What to The quest to uncover high potential consumer insights, to

drive marketing innovation is not new within the wider mar-

keting community.

expect? For some time now many consumer (and even B2B) compa-
nies have engaged in ‘close to customer’ programmes.

These insight activation processes can easily lead to dozens

of insights that can all serve as a springboard for marketing
innovation.

However, in the current commercial environment marketing

dollars are not limitless, so a selection of insights with the
highest potential is becoming more crucial.

In this paper, we will explain how insight validation can help

identify the insights with the highest innovation, activation or
branding potential.
 The
quest for
consumer
insights
“The consumer is to be at the heart of all our innovation, What’s in a name?
branding and communication.”
‘Consumer insights’ is one of the most misused terms in
marketing & market research. Below we give a definition
Recognize this mission? Although many brands claim to
of what a consumer insight is.
integrate this credo in their DNA, many companies strug-
gle to implement this in a structural way. It is obligatory to
set up a structural approach for discovering and selecting
consumers insights that can serve as a springboard for
innovation & brand activation. “A consumer insight represents an under-
In this paper, we will demonstrate you that within this standing of the inner nature of things, leading
process insight validation is a necessary, but often to a discovery of something that is not-yet
forgotten step. But before we get to that, let’s first define
what a consumer insight exactly is.
obvious but at same time recognizable and
real, and providing the basis for relevant and
actionable marketing decisions, ultimately
leading to competitive advantage.”

A consumer insight is typically a short, single minded

statement written in consumer language that reflects
the opening sentence of the product or brand story that
engage the consumer by setting up the need, the wish, or
the desire.”
 Our
magic
formula
for an
insight
 Our definition uncovers
some crucial elements that
a consumer insight should
possess in order to drive It’s me Aha! Emotion
A good insight is relevant for a An insight should be a fresh and An insight should have an emo-
business potential.
consumer. Relevance can be driven present a new way of looking at tional valence. It can be a friction
by personal identification or by peer things. This includes both discov- or problem that consumers want to
identification (this is when we call an ering something completely new as solve. But it could also be a desire
insight contagious). uncovering an existing reality in a for something. Consumers should
new way. An insight should not be be excited about having a potential
immediately apparent. It is latently solution.
present and often you only realize
that it is true the moment you hear
it. It brings to the surface what was
there subconsciously.

The better the insight, the higher the business potential. It can unlock marketing innovation on different levels :
brand innovation, product innovation, service innovation, communication & consumer activation.
 Insight
validation, a
necessary
step!
Even companies that put consumer insights at the • Insight validation will help to assess the potential of
core of innovation sometimes lack the discipline to an insight for your brand and your target group.
validate these insights before starting ideation. How- Let’s be clear - we are not proposing that all consum-
ever, skipping this stage has several drawbacks: er insights generated during earlier activities are not
built on real consumer needs, but how do we know:
• The cost and time investment further down the
innovation funnel is only increasing with time. When • which ones deal with original thoughts and aspira-
solely selecting insights for ideation based on a tions for your target group?
‘gut feeling’ you risk to invest in innovation that is • which ones are already intuitively linked to our
not based on a need that is recognized by a large brand’s DNA?
proportion of your consumers. Innovation or brand • which needs your target group is relatively more
activation dollars are not endless. motivated to see a solution for?
• to what extent does the insight address needs
• Once you start validating concepts without prior from all consumers or just from several segments?
validation of the insight, it is hard to separate the
potential/quality of the different building blocks of • Insight validation helps you to optimize and better
your concept. Is my insight driving the success or understand the insights. By several creative tools,
failure of a concept or is it something else? one can detect why a certain insight is not scoring
well. By measuring emotions, we get a better un-
derstanding of the emotional space that an insights
captures.
Prioritizing
in the fuzzy
front end
Before we activate insights
and start ideating, they
should be validated using A first crucial step is to test the Insights are primarily evaluated The composite score is bench-
consumer language. Insights that against 4 key performance indica- marked against a global bench-
an online survey with a
do not pass the ‘Clarity’ minimum ac- tors resulting in an overall ‘Insight mark database and based on
representative target ceptable score will be given a quali- strength’ score. We measure both that, recommendation to go ahead,
sample (n=min. 150). tative analysis on how to improve the the potential of the insight with the rework or reject a specific insight can
wording of the insight for possible consumer themselves, as well as be formulated
re-testing. the contagious nature of the insight
to activate conversations. This latter
KPI helps us map the social potential
for the insight.
Relevance Freshness Excitement Contagious INSIGHT
Conversations STRENGTH
To what extent can you Aha, I did not think of How excited would you How often have you
personally identify with this issue or idea this be if a solution or mes- noticed other peo-
this statement? way before! sage was developed to ple talking about the
address the issue? issue?
 From
validation
only to
understanding
It is one thing to know which insight is most powerful; it is
another aspect to understand why this insight is performing
well or not. With a set of quantitative and qualitative diag-
nostics, we stimulate consumers to think harder and better.
They help us to go beyond pure benchmarking. It helps us
contextualize the insights and to understand why an insight
is (not) performing well.

