A blog post

That’s an Insight?!

Posted on the 28 October, 2009 at 2:23 pm Written by Carol Phillips in Blog

insightYesterday, while preparing for a plane trip, I grabbed a book off my shelf called “Brand Building: New Dimensions“.  Someone (who?) sent me this book over a year ago but I had never read it. 

The title of the first chapter, “Insightful? Or Just Interesting? How to Identify a Brand-Building Home Run” sounded vaguely familiar. It should have – it was based on a whitepaper I wrote in 2007!   The editor, A. V. Bala Krishna, sought permission to use it and sent me a copy of the book as a thank you, but I had completely forgotten both the paper and the book! 

After re-reading the chapter (and deciding I used to be a better writer!) I gave some thought to how it relates to finding insights for reaching Millennials.  What makes a fact or idea worthy of building a brand or campaign around? Big ideas rarely announce themselves.  Most of the ‘facts’ about Millennials are such common knowledge they no longer sound meaningful or important.  How do you discern between powerful ideas and platitudes?

History provides some guide. In fact, many of the insights that launched great campaigns sound banal in retrospect. Consider these examples:

  • Master Card”Priceless“: “Buying things allows you to get some other place in your life that makes you feel good.” (Excuse me, but isn’t that good feeling generic to all credit cards?)
  • Dove “Real Beauty“: Only 2% of all women consider themselves beautiful, and only 5% consider themselves pretty”. (This is news?)
  • California Milk “Got Milk“: “Things just don’t feel the same without milk”. (Yawn!)

Yet each of these insights led to breakthrough marketing and advertising efforts.  Here the are five guidelines I suggested two years ago for judging insights. They still apply to Millennial marketing:

1. Insights apply more to the target, than the product or service.

Example: National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign “Above the Influence”

Insight: Teens are sensitive to influence, positive and negative from peers and the media.

Solution: Position influence itself rather than drugs as the enemy that gets in the way of what you want to do.

2. Insights are more about the category, than the brand.

Example: Jenny Craig

Insight:  Dieters truly want to believe that there is a diet that will succeed this time. They are hopeful and willing to believe if a plan has worked for others, it will work for them.

Solution: Speak to the category driver, ‘optimism’. There are few brands quite as optimistic as Jenny Craig. The strategy was brought to life brilliantly as dieters everywhere watched Kirstie Allie, America’s favorite fat actress, shed 75 pounds and return to glamour. Many strong brands are based on category insights.

3. Insights reveal more about how people want to feel, than what they think.

Examples: Brands built on insights about desired lifestyle include Nike, Starbucks, Apple, BMW, Martha Stewart, Oprah and more.

Insight: People buy brands that fit the life they want to lead. 

Solution: Make users love how they feel about themselves when using or wearing the brand – loved, secure, indulged, athletic, healthy, smart or productive.

4. Insights focus more on what is enduring, than what is new.

 

Example: Abercrombie

Insight: While pre-teen adolescents teens say they want to be trendy, they actually are the antithesis – they want fashion that is ‘lasting’ so they will fit in.

Solution: Clothing that is a clever blend of classic styles of jeans, t-shirts and sweats with fashion following not trendsetting details.

5. Insights inspire new ideas, not the same old stuff.

Example: Payless Shoes

Insight: Men are not just women with bigger feet, they mean something different when they say they want ‘casual shoes’, something they can wear everyday with everything. .

Solution: Give men  a mix of classic and fashionable shoe styles and treat them differently when they come in the store.

There are two morals to this story. First, don’t overlook the obvious in an effort to be ‘insightful’. The answer may be hiding in plain sight. Second, if someone sends you a book, read it! You may like the author.

  • deniseleeyohn
    carol, i am tracking with you except on #2 -- while the examples you've used do indeed demonstrate how a category insight powerfully communicated can be a catalyst for a brand, i'm concerned that relying on category insights alone usually don't result in brand preference -- when i headed up brand and strategy for sony, we constantly had to push ourselves to figure out what was the unique perspective sony brought to the category and then to communicate that in a way that our target would understand and appreciate -- perhaps this was more of an issue for sony, being a category leader trying to sustain higher price premiums, but i would think it's an important point for all brands since differentiation is so crucial. what are your thoughts on this?
  • Denise:
    The issue you bring up is a very real one, especially for brands that are not commodities or dominant in their categories. The best opportunity is to find a unique or differentiated way to support the category benefit. But assuming that avenue is not an option, I still think it's better to find a unique expression of the category idea than to focus on something you own that may not be as relevant. Often there are ways to say the category benefit more cleverly or louder than the competition. This was the case with MasterCard. It was a gutsy decision that paid off. I was involved in the launch of Nextel in the late 90's. We had a lot of differentiated features like seconds rounding on pricing, free roaming and of course, push-to-talk technology. All of these were hot buttons with business customers, but we decided to focus on the network quality, which was the category benefit and not differentiated (in fact we weren't even parity). This decision really paid off, as no one would care about push to talk or rational pricing if the network is dropping calls. In branding, a bulls eye is a differentiated and relevant message. Of the two, I think relevant is more important. Hope that helps.
  • deniseleeyohn
    thanks for the reply, carol -- makes sense -- i've always thought about differentiation as "the difference that makes a difference"
  • carol, i am tracking with you except on #2 -- while the examples you've used do indeed demonstrate how a category insight powerfully communicated can be a catalyst for a brand, i'm concerned that relying on category insights alone usually don't result in brand preference -- when i headed up brand and strategy for sony, we constantly had to push ourselves to figure out what was the unique perspective sony brought to the category and then to communicate that in a way that our target would understand and appreciate -- perhaps this was more of an issue for sony, being a category leader trying to sustain higher price premiums, but i would think it's an important point for all brands since differentiation is so crucial. what are your thoughts on this?
  • Beth and Steve:
    Thanks for your comments, and for sharing your experience. Insights are some of the most misunderstood concepts in marketing. Another issue that often comes up is whether the strategy must be 'unique' or differentiating. Most strategies look flat on paper, or even similar to competitive strategies because the best ones rely on 'truths' as Steve points out, not on esoteric digging. The challenge and the art of marketing is to make that strategy come alive in a different way.
  • Steven Conway
    Great advice Carol. I think your insight guidelines are spot on!

    Working as a account planner in the ad industry, I always been trained to think of an insight as a "uncommon truth". It is our moment of aha that puts everything in clarity and naturally lends itself to big brand building ideas. Sometimes it is so apparent it is staring you in the face. Other times you have dig deep to find the root of it. Either way, if it does not move the brand forward, than I believe you should want to keep looking.
  • The reason I enthusiastically endorse your POV is because this is something I struggled with at my previous job: trying to explain the difference between an insight and a rationale. The insight is what leads you to the good idea, the strong message and the impactful creative. The rationale is what you need when you're trying to back into an idea and still prove that it's a good idea. And not that providing rationale is a bad thing; sometimes when your idea/program is more tactical, rationale is all you need. But call a spade a spade and understand the difference between the two.
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