How great is a good consumer insight? Discover the core elements of a winning insight

We are sure that consumers are, literally, the most effective consultants for any company. This is reflected in our methods and solutions, in the way we see research. Consumers are the anchor of the collaboration with our clients – actually, they are the ship’s rudder. This journey is very essentially determined by its starting point. It can be inspired by market trends, market data, secondary research or the good old gut feeling, but it cannot overlook the consumer. Consumers will collaborate with us along the innovation funnel and, naturally, will be at the receiving end. But innovation or brand activation research funds are not endless, so we need to focus & prioritise investments where return is more probable.
For all of the reasons mentioned above, it only makes sense to put our efforts into insights that are Relevant, generate Excitement if solved and will drive Contagious Conversations; it is essential that this is achieved whilst the insight still looks Fresh (‘Aha, I never thought of it like this’).
We believe these are the core constituents of a winning insight, so these are the four key elements taken into account in our validation formula. We then calculate a composite score – Insight Strength – based on the mean of these KPIs. Freshness has a double weighing in this calculation as these are innovation insights, by definition meant to be breakthrough novelties.

  • Consumer Relevance is the backbone of the validation: ‘Does our target group identify with this insight? Is it also relevant for a wider audience?’ Meta-analysis shows that this dimension is the one which best explains the overall insight potential. It translates into how strongly consumers connect with this need and it is an important pre-requisite.
  • Excitement brings the solution space into play: ‘Are consumers excited about having this solved by a brand/product?’ This dimension validates the need to have this friction solved. A high level of excitement means this insight is a problem that needs fixing and will positively benefit the brand/product image behind it.
  • Freshness is a more volatile but extremely important KPI. It might be a long-standing & real insight (high relevance) that consumers want to see solved (high level of excitement), but in the end we might be talking only about creating the best tasting cookie ever. Freshness brings the required edge and assures whether the insight ‘Is this a new way of looking at things?’. The double weighing in our formula covers the innovation angle as well.
  • Contagious Conversations allow assessing if the insight: ‘Is it a topic that triggers a lot of conversations?’ This is a way to attest how ground-breaking an idea can be & how present this need already is in consumer conversations.

In this validation process benchmarking plays a key role. We might have loads of potential insights, but which ones are the most potent ones to pursue? How great is a good insight?
When comparing against our database we focus on providing a ‘go ahead’ for those insights that have an Insight Strength and all 4 KPIs scoring on the Top 20% results of our database. Our database includes 500+ insights, tested in over 30 markets.
It then becomes essential to understand the drivers behind the winning insights and how all of them can be clustered into idea platforms. This will allow to further structure the innovation funnel in which these insights will play a central role from this point onwards. But it does not end there: for the less powerful insights our tool allows understanding barriers and provides action points on where/how to optimise them.
This tool is about much more than simple validation and our reporting modules reflect this idea. Drivers & barriers, qualitative feedback, consumer language optimisations, emotional context and brand fit are key elements of our analysis deep-dive per insight; to feed and enrich the whole innovation funnel research.
Want to find out more about how insight validation can help you unlock the insights with the greatest innovation, activation or branding potential? Read our free paper on Digging for Gold: How to select those consumer insights that will change your business.

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