THE CHALLENGE:

The Gillette Company asked Synecticsworld to revive their tradition of insight and innovation by helping the technological giant become more consumer-centric.

THE PROCESS:

As one of its first steps, Synecticsworld created ASTRA, a framework similar to Synecticsworld’s Ipower5, that detailed a creative pathway for helping Gillette staff observe and interact with consumers in order to inspire their courageous thinking and identify new insights into what motivates their behavior. With seventeen business teams in the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Asia, each insight training session focused on a real business issue and included consumer immersion. In all, the Synecticsworld-trained business teams looked at product categories as varied as:

• Blades and razors
• Personal care
• The Braun family of products
• Oral care
• Duracell batteries and retail practices

THE RESULTS:

The highly praised program has thus far trained over 500 Gillette staffers and has, to date, been credited for adding value to Gillette brands in markets as far-flung as Frankfurt, Moscow, Istanbul, Dubai, Warsaw, Shanghai and Bangkok.

Some of the long-term benefits of the innovative ASTRA Framework have been:

• The development of a sustainable ‘process’ for insight
• The developed ability to share a common language and approach
• The incorporation of metaphorical thinking into consumer-centered work
• The ability to synthesize many disparate pieces of data into a few driving motivators
• The ability to make valuable creative connections
• The ability to see relevance in what once seemed irrelevant

What did Gillette see as the overall value of ASTRA? Well, in the words of one Gillette staffer, “A program like this brings to life what the vision of Gillette is; around getting closer to the consumer.”