This webcast explores how low-cost, real-world experiments can deliver insights that traditional user research and surveys can’t. It includes stories of simple, rapid tests that saved millions, revealed customer truths, and built executive confidence.
You’ll learn how companies use rapid, in-market tests to learn fast, reduce risk, avoid mistakes, and create measurable ROI for a diverse range of corporate innovation and transformation efforts.
- Strategies that are affordable, fast and yield outsized returns
- Examples from the field you can incorporate into your own innovation practice
- How to make rapid decisions (and avoid costly mistakes) based on behavioral evidence
- How to use in-market results to build momentum and buy-in.
This session highlights stories and examples from Peer Insight’s work with Fortune 500 companies over the last 15 years. You’ll get a look inside the inner workings of effective innovation practices across a diverse set of industries and contexts.
Here are five key themes that Peer Insight’s Josh Clayton and Tim Ogilvie covered in the webcast. Slides are available in PDF form below.
1. Humility and Behavioral Evidence Drive High-ROI Innovation
Ogilvie emphasized that successful innovators start from a place of not knowing — “I don’t know the answer, but I know how to know.” He described humility as one of the three pillars of high-ROI experimentation, alongside behavioral evidence and shared belief.
Rather than relying on surveys or assumptions, both he and Clayton stressed watching what users do instead of what they say. Clayton’s story about observing conference attendees pick up and reject postcards illustrated this: by following one participant and asking what she was thinking, he turned a behavioral signal into a learning moment.
2. Fast, Low-Cost, In-Market Experiments Produce “Decision-Quality Data”
Clayton defined Peer Insight’s approach as “rigorous in-market experimentation that’s rapid and affordable — you’re getting an answer in a week instead of a quarter.” The PMI project demonstrated this principle: the team used simple materials like postcards, QR codes, and conference booths to run real-world A/B tests across four product concepts. These “low fidelity” tests quickly generated the behavioral data PMI needed for a board presentation.
Both speakers stressed that months-long, highly polished pilots are unnecessary and often counterproductive when small-scale experiments can surface the same insights in days.
3. Shared Belief Through Incremental Learning
Ogilvie framed ROI as a “series of little ROIs” — each test should increase confidence and alignment between innovators and their “investors” inside the organization.
Peer Insight’s practice of including clients on-site during tests (as at the PMI booth) built credibility and mutual understanding. “We want to build our belief together that we’re heading in the right direction and reducing uncertainty in small, transparent steps,” Ogilvie said. That helps corporate teams move from skepticism to shared conviction without massive sunk costs.
4. Bypassing Bureaucracy and Acting Like a Startup
Both Ogilvie and Clayton showed how Peer Insight helps large organizations stay agile by working around bureaucracy rather than waiting for it to move.
At PMI, for instance, the team couldn’t wait 45 days for email approvals, so they used Mailchimp independently, and offered $100 gift cards to ease compliance fears.
At Nike, they fulfilled EasyKicks test orders manually — buying retail shoes, re-boxing them, and shipping them overnight — because that was far cheaper than the headache of engaging corporate logistics. These scrappy, workaround methods helped achieve startup speed inside large enterprises.
5. Human-Centered Insights Can Redefine the Problem
Clayton’s AARP example revealed how direct observation overturns assumptions created by surveys. Surveys said AARP members wanted email communications and physical red cards. The field tests showed something subtler: members wanted backup options when they didn’t have their phones, and they chose email mainly because “it’s the easiest channel for me to ignore.”
Similarly, Nike’s early EasyKicks survey results didn’t predict real behavior. When tested live, the value proposition that performed worst in surveys — avoiding trips to the store — proved to be the most powerful driver.
Summary
Across all their case studies, Clayton and Ogilvie framed innovation not as a big leap but as a disciplined series of low-cost, evidence-based experiments.
Their message:
- Get out of the building.
- Watch real behavior.
- Learn fast.
- Build shared confidence step-by-step.
That combination, they argue, is the best formula for high ROI innovation.
Speaker Bios
Josh Clayton, Partner & COO, Peer Insight
Josh is a seasoned entrepreneur and business leader with a proven track record of transforming concepts into profitable products and services within established organizations. As Partner and COO at Peer Insight, he has spearheaded growth initiatives for a diverse portfolio of clients, including Johnson & Johnson, Nike, AARP, Goodyear, Canon, Principal Financial Group, The Capital Group, Baker McKenzie, Expeditors, The Project Management Institute, and more. These initiatives have ranged from shaping upstream innovation strategies and portfolios to leading downstream efforts in building MVPs and achieving market traction. His unique blend of strategic vision and operational execution has consistently delivered results, positioning him as a trusted advisor for companies looking to develop and scale new growth opportunities.
Tim Ogilvie, Partner, Peer Insight
Tim is happiest when he’s exploring new places. Whether it’s a new customer, a new business model, or a new venture, he is drawn to the challenge of pattern-finding and rapid experimentation. It makes sense. Prior to forming Peer Insight in 2004, he was a software startup CEO, a strategy consultant, and an Army brat. At Peer Insight, Tim has helped pioneer the emerging methods of design thinking, including co-authoring two best-selling books on the subject: Designing for Growth and The Designing for Growth Field Book. He has navigated failure and success (usually in that order) on breakthrough growth projects for Hewlett-Packard, Johnson & Johnson, ArcBest, AARP, Procter & Gamble, Marriott, and The Hartford. Tim’s education includes a Masters in Computer Integrated Manufacturing Systems from Georgia Tech and a BA from the University of Virginia.
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