The last two decades have seen market research undergo an incredible transformation from ugly duckling to regal swan. Where strategy used to be the exclusive domain of creative agencies, all facets of the advertising and marketing world are now turning to their insights firms to inform and guide decision-making. This is in many parts due to the re-brand of research as insights, and of course, to insights’ inherent relationship with data. Together, insights and data can unlock transformational change and growth for companies, society and the planet. We just first have to wade through the embarrassment of riches that is research.
Initially, access to clients was once jealously guarded by creative agencies whose strategists ensured the creative departments ideas would get up and win coveted awards. Research was employed by the client to mitigate risk and an industry of creative testing and campaign tracking became the nemesis of advertising’s creative departments.
But then technology and the internet ushered in the knowledge economy and research – now suitably dressed as insights – which became a staple in every boardroom.
The thing is, insights rely on research. An insight that wasn’t based on evidence was a hypothesis, and so the new clinical practice of evidence-based decision-making spread and, as marketers sought to maximise returns with the consumer at the center of brand planning, the balance of power tipped inextricably to insights.
The discipline of marketing had never been so balanced. Companies employed insights professionals who analysed all manner of data to write detailed briefs for research companies to discern insights to ensure innovations and marketing communications delivered to the consumer’s needs, all measured and evaluated by more insights who completed the loop to drive the next round of innovation and communications. Everyone was a winner: better insights supported better products promoted by better ads to better meet people’s needs for bigger profits.
And then big data came along. Followed by a recession. Suddenly CEOs were demanding their marketing teams use all that data to find insights that relate to improvements and efficiencies which would help make more money with what they had. Parallel to the rise in big data, social media and big tech siphoned a lot of the spend from media companies with an aggressive rise, proving just how data-driven the world had become.
With big data in the spotlight, insights departments dwindled. Consumer insights were replaced with quantums of data. Piles of pie charts and bar charts of repurposed scan data and credit card sales became the new bibles. Briefs became thinner, less evidence-based, and incomplete. The insights departments shrank some more, innovations shifted from paradigms to flavours, and the goals shifted from substantial market share to inconsequential increased consideration.
So where have all the insights gone? Nowhere. It’s up to us to seek them out again. Right now, research agencies often write ‘reverse briefs’ to help their over-stretched clients who don’t have the time or in-house insights resources. Too much research reportage is now dressed up as insights, summaries presented as strategies. We need to use the journey we’ve been on to cherry-pick the best parts of the market research world.
Evidence-based insights can work with big data. In fact, it’s time to put insights alongside data to support genuine strategic decision-making that drives substantial behaviour change and meaningful impact.
