flyer until, amidst their paper-pushing, one turned to the other and said, “So, did you have a good weekend?”
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Etcetera
by Lisa Leckie
14 April 2004
I just returned from a trip to Iceland. I didn’t go there to vacation per se, but to see a different world. To find diversity, remoteness, something untapped. Foreign. To stun my perspective. To get me back to reality.
Iceland’s landscape is incredibly diverse. Much of it feels alien. It is easier to imagine how when you think of it comprising 90% of the world’s volcanic activity. A lot of the geo-funkiness is actually as a result of it straddling the North American and Eurasian continental plates. And while it has a population of approximately 270,000, almost no one inhabits the interior and predominantly glacial part of the country (unless you believe in the abominable snowman). Imagine...apart from a few greenhouses yielding small quantities of bananas, a lot has to be imported.
Since returning, I’ve had to consistently answer the question, “So, why would you go there?” And, it’s all got me to thinking. Do others feel that remoteness is becoming harder to find? When was the last time you were traveling globally and were in a public place that didn’t have a single piece of advertising you identified with?
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Etcetera
by Lisa Leckie, 0 comments
24 March 2004
Last night I purchased an iBook. Otherwise known to diehards as a turbocharged 800MHz PowerPC G4 with 256MB of RAM and a 30GB hardrive with an Airport Extreme card. I pointed out to a friend that it was their "bottom of the line" model, and he corrected me, saying Apple has "no bottom of the line."
I made it into the new Apple store in San Francisco in the nick of time before closing, having called earlier in the day to see if the shipment I was waiting for had arrived. The gentleman helping me purchase my iBook was hearing impaired (I like your values, Apple), and even above the "new-store" frenzy the process was seamless.
I signed on the dotted line and made my way out of the store to the front of the shiny, white spectacle where I awaited my friend. I stood there, bobbing up and down, side to side, not wanting to make a spectacle of my new purchase, but, well, yes, wanting to make a spectacle of my new purchase. The scene at the main store door after closing was the equivalent of a packed club after midnight. People who hadn't been so fortunate to have arrived before the bell tolled were trying to nudge their heads past the security guard and get a glimpse of the interior, if only to *smell* the interior.
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Posted in
Positioning & Branding
by Lisa Leckie, 0 comments
8 March 2004
I’m always looking for a good customer service story to tell. Though, it feels like there are more horror stories out there ever since online customer service became a must-have for big transactional companies.
I learned something about customer service online recently when I was investigating buying a Blackberry that I thought I’d share. In my search for more information about Blackberry’s compatibility with Macs, I landed on a Blackberry Developer’s Forum blog where vehement Mac users were flaming a customer service representative for their ignorant addition to the string of user comments.
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by Lisa Leckie
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