Episode #13. The focus of this episode is Insight, a truly important technical skill for today’s marketer. Joining host Abby is Labyrinth Marketing’s own insight consultant, Julian Watson. Julian takes us through the evolution of market research and some of the exciting new tools and processes, such as ‘design thinking’, to uncover insights across markets, competitors and consumers. But is new always best? Julian offers great advice on how to use what’s already available to you and how to focus on the problem not the methodology.
Resources/brands mentioned in this podcast:
Sponsored by Labyrinth Marketing
FULL TRANSCRIPT (with timecode)
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This podcast is brought to you by Labyrinth Marketing. Hello and welcome to the Whole Marketer podcast
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I’m Abby Dixon your host and today’s technical skill is insight. We’re shortly going to be joined by today’s guest Julian Watson who is Labrinth’s insight consultant. But before we do I just want to give you a quick overview as to why I think insight is so important. Insight goes across everything we do, from understanding the markets are consumers their needs their pain and gain points. It allows us to set realistic visions and goals. It gives us the voice of the customer.
00:00:45:13 – 00:01:15:22
It allows us to make strategic choices as well as how we’re going to activate it allow us to test and learn. It also allows us to analyse the success that we’ve had. Insight however though is not data insight is what you get from mining your data whether that’s qualitative quantitative primary secondary collated internally or externally. It doesn’t matter where it comes from. As long as the time has taken to mine it extract that insight and then use that within your business by thinking about the what the so what. And now what.
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Today’s guest is Julian Watson.
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Thanks very much. As always I start with the big juicy question up front. What is insight to you? The big one indeed. So I think first of all. When we’re talking about insight for me it’s important to separate it from research or market research because often they are intertwined and quite misunderstood as well. So the basic level market research is the nuts and bolts. It’s the process of getting information you know kind of running focus groups, online communities, surveys or more modern techniques such as social media scraping or interrogating sales data but insight for me is still a part of the research process.
00:02:00:24 – 00:02:34:12
It’s the last phase and that has three different parts. When you dig into it really so there’s the actual analysis to get to the insight that the articulation of the actual insight which is the real tricky bit. And then what most businesses and I think particular marketing departments struggle with is actually that communication of the insight in the end. So it’s all part of that market research process but it’s at the end and it’s not the kind of nuts and bolts of it that makes sense.
00:02:34:14 – 00:02:49:04
That makes complete sense. And I think as we’re just discussing the other day the data sources which are not insights have changed so much over the last two decades. Why would you say insight was 20 years ago versus where it is now?
00:02:49:06 – 00:03:23:16
I think research like most things market research in particular and then insight has evolved along with society. So 20 years ago maybe even less than that market research project you’d just take weeks if not months to complete. Now that can be delivered in hours if not overnight. And I think there’s an expectation that everything is faster and delivered with the same robustness and providing more value. So I think expectations have gone up with the change in society and you know access to faster products.
00:03:23:18 – 00:03:54:14
This also goes back to I think the point of our research versus insight. So I think research can be done quickly but actually it takes a lot longer to get the really juicy stuff out of your research which is the insight. But these days definitely compared to 20 years ago all around us there is so much data evidence and inspiration but sometimes it can be free. You just need to know where to look for it and that’s the tricky bit is spotting it and then being able to reuse it in a way which is insightful.
00:03:54:21 – 00:04:28:28
Some of the things that are different specifically due to technology at the moment is just there’s lots of new ways to understand customers. You’ve got large accessible customer panels for quick targeted projects. You’ve got bespoke online expert communities for fast regular feedback. I mentioned earlier social media monitoring and mining. You’ve got Website or app user experience testing real time customer journey feedback with heat maps virtual stores that people can actually interact with them and the options are just endless. So
00:04:29:00 – 00:05:02:22
So it has moved on considerably and one of the downsides of that for me is that the traditional methods of research your focus groups are examples they’re almost frowned at these days and those methods particularly with the modern thinking they almost have to be in disguise for people to look at them which is a real shame because I understand why people particularly in the current environment don’t want to be in the focus group or observe a focus group but you’ll know as well Abby, some of the best interactions with the client happen in the backroom of a focus group.
00:05:02:24 – 00:05:19:01
And I think the digital age in particular is putting a larger gap between clients, agencies and customers. It’s been more difficult to get those interactions and then lost a little bit. So definitely a lot faster in many ways better but some of those interactions are being lost.
