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Entrepreneur Files
Campbell-Fletcher
UT Connection: Tave Campbell, BBA 79, Dwight Fletcher, MBA 85
Location: Dallas
Does the future of marketing lie in empathy? Tave Campbell, BA 79, and Dwight Fletcher, MBA 85, are banking on it, as the principals of Campbell-Fletcher, an insights and ideation firm based in Dallas.
Drawing on forty years of combined experience in consumer marketing strategy, Campbell and Fletcher base their work on a simple, but in some ways radical idea – that marketing should start with close observation of consumers in their native environment.
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For snack food customers, that environment might be a minivan – the place where suburban kids, among the most coveted snack food consumers, frequently down bag-loads of product while mom and dad cart them around town. Exploring potential directions for Frito-Lay, Campbell and Fletcher rode in minivans, followed kids to school, conducted panels with teens and parents, and otherwise immersed themselves in the snack food environment like intrepid suburban anthropologists. (While the firm’s staff handle logistics, Campbell and Fletcher lead each project and participate in the research personally.)
“For Frito-Lay,” says Campbell, “The question was: Would there be a better way to snack on the go?” The Plano-based company believed that there were market opportunities tied to lifestyle dynamics, particularly the increasing mobility of students and young adults. They called on Campbell-Fletcher to ferret out the possibilities with consumers.
The firm bases its marketing strategies on consumer inspiration, the core of empathic marketing. Industrial design sometimes uses a similar approach – empathic design – based on observing people and creating solutions that fit the way they live and work.
“Many industries already understand and appreciate the value of this approach, as you can see for example in the auto design process.” says Fletcher. “There, empathic design is used to observe people at work, at play, and in interaction with the product. Better solutions inevitably result.”
After gathering insights, the principals analyze them for potential strategies, then present results to their clients’ marketing staff in brainstorming sessions at relaxed, off-site locations. They call this part of the process Ideastorm. Sculptors, writers, and other creative professionals might join the fray in an attempt to stimulate ideas. “Most of our clients have very capable people,” says Campbell, “but for whatever reasons, they are often underutilized. Ideastorm leverages this very valuable internal brainpower. In Ideastorm we present them with the insights from our research, which can then become creative fodder for new thinking.”
Did the process work for Frito-Lay? Preliminary test results were positive, but until the company rolls out its new products, Campbell and Fletcher cannot disclose what came out of their findings. Suffice it to say hungry teens should be on the lookout for a new line of snacks – and packaging – that cater to some of their most closely observed needs.
Already in the first three months of 2001, Campbell-Fletcher has been hard at work optimizing a food product concept, launching a cosmetics line, retooling customer service practices, and shaping concept evolution for the likes of Frito-Lay, CEC Entertainment, Pizza Hut and Blockbuster Entertainment. The principals anticipate expansion over the next couple of years, but they want to grow carefully, so they can remain principal actors. “The emphasis is going to remain on insights and ideation,” says Campbell. “Ideas are the currency.”
The ultimate test of their ideas will be the success of their clients’ marketing initiatives, and empathic marketing may be the key. “When the consumer provides the inspiration to help you create or modify something, it’s exciting stuff.” says Fletcher, “You’re talking about genuine optimization. As a result, your chances of success are greatly enhanced.”
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