1
The word marking tool allows participants to indicate
what aspects of the insights they like and dislike. This
way, we are able to understand why consumers do or
don’t identify with your insight. We can for example detect
to what extent a friction in a given insight is driving the
identification.

2
Identification with certain insights can be largely driven
by the context. Therefore we invite consumers to make
a collage which reflects a typical context in which they
would experience the need described in the insight. This
way we can get more insight on future consumption
moments.
 3
As pointed out earlier in this paper, it is
important that each insight has an emotional
valence. Through emotional measurement, Activation
we map which emotions are triggered by an
insight and what the relative emotional posi-
tioning is. Knowing the emotional space that Afraid
Excited
an insights claims is powerful information for Angry
ideation, concept development and future Enthusiastic
Contempt
communication and brand activation. Captur-
ing emotions in survey research can be done Disappointed
both explicitly and implicitly. In the latter case,
we put consumers under time pressure to Disgusted
avoid their rationalizing their answer. First find-
Unpleasant Pleasant
ings demonstrate that implicit measurement
under time pressure is a particular powerful
technique, especially when dealing with nega-
tive or socially desirable emotions. Happy
Lonely Love

4 Ashamed
Bored
Relaxed
Admiration
Through a projective technique, we measure
how close or far away an insight is perceived
to be to a particular brand. Consumers are Deactivation
probed to think about the biggest fan of a
brand and to indicate to what extent this brand
fan would identify with the brand.
 Common
Pitfalls in
Insight
validation
Insight validation can bring a lot to the table. Of course • Fuzzy front end research is often associated with
it requires a careful execution. Here are some pitfalls to innovation. However, there are also insights that
look out for: relate to communication, customer experience or
branding. Insight validation can be applied on all
• Benchmarks are crucial to evaluate the perfor- types of insights. In this context it is also vital to look
mance of your insight. But insight validation is a at the individual KPI’s and not only to insight strength
relatively new discipline, so often category or target as an overall measure. For example, when working
group benchmarks are absent; In this case, it can be on communication or brand activation, you may
wise to add some ‘old/proven’ insights to create an find it more important that the insight is ‘fresh’ and
internal benchmark. ‘conversation worthy’ rather than other types of
insights.
• Do not limit yourself to quantitative analysis only.
Although Insight validation is done through quantita- • Crap in…crap out. Writing the insights that serve
tive surveying, it is only by blending it with qualitative as input for the validation is an art in itself. An insight
research that one can get most out of the data. By should be written in consumer language, focus on a
performing a content analysis on groups of insights single minded idea and clearly contain an emotional
that perform (less) well, we can detect the underlying dimension. This has proven to be a very challenging
characteristics an insight should have to score well. skill in workshops with clients and requires consisten-
cy and strict moderation.
• Are all your insights scoring well in China, but not in
the Netherlands? You probably did not take response • Insight validation is particularly challenging when
styles into account. From previous research, we it comes to testing taboos or socially (un)desira-
know that there is a culture influence on how con- ble insights. Taboo insights often lead to negative
sumers rate insights. Normalization is therefore results, due to reluctance to admit embarrassing or
crucial! socially unaccepted situations.
 About taboo testing
‘When going out we’re
Our research has indicated that insight formula- usually just sharing good
tion is crucial when dealing with taboo platforms. times and catching up...’
We set up an insight validation study aiming at Storytelling formulation
testing different formulations: (1) Original taboo
insight, (2) Positioning the insight in a positive
emotional context & (3) Presenting the insight in
a third person, with more context, through story-
‘Going out I enjoy
telling.
Additionally the Consumer Relevance KPI ques-
that feeling of being
tion was asked indirectly in order to identify taboo part of a group...’
situations. Our results show that the taboo effect Positively stated
can be minimized: whilst performing equally on
all other KPIs, the Consumer Relevance increas- ‘When in a disco, I
es when positive or storytelling formulations are
want to fit as one of the
used. Relevance KPI in the 3rd person is also
useful to identify a taboo insight. Also the average crowd...’
insight strength increases significantly across Original insight
different insight formulations.
 Some As part of an organizational drive to strengthen their
consumer led innovation process, Heineken Interna- By conducting insight validation, Heineken signifi-
proof tional sought a partner to provide a meaningful solu-
tion to help select the most potent consumer insights
cantly reduces their chances of moving weak insights
further down the innovation funnel. As a result, ideas

