INSIGHTS! Easily the most used, misused, abused word in advertising! Perhaps the one question most often asked is, "achcha, you have any insights on...?"! But where on earth do you find them? The question really is, Are you looking? All the time?
"In the Field of Observation, Chance Favours the Prepared Mind" said Loius Pasteur. It really is no different in the field of advertising!
We start a series here, The Prepared Mind, jotting down stuff we see today, for use some day.
To start off, a couple of scenes from Seinfeld: a delightful moment while buying something expensive, and some post-purchase satisfaction.
22 August 2007
Why is a good insight like a refrigerator?/ An all time favourite piece by JWT creative legend Jeremy Bullmore
Here is an Insight: "Product satisfaction arises less from inherent construction and performance than from consumers' internalised perceptions of personal utility."
You may have found it faintly familiar; and - when you finally worked out what it meant - more than faintly obvious. What you won't have found it to be is exhilarating, inspiring, memorable, actionable, evocative. You will not have been tempted to repeat it to colleagues or include it in your next internal newsletter. Certainly, it contains a truth - and an important truth at that; but it just sits there.
Between 40 and 50 years ago, Professor Theodore Levitt famously told his Harvard Business School students: "People don't want quarter-inch drills. They want quarterinch holes." It's been quoted a million times ever since and enlightened generations of marketing people. But what if Professor Levitt had chosen to say this: "Product satisfaction arises less from inherent construction and performance than from consumers' internalised perceptions of personal utility." (Doesn't improve with repetition, does it?)
Whether from their research companies or their communications agencies, marketing companies today are unanimous in demanding insights. There seems to be no universal agreement on what an insight is but a reasonable definition would seem to be something like this: "A new understanding, probably of human behaviour or attitude, as a result of which action may be taken and an enterprise more efficiently conducted."
The call for insights is natural. To return to Levitt's dictum, marketing companies don't want research; they want enlightenment. Conventional market research, professionally conducted, can paint an invaluable picture of the immediate past; but companies also need help in forging their futures. That's what lies behind the demand for insights - but not all insights are equal. They come in two very different styles and with very different values. There are low-potency insights and there are high-potency insights. "Product satisfaction arises less from inherent construction and performance than from consumers' internalised perceptions of personal utility" is a low-potency insight. "People don't want quarter-inch drills. They want quarter-inch holes" is a high-potency insight.
Read the full article here, and find out why an insight is like a refrigerator, http://www.wpp.com/WPP/Marketing/Articles/whyisagoodinsightlikearefrigerator.htm
You may have found it faintly familiar; and - when you finally worked out what it meant - more than faintly obvious. What you won't have found it to be is exhilarating, inspiring, memorable, actionable, evocative. You will not have been tempted to repeat it to colleagues or include it in your next internal newsletter. Certainly, it contains a truth - and an important truth at that; but it just sits there.
Between 40 and 50 years ago, Professor Theodore Levitt famously told his Harvard Business School students: "People don't want quarter-inch drills. They want quarterinch holes." It's been quoted a million times ever since and enlightened generations of marketing people. But what if Professor Levitt had chosen to say this: "Product satisfaction arises less from inherent construction and performance than from consumers' internalised perceptions of personal utility." (Doesn't improve with repetition, does it?)
Whether from their research companies or their communications agencies, marketing companies today are unanimous in demanding insights. There seems to be no universal agreement on what an insight is but a reasonable definition would seem to be something like this: "A new understanding, probably of human behaviour or attitude, as a result of which action may be taken and an enterprise more efficiently conducted."
The call for insights is natural. To return to Levitt's dictum, marketing companies don't want research; they want enlightenment. Conventional market research, professionally conducted, can paint an invaluable picture of the immediate past; but companies also need help in forging their futures. That's what lies behind the demand for insights - but not all insights are equal. They come in two very different styles and with very different values. There are low-potency insights and there are high-potency insights. "Product satisfaction arises less from inherent construction and performance than from consumers' internalised perceptions of personal utility" is a low-potency insight. "People don't want quarter-inch drills. They want quarter-inch holes" is a high-potency insight.
Read the full article here, and find out why an insight is like a refrigerator, http://www.wpp.com/WPP/Marketing/Articles/whyisagoodinsightlikearefrigerator.htm
Planning For Good: Putting social networking to good use
Planning for Good is a brand new group on Facebook formed with the intent of picking up causes, and using collective intelligence to offer solutions to non profit organisations.
With over 300 members already and growing every day, the first brief is out: The Idea Village, a non-profit venture that supports innovative businesses, must now encourage, motivate and retain young talent to elevate the next generation of leaders to reinvent New Orleans.
If you are on Facebook, check this out. If you are not on Facebook, then this is a terrific reason to get on to it.
With over 300 members already and growing every day, the first brief is out: The Idea Village, a non-profit venture that supports innovative businesses, must now encourage, motivate and retain young talent to elevate the next generation of leaders to reinvent New Orleans.
If you are on Facebook, check this out. If you are not on Facebook, then this is a terrific reason to get on to it.
Planners as Idea Thieves: A new model for network creativity
Another recent Atticus winner, William Charnock, JWT Planning, New York writes about global and local creativity. "What’s wrong with global creativity is that we create a culture of can’t.The output of our process is invariably a list of reasons why creative ideas cannot work (a list of global considerations only the global team is aware of and can solve for). The victims of this process are the central creative teams who are fed a list of impossible demands. “No humor, it will not be understood in Germany”; “No use of language”; “It will not translate”; “No use of sports”; “No reference to numbers, as they have religious meaning”; “Colors too have secret meanings”; “Hand signals are out, as are animals”; “No sex, it will never be allowed on the US networks.” Anything people feel passionate about is deemed out of bounds for global creativity. But the internet and global communications have eroded the boundaries between local and global to the point where everything we create exists on a global stage. Whether we like it or not, advertising agencies are no longer in charge of what gets distributed to where—the consumer is. Global ideas are no longer the ones designated global by a global team; they are the ideas that have broad appeal and touch a nerve withconsumers in many parts of the world. Global ideas are simply the best ideas in the world that rise to the top and get circulated and distributed by the people who consume them. Global ideas are local ideas with world class potential."
He advocates a new model where planners should be ideas thief and idea modifier. 'Such a model changes how global teams work... their global role should be one of “idea thief” and “modifier.” As “idea thief,” the planner takes the best, most successful ideas and tries to identify why the idea worked so well locally and what it would take to replicate that successfully in different markets/cultures. As ”modifier,” the global planner takes local ideas and adds their own interpretation/execution of it, often merging or combining ideas from different markets that touch on a similar territory.'
Read the full article here, http://networkcreativity.com/
He advocates a new model where planners should be ideas thief and idea modifier. 'Such a model changes how global teams work... their global role should be one of “idea thief” and “modifier.” As “idea thief,” the planner takes the best, most successful ideas and tries to identify why the idea worked so well locally and what it would take to replicate that successfully in different markets/cultures. As ”modifier,” the global planner takes local ideas and adds their own interpretation/execution of it, often merging or combining ideas from different markets that touch on a similar territory.'
Read the full article here, http://networkcreativity.com/
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