What is an insight in market research?

Insight is one of the most used concepts in marketing and market research, and at the same time one of the most difficult to define. However, being able to recognise an insight can be the key to giving a new boost to your brand. That’s why today we tell you what insights are, what they are not, and how you can get them.

What is an insight in market research?

In the context of marketing and market research, an insight is a novel, research-based finding that reveals unknown aspects of consumer motivations or needs that can be used to improve brand performance. To make it clearer, let’s break down this definition of insight into the four characteristics it should have:

• It is based on consumer or user observation. It is not a hunch or an idea, but is based on quantitative or qualitative data that helps us to better understand the real reasons that drive the consumer.
• It is a discovery. A new point of view. Something that we did not know or had not been able to quantify or demonstrate and that is now based on objective data.
• It reveals something about the hidden motivations of consumers and users. By seeing it, we have had the ‘aha! moment’ and have been able to say ‘now I get it’.
• It generates a business opportunity. An insight is useful for growth. It is ‘actionable’ and can be used to take action to improve the way our brand connects with its audience.

Finding a good insight has a lot of value, because it can make your brand, campaign or media planning more meaningful and can align marketing and other departments such as product or CX behind the same idea.

What isn’t an insight?

The term insight is used very often, and can sometimes be confused with other concepts that are not exactly the same. Let’s look at what an insight is not.

• It is not a data point. All insights are based on data, but not all data are insights. If it does not provide novelty, or if it does not help us to explain the internal nature of the needs or motivations of consumers or users, we will have a piece of data, with all the value it can provide, but it is not an insight.
• It is not something we already know. An insight has to be a new understanding, something we did not know before and something that opens up new possibilities to improve our product or our communication. Or that gives us access to new segments or new usage situations that had previously gone unnoticed.
• It is not obvious. It is not enough that it is a description of a behaviour. It has to help us understand something that motivates the consumer but lies beneath the surface.
• It is not ‘nice to know’. An insight is not merely something that is interesting to know and we don’t know what to do with, but it is something we can use to drive our proposition to the market.

Examples of insights

Often, an insight is more difficult to explain than to recognise, but if the phrase ‘you’ll know it when you see it’ is not enough for you, here are some examples of insights that we liked.

• Hidden motivations: the ASICS team realised that a large proportion of people who run do so to clear their minds, to leave their worries behind and, paradoxically, to rest. This consumer need is not usually present in most sporting goods campaigns, where meeting goals, achieving better results or improving your fitness are more common messages. That’s why ASICS’ “run to stop” campaign connects with a hidden, more intimate need, less present in conversations and yet absolutely relevant to all people who run.
• New moments of consumption: one of the objectives of Philadelphia’s brand communication is to be associated with everyday moments of consumption, helping to expand the brand to more frequent moments where established habits are of great importance. And what moment is more frequent than breakfast? If the brand can carve out a bigger niche in the breakfast market, it can grow and become an essential part of many people’s daily routine. That is why Philadelphia has launched many communication campaigns over time, one of them, the Philadelphia Breakfast campaign in 2018.
• New targets. Generation Z doesn’t want to be like their parents and the idea of opening an account in a traditional bank may seem out of this world to them. But they need to pay, so they’re going to need a solution. That’s the idea behind Imagin, Caixabank’s brand aimed at young people. The Imagin campaign leaves no doubt that it wants to break with the image of a traditional bank and position itself as an alternative to meet the needs of a young audience.
• Category entry points: what are the triggers that can make you decide to change your insurance company? Knowing what they are allows you to position a brand as the alternative when they appear. This has been the focus of Mutua Madrileña’s communication, which has carried out many campaigns to associate itself with them. There is an execution for each case, such as when your car insurance is increased even though you have not given any report or when you are forced to go to a garage that is not of your choice.

Before launching a campaign, all brands work with data that support their strategies and help agencies to plan their creative, so insights have undoubtedly played a role in all of them.

How to create good insights?

Obtaining good insights requires several stages:

• Hypothesis formulation. Before collecting data, it is necessary to imagine what information could be useful for the activation of insights, and that requires the involvement of marketing experts to imagine scenarios and possibilities to contrast.
• Information gathering. Market research provides multiple tools to create the data on which to base insights, whether through quantitative online market surveys, qualitative research that provides a deeper understanding, or online communities.
• Creating the insight. As we have said before, an insight is much more than data. It is a story that draws on data to show us new business potential. This is where research and marketing experts will provide the most value in turning the research results into the stories and proposals that the steering committee will be interested in hearing and supporting.

Market research and insights

Gathering the information you need to create your own insights is easy with the right tools. At We are testers we have a very versatile platform so you can combine different quantitative and qualitative methodologies to get a better understanding of the consumer and user. If you need help choosing the methodology or designing your questionnaires, we have a team of research experts who will be happy to help you. With the automation of the research platform you can get your data quickly and use more time thinking about how to present the results to create maximum impact for your organisation. Contact us to find out all the details!