Insights Bring Relevant Creative that Wins Over Consumers

Whether we are talking about bringing new products to market or marketing a new product, insights make the difference.

What is an Insight?

Real life examples of true insights:

Where can you find Insights?

Insights are all around us and yet when tasked with a campaign, they can be difficult to find. Here are five ways to find an insight:

1. Search the Research.

When interest rates shot up, our client, Fulton Homes needed a new strategy to attract buyers. Their model was previously to woo move up buyers looking for a bigger, better home. Their buyer persona was adults between 35 and 54, conservative (think FOX News), often living in the East Valley with big families. But the move up buyer is dead at the moment with the high interest rates.

So we did a Scarborough study using this criteria:

• People looking for homes in the next twelve months.
• People with household incomes greater than 100k.

The question was: who is buying homes now?

Research told us that our strategy needed to change. The insight was young tech workers were moving into Phoenix and were currently in rentals, waiting to see where they wanted to live. In many cases, it was a single family home, according to the research.

We changed our target to match the research:

• Women
• Ages 21-44
• Liberals

Our media buy was targeted at CNN, HGTV and the FOOD channel. We also bought Connected TV- to really zero in on the target and compile analytics.

2. Look at the competition.

See who the product or service is targeting and how it is positioned. Note the features and benefits, pricing, market share trends, intellectual property, ownership, partners and those they are up against.

Where to look:

• Industry news sites
• Blogs
• White papers
• Public library data bases
• Trade publications
• Google (put “PDF” in search bar)
• Social media
• Linkedin and professional networks
• Reviews

3. Examine the consumer.

Habits and practices can often be found in reviews. Also look at how the product or service is being used, how the consumer describes the product or service, attitudes, emotions and market segmentation. Some of this can also be found in Scarborough Research and other research applications.

Where to look:

• Company research
• Observation
• Focus groups
• Man on the street interviews
• Reviews
• Social Media
• Google Search

4. Dissect the brand.

This is where you look for perception relative to competition, tone, current marketing, mission and vision. Scour YouTube for company videos, annual reports and brand guides.

Where to look:

• Current and past ads in newspapers, magazines, online and video.
• Compare competitive brands on a grid
• YouTube
• Company websites
• Social media

5. Develop insights.

With all this information, you will start to see opportunities.

When EuroRSCG created the “Most Interesting Man in the World” campaign, I am sure they noticed all the beer advertising looked similar, sophomoric, even. That in itself, was an insight. They then created a reverse opposite with a classy, sophisticated tone. We can all do this by comparing all the competitive, consumer and brand research to come up with insights. The five steps are:

1. Describe and gather data
2. Interpret each piece
3. Evaluate each category and draw conclusions.
4. See the commonality between the different areas for an overall insight.
5. Create work base on the insight and develop a campaign.

Knoodle does this with the Brand Spark but you can develop your own version that encompasses these areas.