What happens when you’re designing for an experience you’ve never lived?

Delta Faucet Company’s leadership team confronted a difficult reality: designing for consumers whose daily experiences differ from your own is incredibly hard. In this case, consumers with very curly hair were navigating painful, time-consuming wash routines, but much of Delta’s team had never experienced those challenges firsthand.

Rather than relying on assumptions, Delta chose to let consumer voices lead. That decision ultimately shaped VersaCurl™—an award-winning innovation that helped the company authentically serve Black and Hispanic curly-haired consumers, enter a new category, and unlock years of growth.

This session explores how that breakthrough happened, and what other brands can learn from it.

Whether you work in CPG, retail, durable goods, or any category where your team doesn’t fully reflect your consumer, this story offers a powerful model for uncovering unmet needs, building empathy, and creating smarter innovation strategies.

What You’ll Learn

In this on-demand session, you’ll learn how to:

Transform blind spots into competitive advantage
Use research to turn uncertainty into authentic consumer understanding your competitors can’t easily replicate.
Build real empathy across cultural divides
Learn the methods that help teams design for experiences outside their own with greater confidence and care.
De-risk bold category moves
See how phased research can support major innovation decisions without relying on assumptions.
Align organizations around consumer truth
Understand how stakeholder engagement turns insights into action across teams and departments.

From Blind Spot to Breakthrough: How Delta Faucet Company Transformed Haircare Routines

Ready to turn insights into action?