Courtney Lawrence Foreseeing the Future at Lululemon

Courtney is the Director of Strategic Insights and Foresights at Lululemon, which means she oversees the enterprise-wide insights and foresight for the business, discovers how to achieve company goals, and understands the target market and culture. Courtney explains Insights as knowing what people are doing today and what the needs are right now and how we can look at behaviour and culture currently. Foresights are explained as projections we can make and scenarios that are possible in the future. Bringing the two together Courtney and her team extrapolate what they should be doing now and what they should be doing 5-10 years from now. Courtney uses mental health as an example to explain this concept: today we know how people are coping and dealing with cognitive training, and analyzing their strategies to understand what will be useful 10 years from now but looking at different forces such as cultural changes or technological advances to then create a 10-year plan to remain relevant.

Courtney started her journey to Lululemon through her constant fascination of human behaviour and culture when growing up with a sister with special needs. When in university, Courtney studied anthropology and visual anthropology, human culture, rituals and behaviours and discovered companies using applied anthropology and design thinking to better understand their clients and customers. Courtney explains that understanding the context of culture and rituals in different parts of the world is something that is needed for marketing success. After working with a few different firms applying innovation consulting and design and developing insight projects to better understand why consumers were not gravitating towards campaigns and products, Courtney joined Lululemon.

Courtney thinks one of the main elements of anthropology is curiosity. She states that curiosity is something that can be nurtured into your everyday life and work, and it can come from anywhere. Having childlike wonder and curiosity to break boundaries when you start any new project or topic, it is always important to come with an open mind for new questions. “The obvious question doesn't always give the obvious answer.”

Courtney uses these resources to learn more about anthropology in business:

• New York Times
• The Economist
• Following up with Social Media culture

Courtney recommends these tips for aspiring anthropologists:

• Be curious about human behaviour and motivations
• Always question marketing methodology and the ways we go about understanding a consumer
• Think of consumers as humans first
• Gather information from your everyday experiences and have curiosities about the world
• Learn from the people around you to stay culturally aware

Written by Juliana Bermudez