Digging for gold: beyond insight validation and into ideation

Some brands see insight validation as a boring, standard, procedure-forced tool. Many see it as the first and crucial step of a well-designed, consumer-anchored innovation funnel. It is a simple but modern method which has proved its value along the way. At InSites Consulting, we nicknamed this tool ‘Digging for Gold’: our goal is not to simply say what is and what is not okay, but to provide actionable research understanding that can further support our clients in the ideation funnel.
With this consultancy goal in mind, we collect different angles of the consumer perception: qualitative input on drivers and barriers, emotions association, brand fit and consumer language optimizations. The research objectives transcend from simple validation towards assessing the potential of the overall innovation platform and providing action points on next innovation steps. Eventually even other consumer insights can emerge from an insight validation, by crossing the understanding of the drivers and barriers from all insights tested.
The different analysis modules enrich the validation process, which in the end works as framework for a true insighting process, through qualitative reading of the consumers’ feedback. These modules are:

  • Drivers & barriers: Why consumers do or don’t identify with your insight?
  • Emotions: Which emotions does an insight trigger and what is the relative emotional positioning?
  • Targeting: Can we identify interesting additional target groups that feel an even higher identification with the insight?
  • Brand fit: Is the issue or sentiment in the insight seen as close to or far away from my key brand/s and competitor/s?
  • Optimizations: How to improve the insight quality?

The core added value of this multi-faceted approach is the richness of information brought into the next steps of innovation and knowledge which is introduced in the research team. A research manager will not only know which insights to pursue (and which ones not to), but also the deeper reasons on why those specific ones, how to better approach them, what the underplaying emotions are, who they will resonate with, which brands could better embody them and how to bring them even closer to consumers… With this information in hand, idea and concept generation will be more ‘natural’, more faithful to the insight and will already account for the do’s and don’ts.
Want to find out more about how insight validation can help you unlock the insights with the greatest innovation, activation or branding potential? Download our free paper on Digging for Gold.

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