from our to use as a basis for product innovation or branding/

communication initiatives.
and concepts based on validated insights perform
significantly better.

clients Since 2010, Heineken has tested hundreds of consum- The latter is clearly demonstrated in a meta-analysis
er insights across the globe using our Insight Validation which revealed that the unpriced buying intention of
Tool. We partner also in other phases of the innovation concepts based on validated consumer insights is up
journey (insight writing workshops, ideation workshops, to 20% higher in comparison with concepts based on
concept writing workshops,…). insights that were not tested upfront.

The insight validation phase has become mandatory

in the Innovation Process and the quality of product
concepts generated further down the innovation funnel
is clearly benefiting from this. Marion Hoek-Koudenburg,
consumer insight manager at Heineken, explains it as
follows: “A protocol for Consumer Insight testing, which is
in line with our HNV Consumer Insight criteria, allows us
to even better understand our consumers and their lan-
guage, adding significant value to our innovation projects
while helping minimize the risk to the company”.
Insight validation is part of a

picture
 Innovation is a journey. Insight
validation is only one step in
Ideally, it starts with leveraging ex- Consumer immersion is a second After validation, the most potent
the fuzzy front end. Therefore,
isting knowledge: previous research important component in the mix. insights are used as inspirational
and in order to ensure it is truly that touched upon a certain topic, New methods like consumer-led springboards for idea generation.
powerful, one should not use this data collected by the consumer care ethnography allow you to deep-dive Also here, companies often do not
research in isolation. centre, consumer feedback that is into the consumer’s world so we can involve the consumer. It is impor-
shared on social media. We sit on fully understand all consumer needs tant to ensure that the consumer is
a (big) pile of data and the efficient and underlying motivations and “kept alive” throughout the ideation
digestion of what is already known therefore discover new consumer – either in the physical workshop,
can already uncover new insights. insights. By innovative techniques through overnight idea screening or
like crowd interpretation or using the through virtual co-creation commu-
power of Consumer Consulting nities.
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Development &
concepting
Ideation &
Ashley Smith Daniel Teixaira Annelies Verhaeghe Filip De Boeck

+32 9 269 12 12 +32 9 269 15 12 +32 9 269 14 06 +1 646 334 0694

@ash_m_smith @DTeixeira @annaliezze @filip_deboeck
linkedin.com/in/ashleymarksmith linkedin.com/in/danteixeira linkedin.com/in/anneliesverhaeghe linkedin.com/in/filipdeboeck
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]
Thank you!

@InSites

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