00:05:19:13 – 00:05:41:25
And I think sometimes it’s that not only what people are saying, it’s what they’re doing as well and in their body language and you can’t always get that from a digital environments. I know there’s been enhanced with technology but as you say well we’ve been going around in groups. What else do we want to ask? What do you think is there and what they’ve just done? We’ve got to the point we might be able to cooperate with them and that it’s so much harder to do when you’re just doing online.
00:05:42:24 – 00:06:20:23
Yeah. And I think there’s always those impromptu things that you haven’t thought of or you see and then you have a chat with the client or someone we’re working together, and I think a bit of that is being lost. There are so many digital solutions out there that are labelled as providing artificial intelligence or using smart algorithms to pick up movements in facial expressions or undercover human behaviour. And they’re great as well but I think there’s got to be a balance between some of the traditional older methods and some of these new methods and bringing them together.
00:06:20:25 – 00:06:43:12
And I think that so many solutions out there just so when you go to an app store at the moment and so many apps for everything that you want to do. I think the insight world in particular or market research in a broader sense is getting to that point where there are so many solutions that use technology to help you out it’s becoming cluttered and it’s really hard to cut through. As you were saying It’s cluttered to cut through. Those
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Those have been enhanced with technology which one of those are exciting you?
00:06:47:22 – 00:07:00:00
There are tools now that are allowing you to scrape the internet for a particular problem to develop innovation platforms opportunity platforms.
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In less than a week you’ll know when innovation programs and trying to get to those key opportunity areas can take a lot of time and it can be quite costly. But there are solutions out there that can scrape the Internet based on a defined list looking at blogs looking at social interactions influencers and they can deliver those opportunity spaces out there at speed at a fraction of the cost and what they also bolt on for that is qualitative expertise.
00:07:31:26 – 00:07:58:20
So it’s not just the data. Now the data is very smart and they use a lot of complex algorithms based on predictive human behaviour but coupling that with industry and commercial expertise gets to something really powerful really quickly a great value for money and you can imagine walking in or maybe not even walking in at the moment but going to a client with this powerful innovation starter pack that you can build from.
00:07:58:22 – 00:08:15:20
And I think that’s really exciting that couples the human expertise with the technology at the same time. You as well as a lot of other people have upskill during lockdown and know that you did the design thinking course. Can you tell us what design thinking is and how we might be able to use it? Yeah. So
00:08:16:14 – 00:08:47:16
Design thinking for me is cropped up slowly over a number of year number of years that the principles have been around for a very long time. But more and more as digital products have emerged a new way of innovating digital products has been used and that’s design thinking. And I’ve been very sceptical of it for quite a while didn’t truly understand death and upskilled myself during a lockdown. And I’m still sceptical in some ways but I think the nuts and bolts of it are very interesting.
00:08:47:18 – 00:09:26:20
So back to the basics of what it is design thinking. It’s a really really good process for coming up with solutions to problems. It’s great for digital products and it’s expanding into a lot of other areas. It’s really fast paced iterative and it focuses which is keep on experimentation, so you develop a a website an app a minimal viable product something that you know is not perfect. And then you let people use it. You let people play with it. You observe you get feedback on it and then you iterate again, so it’s rooted in iteration and trying to make improvements through analysing and understanding user interactions.
00:09:26:22 – 00:10:05:18
It’s great for something ambiguous just like a broad innovation program. You have to embrace failure. There’s usually five stages and I think they’ve been adapted over time but it’s about empathizing with your users defining you use your needs. The problem the insights ideating as you would as part of a normal innovation process and challenging assumptions and creating those ideas but then you prototype and experiment and test and then you iterate and it’s not really linear. So it’s a really good process. The problem that I have been through the training now I’m working on a couple of projects is I think that it really underplays the importance of solid research and insight.
00:10:05:20 – 00:10:40:19
It’s a race to the finish and the phrase that they will use is we need to do just enough to demonstrate that we’ve understood customers and I think that’s great in certain situations but not great for when you need solid commercial evidence you know if you going to boardroom and say This product is going to add 10 percent to sales but you’ve spoken to a handful of customers and then you don’t have any data behind that as well. So, I think there is a real middle ground now of combining the agility and creativity of design thinking for one of methodologies with the rigor of a robust consumer research.
00:10:40:21 – 00:10:52:15
I think that’s the future of market research and insight for me. That middle ground takes on board the learnings of speed and agility and creativity but still gives it that rigour when necessary.
