Let’s consider the importance of insights for brands.
In a world of continuous advancements in AI with its ability for superior data analysis, it is important to recognize the power of insights for brands and their enduring profitable growth.
Real, actionable insight will not come from superior data analysis. Superior analysis provides understanding of where we are and how we got to where we are. Superior analysis does not provide insight into what kind of future we can create.
Marketers must use their expertise, judgment, and creativity to make reasoned, informed, and insightful decisions.
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In our increasingly competitive, measurement-reliant marketing world, there is a pervasive fear of taking a leap of faith based on informed judgment. Informed judgment is not guesswork. Of course, no one intentionally commits valuable resources to something that is likely to fail. A best guess is not pulled out of thin air. A best guess comes from knowing all you can know, knowing what you do not know and confidence in your decision-making.
Unfortunately, insight has become a marketing cliché. Insight is misunderstood, misused, minimized, and mistaken.
Marketers have made insight a meaningless, useless term.
- Is it insight to discover that people’s incomes are under strain and stress?
- Is it insight to realize that if your brand is too expensive, customers may move to store brands?
- Is it insight to learn that people want an easy-to-use technology?
- Is it insight to learn that people like food that tastes good?
- Is it insight to learn that a BTB customer wants a computer system that will not crash?
- Is it insight to learn that drivers want vehicles that handle well?
These are not insights. These are observations of the obvious. Yet, in each case, these were reported as insights based on extensive research.
Meaningful, actionable insights are more than mere information. Meaningful, actionable insights need to meet two criteria:
- Surprise at what you learned.
- And, as a result, a change in behavior based on this learning.
How powerful are true, actionable insights? Is it possible for true, actionable insights to lead to enduring, profitable growth?
Here is a true story.
Before there was Petco, PetSmart, Chewy, Fresh Pet, and Farmer’s Dog, there was canned dog food. Decades ago, the options for your dog were fresh meats or canned dog food. Today’s dog food purchaser takes for granted that there once was a time when the options for dry dog food were minimal or non-existent.
This changed when Kal Kan, a division of Mars, conducted a Problem Detection Study. Many researchers have taken credit for that study, although they were in no way involved. Problem Detection was a product of the stellar research department at BBDO. (Yes, it used to be that the ad agencies had leading-edge, profit center research departments.)
The idea of a Problem Detection Study takes its shape based on human behavior. As humans, we are pain avoidance mammals. And, this is pain from physical, psychological or psychic issues. As humans, we also love to complain.
Ask people what they want, and they will tell you the most generic items. What do you want in a snack food? I want something that tastes good. Take this customer statement to R&D and watch for the eye rolls. Who eats anything that tastes terrible?
But, ask people to complain and you will receive the most detailed, non-generic, actionable comments. Many brands created new products using Problem Detection. BBDO client Campbell Soup, created Chunky Soup based on problems from men who complained that regular Campbell condensed soups were too thin and less hearty for a lunch. Chunky Soup, a non-condensed soup, had large pieces of meats and vegetables. The marketing announced that Chunky Soup was soup you can eat with a fork.
When General Electric sold its small appliance business to Black & Decker, Problem Detection revealed important and frequently-occurring consumer complaints about crumbs on tables and counters. A vacuum cleaner was too big and unwieldy to address these complaints. The Black & Decker Dustbuster was born. Now, hand-held vacuums are ubiquitous.
In the early 1970s, Life Savers (at the time, an owner of gum brands as well as its ubiquitous hard candy) wanted to create a new bubble gum. Customers complained that bubble gum, which was packaged with baseball trading cards, was flat, hard, and dusty, so the gum would not stick to the baseball card. Life Savers created a soft cube of bubble gum and named it Bubble Yum.
Back to dog food and insights.
The Mars pet food Problem Detection Study revealed two major insights. When asked what dog owners wanted in a dog food, dog owners said they wanted food their dog would eat. (Sigh) Unlike cats, dogs are not particularly finicky eaters. Dogs have been known to eat lots of things, including leather moccasins. Asking R&D to create dog food a dog will eat was an eye roll.
However, when asked about problems with canned dog food, the dog-owner lists were endless. Canned dog food was smelly. Canned dog food was ugly-looking. Canned dog food came in big cans. If you owned a small to medium size dog, the opened, half-full can spent time in the refrigerator causing the refrigerator to smell bad. Dog owners felt unhappy – really unhappy – about feeding their dogs this “stuff.” Dog owners just did not feel right: was this really good for my dog? It did not matter that canned dog food was convenient. Canned dog food was not an easy product to love. Canned dog food did not put the dog owner’s mind at ease.
Hence, dry dog food.
There was a third critical insight from the pet food Problem Detection Study. The problems generated from dog owners were dog owner problems. Dogs were the end users. Dogs ate canned dog food. Dogs did not seem to mind that the canned dog food looked ugly, smelled ugly, and made a trash bin out of the refrigerator. It was the universe of dog owners who had problems. And, since dog owners select and pay for the dog food, solving dog-owner problems was critical for dog food brands’ enduring profitable growth.
