A Consumer Insight refers to a deep understanding or realization about consumer behavior, needs, motivations, and preferences that can be derived from data, research, observation, or analysis. It goes beyond surface-level understanding to uncover the underlying reasons why consumers behave in certain ways or make specific purchasing decisions. Consumer insights are crucial for businesses as they help in developing effective marketing strategies, designing products that meet consumer needs, and improving overall customer experience.
A Strategic Consumer Insight goes beyond basic consumer understanding to provide actionable intelligence that can directly inform and shape business strategies. It involves identifying key trends, patterns, or motivations among consumers that have significant implications for a company's competitive positioning, product development, marketing approach, or overall business direction. Strategic consumer insights are essential for guiding long-term decision-making and fostering sustainable growth by aligning business activities closely with consumer needs and preferences.
Henry Ford was quoted as saying “If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.”
"You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new." Steve Jobs “Most people don’t even know what they want until they see it. So sometimes you should give people what they need, not what they are asking for.”
The most valuable insight is that nugget of consumer or category understanding allowing the Brand to solve for the unmet or unstated consumer desire. It is a new discovery about the target audience enabling the brand to establish a connection between the brand and the consumer/ customer’s life. What you learn about your consumer is the insight; what you do to help them is the action.
Strong Strategic Insights have 5 insight traits.
Not Obvious - Not obvious insights often involve uncovering previously unspoken or unmet desires and needs among consumers. These insights typically go beyond conventional market research findings and require a deeper understanding of consumer behavior and motivations. By identifying these unstated desires or needs, businesses can tap into opportunities for innovation and differentiation. Addressing these unmet needs can lead to joyful surprises for consumers, enhancing their engagement and satisfaction with the brand. Moreover, the larger the audience that resonates with these insights, the greater the potential for business growth and success. Therefore, capturing and leveraging not obvious insights can be a powerful strategy for driving consumer engagement and building a competitive advantage in the market.
Uncover Barriers - Understanding and uncovering barriers to adoption or engagement are crucial steps in developing effective marketing strategies. By identifying why consumers might be hesitant or unwilling to try a brand or product category, businesses can take targeted actions to eliminate these barriers and encourage trial. This process involves thorough research, listening to consumer feedback, and addressing concerns such as price sensitivity, lack of awareness, perceived risks, or mismatched product attributes with consumer needs. Removing these obstacles can significantly increase consumer consideration and ultimately drive trial and adoption of the brand or category.
Specifically Relevant - Specificity and relevance in consumer insights are crucial for driving emotional engagement. When insights are specific and directly address a consumer's needs, desires, or challenges, they create a stronger connection and resonance with the audience. This specificity allows brands to tailor their messaging, products, and experiences in ways that genuinely resonate with consumers, leading to increased emotional engagement and affinity. By understanding the nuances of consumer behavior and preferences through specific insights, businesses can create more meaningful interactions that build trust, loyalty, and ultimately drive action.
Emotional Tension - Emotional tensions arise when there's a conflict between positive and negative emotions related to an activity, decision, or experience. For businesses, uncovering these emotional tensions can be powerful because it allows them to understand the pain points or frustrations that consumers may be experiencing. By addressing and solving these negative aspects, businesses can generate relief and gratitude among consumers. This process not only enhances customer satisfaction but also builds stronger emotional connections with the brand, leading to increased loyalty and advocacy. Identifying and resolving emotional tensions effectively can differentiate a brand in competitive markets and foster long-term relationships with consumers.
Touched the Heart - Does the insight drive an emotional response? insights that touch the heart and drive an emotional response are incredibly powerful in fostering deeper engagement with consumers. When a brand or message resonates emotionally with people, it goes beyond simple awareness or transactional interactions. Emotional responses can lead to stronger connections, trust, and even advocacy among consumers. This emotional engagement is crucial for building lasting relationships with customers who not only support the brand but also become advocates, sharing their positive experiences with others. Therefore, insights that evoke genuine emotions can significantly impact consumer behavior and contribute to long-term brand success.
Once we agree upon the Strategic Target Insight, it is time to assess its commercial value. We need to understand if the insight is “Widely Believed” or “Narrowly Believed” and is the insight “Positive” or “Negative.” Below is a simple table that provides options depending on the strength of the insight. Before we assess the value of the insights, let’s first discuss mental schemas.
A schema is an organized cluster of pre-conceived thoughts or ideas used to make sense of different aspects of our environment. These mental frameworks organize our knowledge and assumptions about something and are used for interpreting and processing information. Stereotypes are examples of schemas. In 1990, Bonnie Raitt recorded her smash hit Something to Talk About. There are a couple of lines in the song that go; “Let’s give them something to talk about. A little mystery to figure out.” These two lines, although the song writer did not intend it to do so, represent a critical principle of driving Word of Mouth; Schema Disruption.
When you disrupt a schema, people will begin to engage more deeply. Why? It’s about returning to a static state of mental equilibrium. Therefore, people have a natural desire to either; a) disprove the disruption and return to their original schema or b) approve the disruption and change their existing schema. A key here is when you disrupt a schema, you force the brain to engage. When you deeply engage a person, you can then get them to better understand your proposition. “A little mystery to figure out” is a great line. We want consumers to spend the time to learn more about our products.