00:10:52:17 – 00:11:34:25
That links similar to my thoughts when Agile Marketing came out I was thinking we’d have a process we now had to set this strategy a long term vision a direction of where we want to take the business we take the three five year strategy we but it’s the one year plan and then we focus our energies on bringing that alive and actually agile does still set that vision or that long term goals it actually uses the test to learn cultures it just thinks in two weeks sprints but it still needs that vision. So actually it’s strategic direction it’s still there it’s just about how you bring it to life that differs and actually that interests me as well. But they have to be able to embrace that test and learn continuous improvement cycle in order to do that and to get things out into the market quickly and then iterate afterwards.
00:11:34:27 – 00:11:39:21
What do you think it takes for organisations either want to do that or do that effectively?
00:11:48:26 – 00:11:55:12
I think a lot of the larger companies that I’ve worked for as well would struggle to embrace this kind of thinking.
00:11:55:14 – 00:12:31:02
I think it is for businesses that are willing to embrace risk which is generally small to medium sized businesses as well. And they are willing to do things that don’t seem commercially viable and are very blue sky thinking at the time. A lot of the organisations that I’ve worked in really really strong ideas have been potentially shut down too quickly because they’re not commercially viable. And so I think there needs to be this mindset of embracing ideas and embracing fast paced innovation without getting to the commercial rigor too quickly.
00:12:31:04 – 00:12:57:14
You need that at the end and I think that is difficult for certainly some marketing departments that I have encountered to embrace. They love the creativity but if they can’t see where it’s going straight away then they struggle with that as well. So I think there needs to be a mindset within these businesses to embrace that ambiguity trust the process a little bit and embrace and might not get there straight away and there might be some failures but keep going at it. And then you can do it quickly as well.
00:12:57:16 – 00:13:08:22
That’s great advice. And as you say it’s the commerciality piece. If they’re used to having that rigor to get the organisation to go and buy in its probably going to take them that bit longer for them to adopt such a process.
00:13:08:24 – 00:13:10:23
Yes exactly. So
00:13:10:25 – 00:13:26:00
So Jules right at the start of this podcast you said the insight to you is about the analysis articulation and communication. Can you give us a bit of insight into organisations that are doing that well and what it looks like being brought to life within a business or brands environment?
00:13:26:02 – 00:13:56:22
Sure. Yeah it’s an ideal and it’s it’s very very rare that people within businesses will actually do this because it’s tough but the analysis part I think is a bit of an art form. It’s about taking all the available data and information they haven’t turning into the evidence that can be used to make a business better usually for growth. It’s getting to the juicy stuff and actually the analysis whether it’s quantitative survey data qualitative that’s the really tricky stuff and that’s where the experience comes in.
00:13:56:24 – 00:14:34:15
But once you’ve got a good analysis piece you then need to move to the articulation of that insight which is usually a really simple sentence that everyone and get on board with and then you can use that within your organisation it makes sense straightaway but it’s really really hard and the challenge is that insight the whole theme of this discussion is very subjective and there is no universal definition. So there’s a few nice pieces on YouTube when we’re asking industry professionals what is an insight to them a bit like we’re talking about today
00:14:35:01 – 00:15:05:29
And all of the industry professionals will come back with a different definition of insight because it means different things to different people and you can be a traditional technical market researcher or consultant and have a very structured view. Or you can be kind of more big picture thinking where I am and you can refer to it as a kind of golden nugget of truth. Bringing datasets together. So because there’s no definition trying to articulate it in a consistent way it’s very difficult.
00:15:06:01 – 00:15:39:19
But there are structures around that can be used in my time at the Leading Edge in Sydney. They had a very useful structure and that could be applied across all businesses and we work with clients to define that structure, but it is really tricky trying to get it down on paper. You can be lazy and you can just focus on the data you. Bring to life a little bit but I think readers think it’s worth once you’ve gone through that almost painful process of getting through the analysis is really trying to articulate what the insight is and focus on it and craft it so you can say something.
00:15:39:24 – 00:16:10:15
I was just going to say that it is a fine art. As you know I’m writing a book. I was talking about that when you’ve mined the insight and find the what you then look at the so what’s there now what’s therefore what are you going to do with this insight? And it’s interesting cause I’ve seen various models in ways in which you should present this insight back into your business. There’s a lot of talk about the emotion behind it how it resonates make sure it cascades across the organisation in every department as well as focusing on departments that are closer to the consumer customer facing or impacting the customer consumer experience.
00:16:10:17 – 00:16:29:01
But you’re right there isn’t a method or formula is an expectation either internally or externally on how you should present your insight and as clear as one census may be I suppose that people signing off on big research projects they’re going to expect more than insight in one census as they’re probably going to think is that it? The Leading Edge definition that may have changed since I was there.
