Did you know that you can combine 6 LEGO bricks, each with 2 studs by 4 studs in almost a billion ways? While we've never had LEGO as a client, we've certainly played with our fair share of the colorful little blocks (and then some.) But I don't think even my brother or I ever attempted to combine bricks in quite that many ways!
The other fun thing about LEGO is that you can rearrange the blocks and come up with anything you can imagine. The same bricks can be a spaceship, or a garden or a grocery store, depending on how you stack them and how hard you squint. I believe you can learn a lot about a person by what they choose to build with a pile of LEGO bricks.
We use the metaphor of "building blocks" when we talk with consumers because it's one that they understand quickly and easily. We tell them that we will show them the "blocks" that make up the new product they're building or reacting to and they should put them together to build their ideal new product. How they put the blocks together is up to them.
I've had the privilege of literally growing up and watching this methodology change and grow over the years. And in much the same way consumers do during a study, clients have helped build whole new stations out of the Building Blockssm "blocks" they've had to choose from. From mixing jugs of soft drinks to watching women use their irons, from creating more kinds of sort boards than I ever thought possible to listening to skilled moderators help consumers ladder up the end benefits of eating cheese, Building Blockssm is certainly never boring.
One of the most fun parts of my job is helping clients come up with new combinations of stations, or even inventing new stations altogether. It may be hard to believe, but a client with a new and interesting challenge is my favorite kind. See our Consumer Insight below to see one of the newest ways we've been adapting the Building Blockssm "station" framework.
In the end, we use a picture of LEGO bricks to represent Building Blockssm because they're pretty darn similar. In both cases, you use the "blocks" to help build something new and interesting that's unique. Only with a Building Blockssm study, you run less of a risk of stepping on a hard plastic piece in the middle of the night.
