What is an Insight? & Does it matter?

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“[We need] to stop fetishising & arguing over insights & frameworks & instead bring back genuine creativity through uncovering real nuggets & nuances that lead to great ideas” - Zoe Scaman

This tweet by Zoe Scaman was the best thing I read this week. In fact, it was the only good thing (related to media/marketing) that I read this week. So I’m going to try something new - dedicating the entirety of the newsletter to Scaman’s tweet. More specifically, to answer: What is an insight? What are the different types of insights? How do we find better insights?

What is an insight?

Our measure of its value should not be whether this input is an Insight or not. But whether it is a) true and b) useful - Martin Weigel

“That’s not an insight” has become a marketing cliche. 

The definition of an ‘insight’ has created warring tribes in adland, each swearing allegiance to a particular definition and cursing the other sides ignorance. Much like religious divides, each tribe answers to the same God but deviates in how they worship.

We forget that the end-goal isn’t an insight. Insights are in service to the strategy which is in service to the idea which is in service to what people actually see. To have fulfilled the role in the process, all an insight needs to be, as Weigel said, is true and useful. That’s it. Dismissing anything true and useful as ‘not an insight’ is counter-productive and narrow-minded.

What are the different types of insights?

Insights can be broadly categorised into Revelation, Realisation or Reframing. Each plays with truth in different ways. Revelation unlocks truth to sell to consumers, Realisation discovers consumer truths and Reframing bends the context to reveal truth.

I realise the irony in celebrating a tweet that calls for the end of fetishising insights and then producing a list that does exactly that. This list isn’t intended to restrict what we define as an insight. Rather, I hope, by acknowledging the different types of insights we can expand our thinking, questions and tools to become more creative insight hunters.

Revelation

“The task is not so much to see what no one yet has seen, but to think what nobody yet has thought about which everybody sees” - Arthur Schopenhauer

Revelation is the search for understanding. To keep asking why until you find a human truth. To ask “why does this behaviour occur?”, wading past the obvious and superficial, venturing deep into the human psyche. Owning a thought, previously unexplored, that people instantly recognise in themselves. “YES! That’s me! I do that!” or “Oh my god, I’ve never thought that before but you’re so right!”. Advertising needs to be interesting and nothing is more interesting to people than themselves.

You may recognise this as the prevailing definition of an insight. But how many times have you seen insights that fit this description? How many times have you found an insight like that? I certainly haven’t. This inconsistency between definition and practice is probably why advertising has an insight obsession. We have a perfect ideal that is practically impossible to live up to.

Realisation

Often what we really need isn't some glorified, pithy higher truth, but a better understanding of the messiness & complexity of human lives. The little things that offer a chance to connect & communicate in a way that really resonates - Zoe Scaman

Realising is the search for reality; playing scientist to work out fact from fiction. To ask “what do we think is true but isn’t?”.

Realising you’re wrong is the hardest and most fun form of insight. It involves empathy, seeking new perspectives and rejecting previously held convictions. It’s unlikely to be easily found in the office or on Google (otherwise it would already be received wisdom) but can be readily found by talking to the right people.

Mark Pollard has a simple formula for insights: ‘we thought x, but actually y’. No divine truth, just revised understanding. Realisations can be the start of Revelations but they can also hold their own - unconnected from a deeper human truth. In Scaman’s example she found an insight so powerful it introduced a new product by acknowledging that ‘we thought 14 year old girls care about romance, but actually they care about expressing themselves’. You could ask ‘why do they care about expressing themselves?' to reveal a human truth, or you could just ask them how they express themselves and build something from that.

Reframing

Never let the truth get in the way of a good story - Old Proverb

Reframing is one of the most powerful marketing tools we have. It’s the difference between 90% fat-free and 10% fat or Non-Alcoholic beer and Prohibition Brew. Reframing bends the context to reveal truth.

It asks “can we look at this from a different perspective?”, “can we invert the narrative?” or “can this be interpreted differently?”

Ricky Gervais said “being healthy is just dying more slowly”. There’s no grand human truth but doesn’t that make being unhealthy just a little more tempting?

How do we find better insights?

Normally an article like this is written by someone who has discovered tools and wants to share their secrets. Not this time. I want to use Scaman’s tweet as inspiration for being a more creative insight finder. This is how I’m going to try do it:

👂 Talk to consumers. I’m going to make an effort to talk to the target audience - get their feedback, thoughts and suggestions. Planning’s original goal was to have the consumer’s voice in the room and who knows consumers better than themselves?

🎸  Talk to colleagues. We’re all trained in insight improv - riffing on thoughts until we find a nugget of truth. I’m going to riff more with all the smart people I work with.

🏢 Collaborate with other agencies. It’s easy to recede into your specialist area and forget the bigger picture that we’re all broadly trying to solve the same problem.

🧠 Talk to experts. Researching a topic is daunting - where do you start? I’m going to start seeking out experts on problems I’m trying to solve.

📚 Read books. Fill your head with new ideas and paths to explore. 

📊 Validate with data. Manipulate datasets to find new combinations. A stat found online probably isn’t an insight - but if it’s true and useful - who's to say it isn’t?

If you have any suggestions or thoughts on becoming a more creative insight finder, I’d love to hear your ideas. Let me know what’s worked for you and what I’ve missed.