1. It’s me
A good insight is relevant for a consumer, and this relevance can be driven by personal or by peer identification. When testing an insight’s relevance, it’s vital to get as close as possible to your target group. An example is how we immersed in the lives of Gen Z consumers in Hong Kong for Nike to gain an in-depth understanding of what defines this generation: their beliefs, their values and their attitudes.
2. Aha!
As Steve Jobs said: “A lot of times, people don’t know what they want, until you show it to them”. A strong insight is sort of like an ‘Aha’ experience: a combination of surprise and something familiar. It entails a view on something which was implicit all that time. To get to these ‘Aha’ moments, you need a creative and multidisciplinary approach. Chiquita, for example, ‘activated’ consumers and ‘deprived’ them from their normal behavior, in support of the launch of their smoothies. They asked consumers with a healthy lifestyle to eat less healthily, whereas consumers with a less healthy lifestyle were sent a fruit basket, with the question to eat more healthily. By taking consumers out of their comfort zone, Chiquita learned a lot about the role smoothies could play on a mental and physical level.
3. Emotion
Behind every strong insight lies a need to improve an existing situation. In other words: it’s not just about being relevant. An insight should also have emotional valence, there needs to be a desire for a potential solution. This could be related to a friction or a problem that consumers want to solve. But it could also be a desire for something. Consumers should be excited about having a potential solution. A good example is Pampers (P&G): by focussing on the fact that babies with a healthy and dry skin feel better altogether and play, learn and develop more easily, they touch any parent’s emotions.