The idea of focusing on the dog owner – or in today’s lingo, the dog parent – continues to be the key to dog, and overall pet, purchases. This may seem an astute observation of the obvious, but at the time, it was an interesting new idea. And, it turned out that focusing on the dog owner is profitable. Over time, dog owners and pet owners have become more and more parent-oriented. Solving for pet-parent problems, satisfying pet-parent needs, is essential. More and more so, as it seems.
The au courant word is “humanization.”
And, the dog food Problem Detection Study picked up on this insight five decades ago. What was certainly interesting then is now critically important.
To understand just how significant the dog owner (pet owner) is in the fortunes of pet product and pet service providers, one needs to go no further than The Wall Street Journal interview with the CEO of Petco, Joel Anderson.
Here is how the interview story begins:
“What’s the difference between a child and a pet? Increasingly, not much. Which is why Petco Health & Wellness – the second-biggest U.S. pet-store company behind PetSmart – now sells pearl necklaces, dresses, hoodies and even matching pajamas for household creatures and their owners.
“Pet parents see their pets as extensions of themselves,” says Petco Chief Executive Joel Anderson. “Our year-end unit sales of holiday products were up more than 10%—partly due to increased humanization.‘’
The Wall Street Journal asked this question of Mr. Anderson:
“Almost half of American dog owners have given their dogs gifts for their birthday or ‘barkday,’ according to a 2023 YouGov survey. Petco recently opened ‘gifts for pet parents’ areas in some stores. How else will Petco take advantage of this humanization trend?”
Mr. Anderson responded this way:
“Today, the four-legged family member has reached the status of the two-legged family member. Pet parents want products that integrate pets into their lives. More are celebrating holidays with that pet. We’re leaning more into pet-human matching clothing and accessories. A big point of differentiation in our bricks-and-mortar space is creating an emotional connection with pet parents and their pet. Many store associates know pets by name more than they know customers by name.“
Barron’s, the financial newspaper, pointed to the rise of empty nester baby boomers and family-delaying Millennials as the vanguards in the “humanization” trend. In a current environment, where we learn that consumers are cutting back on discretionary, non-essential purchases, pet owners are using the money that would have been spent on children, on their pets. Barron’s writes that pet owners are more likely to “splurge” on pets. And, although there are some signs of pet-food cost-cutting, the urge to splurge on your pet-child is more than compelling.
Petco’s Mr. Anderson also sees Millennials as critical customers, along with Gen Z’ers. “Our Reddy brand is targeted toward the Gen Zer whose dog is the most important piece of their life. That product line keeps expanding. Reddy now has clothing, premium dog beds and kitchen items—including pet-food storage solutions—that are both functional and look good in your pantry.” He added that it is Petco’s goal to achieve “… happy pet parents, healthy pets and having fun together.”
An Oppenheimer analyst told Barron’s that trends in dog food, for example, are mimicking trends in human behaviors. Our search for health and wellbeing is now also applicable to our pets. Humanization at work.
To be clear, we have data warehouses, data mines and these data provide us with information. The information provides us with facts. Taking the information , we formulate trends. Trends are enduring. Trends are ideas and concepts that happen around us and influence the way in which we behave. Trends are valuable because they inform us about the world around us.
But, trends are not insights.
Collecting and analyzing information are not enough. Brands must move from information to insight. Informed insight, informed judgment are not guesswork. Insight means seeing below the surface of information. It means synthesizing rather than analyzing.
Trends do not provide us with the direction in which we must go. it is the insight we have about the trend that is most essential.
Analysis travels backward. But, brands move forward. Use synthesis. Synthesis means: “the combining of diverse concepts into a new coherent whole.” Analysis leads to understanding what is happening and why. Synthesis leads to insight into what might happen. Insight means looking beyond the surface, beyond appearances and seeing: seeing ahead.
Several years ago, an article in Harvard Business Review observed that “true innovation and strategic value are going to be found more and more in the “synthesizers – the people who draw together stuff from multiple fields and use that to create an understanding of what the company should do.”
Business schools are not paying attention. Business schools are turning out MBAs who are analyzers rather than synthesizers. MBA has come to mean, “manage by analytics.” Or, as some believe, MBA will come to mean “murderer of brand assets.”
As brands and their owners increasingly turn to data and AI, it is important to remember the potential and power of actionable insights. The minds that provide true, actionable insights will be some of your most valuable assets, regardless of whether these minds are real or become artificial.
Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Joan Kiddon, Partner, The Blake Project, Author of The Paradox Planet: Creating Brand Experiences For The Age Of I
At The Blake Project, we help clients worldwide, in all stages of development, create meaningful differences that increase value and underpin competitive advantage through deep customer insight. Please email us to learn how we can help you compete differently.
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