Positive schema disruption can create a “wow” moment if the information is new, specifically relevant, trusted and positive. It makes sense, people will engage in things specifically relevant to themselves or to someone dear to them. The greater the specificity; the greater the engagement. For example. Pet owners’ ears perk up when information about pets are communicated. However, Chihuahua owners listen more intently when they hear a story or information about Chihuahuas. Why? It is more relevant to their specific situation. Of course, they want to listen intently as the information may either relate to their current situation or provide helpful or fun information that they can use to nurture their little Hercules (I always think it’s cool when little dogs get big powerful names.) If the information is not relevant to the listener, engagement does not really occur. Men do not really engage with feminine products. Younger audiences do not relate to denture creams. Why bother? The only exception to this is if the information can help someone a person cares deeply about. Then, the information becomes personally relevant.
Is the disruption believable? The easiest way to disprove a schema disruption is for the information to come from a non-trusted source. In this case, the information is dismissed, and the person returns to their original schema. People do not trust everyone and everything. Our current schemas help us understand there are people and sources more trustworthy than others. The old State Farm commercial “They Can’t Put Anything on the Internet that Isn’t True,” spoofs this insight well. People are savvy. Many who are trusted in their own rights will do the diligence to make sure the information they hear is accurate or at least from a credible source. This is why recommendations spread between friends and family are so powerful. Because of the relationship, these sources are inherently trusted.
Disrupting schemas in a positive way is very important to driving Word of Mouth, we call these anti-schemas. Nicholas Christakis in his book Connected talks about “the Spread of Goodness.” In his book (great read by the way), he talks about “the purpose of social networks is to transmit positive and desirable outcomes…” It is through the spread of positive information and emotion that people contribute to the growth of their networks. Let’s face it. Most of us like to spread happiness and we have seen way too much spread of negativity. It makes us feel better when we see the smile on another’s face. When we share a piece of information that will help someone improve their current situations. “Debbie Downer” was a hysterically funny SNL skit however no one really wants to be a “Debbie Downer.” No one wants to be her because no one wants to be with her, she’s a downer. The desired outcome of communications (besides drive word of mouth) is to “Brighten your Audiences’ Day.” You should want to spread joy. Our creation of joyful communications would lead to others spreading joy through their social networks.
Therefore, to get full impact of the Strategic Insight, we need to understand if the insight supports a consumer need in a way that can generate significant target engagement. As we look at Insights, we break them into four areas:
Positive Insights - Highlight strengths or advantages of a category or industry that resonate strongly with consumers.
Negative Insights – Highlights a weakness or issue with the category or industry that serves as a barrier to consumer adoption.
Widely Believed Insights - Commonly accepted perceptions or understanding that are widely shared by consumers about the industry or category.
Far- Fetched Insights – Unconventional or unexpected understanding that challenge conventional wisdom about a category or industry.
Refer to the chart below. The chart is colored Red, Yellow, Green. Like traffic signals,
Red – stop, do not move forward
Yellow – slow down, proceed with caution
Green – go, move forward safely.
Positive, Widely Believed Insight - (Yellow- Caution) If it is a true insight, it is not differentiating. It falls in the same old, same old category and therefore difficult to cut through the competitive clutter. In fact, communicating a category benefit has a tendency of improving the standing of the category leader. If the insight is false, you must change consumer perception by creating a problem to counter the insight. This is difficult to do and requires and typically requires significant spend. In both cases, commercial viability is limited at best.
Positive, Far Fetched Insight – (Green- Go forward) A positive belief that is counterintuitive to category communications is a very bright green. It is highly differentiating/ distinctive as well. If the insight is easy to understand, move forward quickly and aggressively. If the insight is complex or more difficult to understand, consider using analogies or conceptual blends to create a more understandable framework.
Negative, Widely Believed Insight – (Mixed) If a negative insight is true and is widely held, it is definitely something to avoid. It represents a legitimate barrier and trying to change it may not be believable. If the Negative insight is widely believed but actually false, there is an opportunity to leverage the insight by creating a new, opposite schema.
Negative, Far-Fetched Insight – (Red – Do not move forward) A Negative insight that is counterintuitive has no commercial value.
Understanding whether an Insight can yield significant positive business results is more important. Generating insights for the sake of generating insights is not a great use of dollar or people resources. Business Building Insights should be either:
Widely held negative situations that the brand can solve in a unique way.
Narrowly held positive desire or need that through increased exposure and better under- standing can become widely held.
Unfortunately, too many brands do not spend enough time and resources developing a consumer insight that creates a new opportunity for the brand to solve an unmet problem or create a new perception or thought that is ownable and differentiating. They leverage existing category insights resulting in marketing and customer experiences that do not drive significant consumer engagement yielding measurable growth.
Understanding your target audience at a deeper level is essential to developing a relevant yet distinctive Value Proposition. It is the starting point of developing your Brand Fundamentals. Your brand fundamentals are essential to delivering a solid foundation that delivers strategic innovation and longer term brand growth.
