What is consumer insight?

In simple terms, consumer insight refers to understanding the motivations behind consumer wants and needs, which ultimately drive their behaviours.

Consumer insight is significant as it provides a deeper comprehension of consumer preferences and emotions, leading to more effective creative development. Strong consumer insights serve as a springboard for exceptional creative work. For instance, the insight that consumers cherish bonding with family and friends through small gift exchanges led to the highly successful "Share a Coke" campaign.

Consumer insights often revolve around pain points, identity, aspirations, and emotions, including fear, happiness, satisfaction, and fulfilment. Many function-oriented advertisements, such as those for detergents or skincare, tap into consumers’ frustrations or embarrassment.

Consumer insights can be derived from various sources, so it's important to maintain an open-minded approach. Effective channels for gathering consumer insights include market research, direct observations of consumer behaviour in their natural living environments where real products and services are used, and engaging in direct conversations with consumers to obtain immediate feedback. Analysing marketing research reports and data, especially data collected from social media monitoring, is also immensely beneficial.

Consumer insights become more powerful when they align with the company's mission. For example, in IKEA's “The Wonderful Everyday" campaign, the creative team drew motivation from the company's mission to "better the lives of many people." This mission converges with the understanding that consumers also seek to enhance their everyday living and celebrate the ordinary moments in life, resulting in a brilliant creative idea.

Consumer insights should take on a forward-looking perspective as they serve as the cornerstone for shaping the "big idea" in marketing campaigns. For a big idea to endure and remain relevant over several years, and sometimes even decades, it must align with lasting trends or mega-trends. Just as the big idea must stand the test of time, the consumer insights upon which it is built should share this same quality.

Consumer insights can be nuanced, requiring truthful observations, real experiences, and putting oneself in the consumer's shoes. For instance, in the BCF ad developed by DDB Singapore https://lnkd.in/gyn9fBtU, the consumer insight is that individuals may have unspeakable motivations driving their choices. Another insight is the potential irritation caused by the excessive demands of tiger moms, a common occurrence in competitive Asian countries. The ad artfully builds tension to make the contrast more powerful when the unexpected reason is finally revealed.

In summary, consumer insights are critical and invaluable in driving impactful campaigns and effective marketing communications.