00:16:29:07 – 00:17:06:20
It’s an insight is a significant human truth. Usually behaviour about a target that can be leveraged to drive growth. Now when you break that down and you go through the training with the clients it all makes perfect sense It takes practice. But I’ve worked with businesses in other categories at different stages of using data and research and things into that and I just said we don’t get it. It’s too hard for these people to grasp. So you really have to simplify as well. So I’m at the end of thinking about insight being less a formula more just about really clear communication of what you found.
00:17:06:22 – 00:17:36:24
And again that’s the that’s the articulation that’s the copywriting bit which is difficult. And what a lot of companies then do is then they really struggle to then communicate that within a business. And when we’ve worked on projects and we’ve delivered insight pieces. And we’ve tried to make it stick and hand over to the client but it gets lost and businesses really struggle to turn these insights into engaging comms and keep recycling them and keep using them.
00:17:36:26 – 00:18:07:04
I mean even more so now I imagine marketing departments have got a reasonably high turnover of staff but those really strong insights should be recycled at least annually as part of a training program and I get well used to get particular clients and frustrated by people give me some new insight give me some new insight when actually we’ve got some really strong insight that can be innovated against or activated against. But as marketing departments I think people get bored and they get bored before the idea has run its full course.
00:18:07:26 – 00:18:31:09
It’s so true and working together one of the first things you always say to me is what data do they already have. We might be able to get to that hypothesis or the question that they weren’t solving with what they already have. I think in fact no we know don’t we. The insights so often not store correctly or searchable or usable formats. And after the initial study of the marketing’s commissioned it and digested it and used it. It gets lost does it get stored properly.
00:18:31:19 – 00:18:44:02
And it often goes into this marketing black hole. So you work on an insight piece you come up with some insight that might be used for a bit of communication a bit the creative and they’re like. Great.
00:18:45:25 – 00:19:17:20
How do you justify the return on investment when there’s that big marketing black hole of creative that you produce on the back of that you might produce another piece of communication as well. And it’s always really difficult to then go back to the original piece of research or insight to say yes that thread was there and it’s very difficult to trace that which is fine in some instances but it’s it can be a frustration as well. And you have to have that thread that you needed to communicate? ideally but it’s very rare very very rare.
00:19:17:22 – 00:19:34:09
I think once it gets to an advertising creative it’s then twisted and rightly so. But in the ideal situation a strong thread will always run through it. But with the pace of business and the expectation and people get lazy and it gets lost as well.
00:19:34:11 – 00:19:39:07
Do you think it’s laziness or do you think it’s the lack of the ability to analyse and to understand?
00:19:39:09 – 00:20:13:15
I think if businesses don’t have a way of working and insight mindset a way of looking at customer data and procedures then they can get away with being lazy. If they have that mindset There’s procedures and there’s almost there’s gates to go through. Then you can’t get away with that and you have to be structured and that’s where in some of the businesses I’ve worked is where they’re looking for those marginal gains. Those point one percent point 1 4 5 percent increases in sales. That’s where you really have to pay attention to the detail and focus on those processes as well.
00:20:13:17 – 00:20:44:07
But I also do think as well that people get lazy and people don’t understand what insight is. I mean I’ve been struck numerous times have said what insight have you got. Let’s rewind a little bit and focus on those really fundamental questions about what do you want to understand and what is the question you’re trying to solve? Don’t worry about trying to think of a methodology. The insight professionals and the research professionals will come up with that. It’s about
00:20:45:09 – 00:20:58:14
What do you want to understand? And I had one line briefs I’ve had six page and produced the brief which is really really key to understand you know what is what exactly what do you understand. And then we go away and we can help from that point.
00:20:58:16 – 00:21:15:01
Also the fact that they’re using you know what insights you actually had. You probably have a variety of different data sources already but you just don’t have the time to mine it yet to get to the inside out of the back of it. And also for what purpose. You’re not just going to sit there mining insight just for the hell of it. You know you’ve got to do it for a targeted question.
00:21:15:03 – 00:21:35:24
Yeah exactly. You need a structure you need a vision for what you want to get out of it and also you what we worked with businesses before we’ve run inside training courses. If you actually get everyone in the room to list all the you don’t call them insight sources but say insight assets are sales data.
