How Customer–Centred Strategy Drives Innovation at LG Electronics
RED LEADERSHIP PERSPECTIVES
A leadership perspective on maintaining a people-centred approach while pushing the boundaries of product innovation
A conversation between
A Conversation Between Ji Woon Kim, Team Leader at LG Electronics’ Life Soft Research (LSR) Lab, and Maria Cury and Morgan Ramsey Elliot, partners at ReD Associates
INTRODUCTION
LG Electronics is a global leader in consumer electronics. The company’s Life Soft Research (LSR) Lab, established in 1989, has evolved from basic customer monitoring to comprehensive experience research, developing LG’s people-centred design philosophy. With North America as LG’s largest market, the company has expanded LSR’s presence to the United States to anchor local innovation and strategy development.
ABOUT
Ji Woon Kim leads strategic innovation initiatives at LG Electronics’ Life Soft Research Lab, where she has spent over 20 years shaping next-generation product and service concepts as well as customer experience (CX) strategies. Currently based at LG Electronics USA headquarters in New Jersey, she reflects on how deep customer insights and anthropological understanding have become essential tools for navigating competitive pressures and geopolitical complexity in global markets.
Part I:
The Changing Landscape of Strategy
ReD: What does “strategy” mean to you? And why does it matter?
Ji Woon: Strategy can feel heavy and in my experience it often starts in ambiguity. Because I am frequently tasked with non-templated challenges, I frame strategy as ‘problem solving’. I spend the most time where it matters most – on precise problem definition and confirming that we are working at the level of root causes, not symptoms. Only then do I evaluate solutions, using a clear yardstick: the result must map to the customer’s core value. That anchor gives coherence as proposals move across organisations and stakeholders, preventing us from drifting under competing priorities. Practically, this means saying “no” to attractive but off-thesis ideas. To me, strategy matters because it keeps purpose intact from the first question to the final decision.
ReD: What are the different tools in your toolkit when it comes to setting and executing on strategy?
Ji Woon: My core mandate is to generate meaningful innovation, and the tools flex with context. Over the years, as my seat shifted from design research to strategy and now to building LSR locally, the balance of tools has shifted – from discovery methods to synthesis frameworks and decision mechanisms. What stays constant is the sequence: precise problem framing, option generation, and commitment to a small set of actions that map tightly to the customer’s core value.
“Looking ahead, many products and services will no longer stand alone but must deliver naturally connected experiences. Siloed approaches will result in customer experiences that fall short of expectations.”
ReD: How do you see strategy evolving, and what’s driving that evolution?
Ji Woon: Many voices today speak of entering an age of uncertainty. Beyond this sense of instability, companies that once operated under the assumptions of fully open global free trade now face a much more complex geopolitical reality – one marked by selective protectionism and shifting international dynamics. For decision-makers in global companies, this creates greater confusion and unease. Looking ahead, I believe the actions of major powers, the democratisation of frontier technologies such as AI, and the normalisation of new ways of working – like remote and hybrid models – will be the forces driving the next stage of strategic evolution.
ReD: What problems do you see strategy failing to solve today, that we need to address for tomorrow?
Ji Woon: The biggest challenge I see is the growing difficulty of truly trusting the voice of the customer. Over the years, gathered an enormous amount of deep, contextual insights. While such insights can tell us the past with a high degree of precision, it often falls short in uncovering root causes or pointing to future directions. This is why I continue to believe strongly in the importance of what ReD has called “Thick Data” – the deep, contextual insights into people’s lives that go beyond surface-level numbers. It is this kind of understanding that can guide strategy toward the future, not just explain the past.
ReD: LSR at LG are at the forefront of strategy – the team champions a people-centred perspective at the very front end of innovation, and has found ways to integrate that perspective beyond HQ to local teams as part of the business culture. Could you say more about how LSR has evolved and its role in strategy?
Ji Woon: Since its establishment in 1989, LSR has continuously evolved in response to the changing needs of customers and the strategic priorities of LG Electronics. By the late 1990s, as globalisation and new technologies accelerated, we systematised our approach – developing structured ways to collect and share customer data and identifying ideas for new products and features directly from customer needs. In the 2000s, LSR advanced further to uncover potential and even unconscious needs of customers. We introduced advanced global methodologies, creative problem-solving frameworks, and began identifying concepts for global products that could resonate across markets. From 2015 onward, during the digital transformation era, LSR enhanced customer trend research and began shaping directions for platforms and businesses. Most recently, our focus has been on proposing company-wide CX strategies, identifying AI-driven CX scenarios and solutions, and setting global trend-based CX agendas. In short, our methodology has expanded from monitoring customer language and behaviours, to uncovering deeper psychological drivers, to now researching customers’ comprehensive and lived experiences. What has remained constant throughout, however, is LSR’s people-centered perspective.
“I believe that understanding ‘worlds’ is very meaningful and will only become more important in the future.”
Part II:
The Role of Communities in Strategy
ReD: We have been seeing a need for more business leaders to take a different approach to strategy, that explicitly takes into account the communities, ecosystems, and what we call the “worlds” around the products and services they offer. How do you see the role of understanding these worlds or communities in setting product strategy?
Ji Woon: I believe that understanding “worlds” is very meaningful and will only become more important in the future. At the same time, I see the factors that define these worlds moving beyond traditional categories such as age or gender, toward more segmented and value-oriented groupings. We are therefore putting significant effort into understanding their lifestyles, consumption patterns, and value systems, and using those insights to sharpen our targeting and strategy. For example, across the world, we are seeing a growing trend of adult children continuing to live in the same household with their parents, and new terms have emerged to describe this generation. In the U.S., they are referred to as “Twixters”, in Germany as “Nesthockers”, in Korea as “Kangaroos”, and in Japan as “Parasites”. Formats such as ADUs (Accessory Dwelling Units) – though they have long existed – are receiving renewed attention as their purpose and usage have evolved in response to these demographic trends. We are conducting research on these groups and developing insights to prepare new appliance concepts that reflect these evolving lifestyles.
ReD: What gaps and holes do you see leaders facing today when it comes to building good strategies?
Ji Woon: Looking ahead, many products and services will no longer stand alone but must deliver naturally connected experiences. Closed or siloed approaches will only result in customer experiences that fall short of expectations. Yet most current leaders tend to be experts in their own specific domains – whether manufacturing, platforms, or services. This often means that while they are deeply involved in decisions within their area of expertise, they may overlook or postpone considerations in other areas, assuming that integration will be simple or can be added later. In reality, building such holistic experiences requires significant time and investment, especially in strengthening software capabilities. More resources and attention must be devoted to this area, and it is precisely in this process of integration where true innovation is needed.
Part III:
On Working With ReD
ReD: We at ReD have collaborated with you and LSR many times over the years – what has this social science-based approach unlocked for you?
Ji Woon: Over the course of my 20-year career, I have worked with a wide range of organisations in innovation, design, UX, consulting, cultural anthropology, and research. Among them, my collaboration with ReD has by far been the most impressive and inspiring experience. I was particularly moved by the way we conducted more than eight-hour home visits and then, before the memory of those experiences could fade, took the time to share, discuss, and refine what we had discovered together into meaningful insights. Going through that entire process with ReD reminded me once again of the value of truly empathising with customers. The level of professionalism and expertise that ReD brings to this field is, without question, world-class.
