For an industry obsessed with insight, the funny thing is that we’re not short of it. In fact quite the opposite – we’re tripping over it. Most organisations are now suffering from a serious case of insight indigestion. Insight managers now have so much information coming at them that insight itself has ceased to be the issue.
At the end of a successful project, the agency comes in, delivers a presentation and makes their recommendations. It’s at this point that one of a number of factors kicks in:
- The presentation came too late and the end client has already made a decision
- The presentation contradicts the last piece of work, so is met with doubt
- The presentation gives bad news or contradicts an idea that was popular internally, so findings are ignored
- The presentation gives good news and everything is hunky dory – so much so that everyone wonders why they bothered with the research in the first place
None of this is about the quality of insight; it’s about what happens to it once it has been unearthed.
The same holds true for market research – we all strive to find the breakthrough insight, the idea or the angle that no one else has thought of and that will drive brand differentiation and desire. No-one, at least on the agency side, seems to spend much time thinking how these insights are going to be executed and how the agency and insight manager are going to get the end-user of the research to actually use them.
Insights have zero intrinsic value. They need to be applied to the business and used to change something before the value is realised.
Research must be used as a conversation that enables the business to reach the correct decision. By allowing the discussion to encompass not only insights from the project but also a discussion that sets these within the context of the business, the research is able to see the bigger picture and take the business to a higher level.
Research isn’t just about engaging with the consumer, it’s about engaging with the end-user of research. This is where the battle should be in the 21st century.
Insight is dead. Long live diffusion!