What’s an Insight? Marketing definitions
It is almost impossible to define what an insight is without setting an example in between. It’s that something you didn’t know you knew about yourself. A need that was inside you but you didn’t know it. An innate behavior that you had no record of doing it. Definitely, the insight is what discovers things about you that you had not even stopped to think about.
In the world of advertising, finding good insights is vital to the success of campaigns. An insight is a true revelation of the consumer. Find out why your target think what they think, behave as they behave and feel what they feel. And work on it to respond to real needs.
One of the biggest secrets and best adventures in the advertising world is to decode the minds of consumers. Enter them and know what moves them to perform some actions. The intuition, habits, environment and perceptions of each human being are what condition their actions and your job is to find the root of all of them.
But don’t think that by searching Google “what is an insight” you’ll find a list that will solve your campaigns. Insights are created from a very deep investigation based on observation, intuition, introspection and the deduction of several issues. The best advice to find them is to be always curious and observe everything.
Consumer Insight or how to enter the consumer’s mind
These are several definitions that can guide you about what an insight is:
- “An insight is an understanding of the real needs expressed and not expressed by clients.”
- “A needs and desires approach”.
- “Value or belief that triggers the conduct of purchase and consumption”.
- “Detect what is in the mind and in the heart of the client”.
- “It is a new business perspective regarding the symbolic relationship established between a brand and its potential consumer”.
How to identify an insight
1.- Watch
To get to understand the mind of consumers you must find the key moment. It is essential that you observe all their steps to be present at the moment in which they manifest an answer towards your brand. Either positive or negative.
In this way you can see what has led them to have that behavior. In the same way you must be able to detect the expectations of your target and in what way you meet them or not. You can help yourself with surveys and interviews. But, undoubtedly, one of the best ways to get that information is by watching the sale points.
2.- Listen
One of the most important steps to find a good insight is to listen. Take advantage of all your communication channels, social networks, calls, email marketing, polls, survey, what’s said in your brand’s forums and your competition’s forum… Be immersed in information about what your target thinks about you and what they really want.
In most cases, they will be the ones who reflect their needs through different channels. Take advantage of them.
3.- Investigate
Thanks to the Internet, you have the enormous advantage of accessing thousands of data and statistics that capture the behavior of your target audience. But, beyond that, you can start by paying attention to your own information.
Acquiring external databases is not a good idea. Your own databases will get you out of more than one predicament and will provide you with revealing information. You can get a pattern of behavior of your customers and information on consumer habits and tastes. Therefore, it is better to take advantage of your own resources to complete your investigation.
4.- Put yourself in the client’s place
Beyond researching and obtaining data and percentages, a technique that will help you to know what an insight is and to find it, is simply to be empathetic.
Put yourself in the shoes of your audience and based on the information you have about them, think:
- What would you do if you were a typical user?
- What would I like?
- What I need?
- How could they solve my life?
- What do I expect from that particular brand?
How can it benefit you to find a good insight?
Your interest in knowing what an insight is will increase as you learn what they can do for you and your marketing campaigns. To begin, you must know that finding a good insight will give you the push you need to boost your creativity. In fact you’ll have a great source of ideas to generate new products and services.
The essence of insights lies in knowing aspects of the consumer that he himself does not know. And from there, needs are generated and you are in charge of covering them. Therefore you can launch new products and services for those new needs that the client already had. But he had not discovered them.
It will also serve as a unique opportunity to reposition you in the market. A good campaign can revive your brand and place you as one of the best.
Examples to understand what an insight is
Still not being clear? Don’t worry, next we focus on several examples where this concept will get into your head and you will not be able to forget it.
1.- Nestlé with “The dinner you don’t see“
Without going very far, go back to this Christmas. Nestlé embodied one of the best insights to which no one had made reference until now.
We put you in context. Christmas is the typical date on which the family gathers, celebrates meals and dinners, relax and, above all, goes to a table. Nestlé realized something thanks to its study and expressed it in its insight: “Whoever takes care of preparing the Christmas dinner “enjoys” this meal in a different way”.
Something as simple as that. Did you ever stop to think about it? The brand wanted to make a wink to this segment of the population and launched this incredible campaign in which at any moment appear their products or reference to them. But it does work on an insight so powerful that the brand managed to position itself during the holidays and gain notoriety.
Are you understanding better what an insight is? As you can see, it is something that is there, something that happens but is not usually paid attention to.
2.- Volkswagen with “Think small“
The German giant hit a trend. And is that most of the campaigns were aimed at launching large vehicles, because the bigger a car was, the better it was said to be. But not everyone thought the same. Did someone stop to think about that? Volkswagen. In this way, it introduced its small Beetle model to the market. Achieving absolute success.
3.- Dove, “Real women, real curves“
Another of the perfect examples to understand what an insight is, is the reorientation of Dove towards real women. Everything arose when it was detected that a beauty canon was being introduced that not all women followed. And Dove launched its campaign “Real women, real curves” to show real women with curves.
In fact these same women became the image of the brand, something unprecedented to date. As you see, sometimes to find an insight you must think from another perspective. If everyone is oriented towards a certain tendency, why not direct yourself towards the opposite behavior? We don’t all have the same tastes or think the same, try to identify with consumers.
4.- San Miguel 0,0
San Miguel has managed to position itself as the queen of non-alcohol beer thanks to a very powerful insight. As they affirm in their campaign, there is a very marked concept in society. And this is that non-alcohol beer is for those who don’t like beer.
For this reason, the brand has worked on this very marked concept and has turned it around with a new insight: what consumers don’t like is alcohol, but they can also enjoy a good beer and the social ritual that it entails.
Thus, the brand has positioned itself as number one of non-alcohol beers.
5.- Gatorade, “Soccer Players who work of something else“
But it is not like that. Therefore, working under the insight that these drinks can be drank by anyone who exercises, it launched this wonderful ad titled “For soccer players who work of something else”.
In addition to emotionally connecting with the consumer, bringing a touch of humor and getting to be in the top of mind of customers, hit the campaign fully.
Definitely, advertising and marketing not only works on proven realities in data and statistics, but also navigates intuitions and perceptions. However, to get there you need a deep knowledge of the sector you want to address.
Do you need support in transforming your “insights” into an active and optimized digital campaign?
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