It’s the time of the year when its fashionable to ring out
the old and bring in the new. So here’s my two bit for the market research
industry – its time to ring out Insights and embrace a new idea called “outsights”.
The market research industry, indeed all of marketing, has
been obsessed with “consumer insights”. Look at the stupendous increase in the
mention of the term consumer insights in books since the beginning of the
1990s.
However, the market research industry needs to pivot away from insights
for three reasons
- With signs of the global economy faltering, growth will becoming increasingly difficult and will be predicated on truly differentiated insights
- Big data has done wonders for the industry but has “dehumanized” the data. We need to “feel the consumers” rather than read about them.
- With growth becoming difficult, we need to go beyond insights to ideas that could translate those insights to growth
It is my submission that the research industry needs to
pivot away from Insight to Outsight. Humor me and read on as I give you three
good reasons (good in my judgement 😊) for my view
1. "Confusion over what is an insight” – Probably the
most common question asked in any job interview in the market research industry
– client or agency side – is “What is your definition of what is an insight”. Look
at the search trend for the term “what is an insight” and it shows a steady
increase.
These two facts put together would suggest that there is a level of
confusion as to what exactly is an insight. This is manifested in many a
discussion around “what is the real insight” or “is that really an insight”.
As a consequence of this lack of clarity on
what is an insight, “Insights” have a tendency to be “obvious” or in other
words “in plain sight”. This makes them unactionable. Here is one example that
was floating on LinkedIn over the holiday period.
Disclaimer
– I have cropped out the name of the agency since this is about quoting an
example and not debating the individual case.
Is it an insight that disruptive brands are
“different from the others in the category”? If you use the definition wherein
an insight involves a causality then yes it is an insight.
Is it not obvious i.e in plain sight that
to grow you need to be distinctive? It’s a good example of why we need insights
that are “out of sight”.
The fact that disruptive brands are
different is an “insight” and not an “out of sight” but the real question is
how to achieve differentiation (more later).
We very often fall for the trap of
projecting our lives onto consumers without realizing that we are not
representative of the population.
Lets look at the UK ad industry whose
disassociation from the “general UK public” is well documented. See the
following statistics on lack of representativeness of the advertising folk
- 80% of people in the advertising industry are based in London. 87% of UK population does not live in London
- Over 50s account for 47.6% of UK household expenditure. 5.6% of the ad industry in UK is aged 50+
- 51% of UK population are women. Only 12% of creative directors are female.
|
Ad people estimate
|
Actual data
|
% of people TV viewing is live
|
49%
|
87%
|
Time spent watching TV per day
|
161 minutes
|
215 minutes
|
% TV watched on other devices
|
37%
|
2%
|
As a market researcher I fully understand
that it is normal for people to not remember exact amount of time spent on
various activities like watching TV or watching VOD. Hence, consumers
overestimate the time they spend watching VOD (for instance). What is troubling
is to see the extent to which ad people overestimate the time being spent by
ordinary consumers on VOD.
If you have any doubt about the fact that
this just a case of self projection look at the chart below. Clearly
advertisers and agencies spend a lot of time listening to spotify compared to
radio and so project that onto the population, incorrectly of course.
It is critical that the market research
industry develops a closeness to consumers and the market – for itself and its
marketing clients. This is something that should be cultivated. Go out. Experience
the products.
We need to experience things out of sight of
our office. Hence, “outsight”.
3. Insights to ideas – The research industry has
evolved from data to information to insights. The next stage of evolution is
moving towards ideas. I referenced earlier how the need for the research
industry is not just to provide insights but ideas on how those insights could
be acted upon.
As a student of economics, I am firm believer
in Karl Marx’s theory of dialectic materialism. Very simplistically put (I am
oversimplifying it for the purposes of this blog) “every thesis will be met
with an anti thesis and the collision of the two will result in a new
synthesis”.
What it means for market research is that we need a multitude of
perspectives to collide to get to ideas to move from insight to action. The
different perspectives can only come from different experiences.
It needs us to
go “out of the office”. Even in a country like Singapore I like to go out to the HDB food
courts of Toa Payoh and Hougang and smell the coffee, listen to the
conversations, look at the menu. Personally, I find it gives me a very
different perspective. It’s a perspective that needs you to get outside and see
things “out of sight”.
RIP Insights. Its time for Outsights.
Yep agree. Going out if our Ac offices and interacting with people in their natural habitats is the key to discovering something that is not obvious. My definition of Insight is simply "Motivations underlying human behaviour". To truly understand why a human being puts in an effort to do something.
ReplyDeleteVery relevant points, Vijay. Over the years once has seen the extreme ennui that accompanies the use of the word ïnsight" as it comes up in a client conversation. We clearly need to evolve with the times and provide something of real value.
ReplyDeletevery refreshing thoughts.
ReplyDeleteAgree, Vijay. We are so used to "Stated" vs. "Derived"... now it's high time for "Insight" vs. "Out of sight".
ReplyDeleteNice blog Vijay, vert thought-provoking.
ReplyDeleteAgree, While we are looking insights, we could lost simplicity. In Russia we know that such a channel as Hard Discounters is growing very quickly. And there are huge numbers of local players, who don't have nice package or cups, not aired on TV, but their share is rapidly growing. Thus we also need to have more simple bottle, formula, smell, that will give us possibility to have lower price. "Almost the same product from well known trusted brand!" . We, CMI together with Marketing, just need to see Hard Discouners with our eyes - JUST VISIT and see the shoppers and products inside - to be OUT of OFFICE.
ReplyDeleteVery well said
ReplyDelete