00:21:35:26 – 00:22:21:29
So when we worked with clients in workshop environments we run insight training courses it’s been really illuminating particularly for the client to actually focus on their existing data sources because they don’t consider them as data assets or potential sources of insight and that can be basic data assets to let your sales data the number of likes you might have on a Facebook page. Anything that their people are getting feedback on and a lot of the time it’s just ignored was actually that’s the really juicy stuff to build an insight strategy from if you get them to list them out and say are you maximizing all these existing sources are you using your trend hunter to subscriptions every time.
00:22:22:02 – 00:22:25:28
No we’re not utilizing this. So the first step is always to
00:22:27:16 – 00:22:48:17
educate people to get more out of what they have and recycle those insights recycle that data before they need to jump into any new primary market research because a lot of that is really juicy stuff and it helps uncover those insights and it helps the whole analysis process and speeding up from start to finish.
00:22:48:19 – 00:23:10:28
And that’s one of the things I think I’m really passionate about working with businesses getting into that business and understanding as you said earlier what have they got already. Are they utilizing it and are they missing something because that point of view can offer some real value for money before actually having to come up with a solution which is a new research at that point. I couldn’t agree more.
00:23:11:00 – 00:23:35:28
And then on your third element of your analysis articulation and communication we know what it looks like when it’s done bad you know hundred and forty page deck with some one person piece sat in on the debrief read it took one piece out of it has it stored on a central location. Have you seen any organizations where you think yeah they’re doing a good job at bringing that insight to life across the whole organization?
00:23:36:00 – 00:23:57:09
The best way that I’ve done it myself and seen it is when you adopt a push communication strategy. And what I mean by that is you are thinking a bit like a magazine editor within a business and you have all this data and insight but what do you do with it. How do you get it out there?
00:23:57:18 – 00:24:38:10
And in an office environment that can be on the walls it can be in the kitchens or you can have regular e-mail updates or you can have a knowledge hub which you direct people to but it is a constant and consistent way of pushing out the information not being afraid to recycle old insights because again you have to high turnover. Often people don’t understand this and are afraid to ask and adopting that editorial approach is time consuming but I think the best insight department and best marketing department if in fact sits there are open to that way of thinking and being refreshed on a constant basis.
00:24:38:12 – 00:25:22:22
It’s how people work you know it could be an app where people in your department that are looking for that refresh or that ability to go and search for insights about their customers. The challenge with it is it’s time consuming. It does require a resource but if you invest in it and I think Unilever are particularly good at this you invest in it and you embed it throughout your organization then that’s when it really works and that’s where you save time and in the long run. But just having a piece of market research as you say 140 slide that think the weight tests everyone’s on board or the sat through a presentation for two hours and then it just dies and withers within a business and then they look to repeat that is not the way to do it.
00:25:22:25 – 00:25:40:29
And I was always challenged in training and while one of the best training tips I had when I was in the agency side is try and condense your story down to five key points. And I think that’s good for any approach really if you get those five key points down early then that really dictates everything in your story.
00:25:41:01 – 00:26:18:25
And it really does come down to telling the inside story in a clear coherent way but keep banging that drum and keep using it that emotionally resonates as well lands and that you know you’ve considered all the different learning styles of the people absorbing information the auditory the kinesthetic the visual the overall because everyone absorbs information in different ways so why not bring that insight to life so that they can absorb it in their preferred style. Yeah yeah I mean video video is perfect these days you’ve got ethnography approaches where you’re following a group of customers for a week or two weeks and they’re
00:26:19:06 – 00:26:39:15
Capturing insights with their mobile phone and recording you know when they’re up when they’re down and then you can translate that into a really juicy video that you can engage the board with. I think that’s that’s the ultimate aim but it does require a kind of agile team that is willing to take those on board and invest in those tools as well.
00:26:39:17 – 00:26:51:17
Thats great. Thank you so much for your time today Jules. I start with a big juicy question and I finish with a piece of advice. So as with all podcasts What one piece of advice would you give to today’s marketer?
00:26:51:19 – 00:27:34:09
I touched on it earlier and it’s think about the problem and not the methodology. I’ve been in a lot of discussions where people have come along particularly marketing people said we need to do some focus groups. Why? And you dove into it and actually really thought about the problem. They just thought we need it. We need some kind of research. So the one piece of advice is just really focus on what the problem is and let people like myself and the research professionals come up with a way of answering that question because there are so many options these days that actually the solution they have in mind is probably not the best one.
00:27:34:11 – 00:27:47:11
It’s a great piece of advice. Thank you so much for your time today. You’re very welcome it’s been good. Thank you for tuning into the Whole Marketer podcast. If you’ve enjoyed today’s episode please do click follow below for more weekly podcasts. Thank you
