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THE inSigHT STORy
An in-depth understAnding of interpretAtion of insight
Among clients And mArketing reseArch professionAls
Author(s): Suresh Ramalingam, Aruni Ghosh

published by esomAr: february 2009
first presented at: consumer insights 2009
copyright esomAr 2009. All rights reserved.
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1 Copyright ESOMAR 2009
CONSUMER INSIGHTS 2009
pART 1 / INSIGHT GENERATION
THE INSIGHT STORy
An in-depth understAnding of interpretAtion of insight
Among clients And mArketing reseArch professionAls
Suresh Ramalingam
Aruni Ghosh
CONTEXT
insight is an often used and misused term in conversa-
tions related to research and marketing, but the inter-
pretation of insight varies from individual to individual.
for some it is an interesting piece of information, or
a new aspect which they did not know at all, and for
some it is simply a number which is more or less than
what they actually expected it to be. few organizations
even defne and seek insight in scenarios only related
to innovations or new product development initiatives.
the meaning of insight as defned in merriam
Webster dictionary is:
The act or result of apprehending the inner nature of
things or of seeing intuitively.
Attempts have also been made by marketing profes-
sionals, to defne insight in a more relevant context
from time to time.
recently, conroy (2008) defnes this as:
An insight is a statement based on a deep understanding
of your target consumers attitudes and beliefs, which
connect at an emotional level with your consumer, provok-
ing a clear response, which, when leveraged, has the
power to change consumer behavior. Insights must affect
a change in consumer behavior that benefts your brand,
leading to the achievement of the marketing objective.
sue frost, director, Big green door, in esomAr
research talk 2007 defnes insights as:
Its a consumer truth that has not previously been
articulated, it taps into the consumer sub-conscious, is
manifesting behaviour and has actionable implications.
gita ram, director, client solutions, nielsen india
comments:
A crude rule of thumb for determining Insight could be
when a person who is most knowledgeable about the
brand, usually a veteran brand manager responds to the
information saying I never thought of that before.
there is a considerable lack of a common understanding
and acceptable interpretation of insight, and the way this
is used in the context of marketing and research. in the
above two perspectives, one expert clearly believes
that it has to be new news.
this makes the job of a research executive considerably
diffcult. not only are expectations of different client
organizations from insight different, within the same
organization, different individuals involved internally (to
agency) have different interpretations and understanding
of insight. the effort of the authors to locate any relevant
work done to understand and uniformly defne insight
in the marketing research context was not successful.
the authors felt that an understanding of insight, in terms
of what is expected by users of marketing research,
and market researchers, would go a long way to:
bring clarity about the expectations when clients
seek insight
bridge the gap between the expectations and current
delivery
1
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CONSUMER INSIGHTS 2009
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this would remove ambiguity, and effectively identify
when an insight is generated. in this paper, the authors
aim to understand the interpretations of insight and
arrive at the most acceptable defnition through an
exclusive primary research. As a result, this would help
market research professionals to deliver insights as per
the expectations, and contribute to business growth.
THE pROCESS
since we set put to describe and then defne a term, we
followed an approach where an exploratory exercise
was followed by a descriptive study. the frst task,
which is to understand the broad and exhaustive set of
parameters which is associated with insight, a qualitative
exercise was done. for the next task of describing and
defning insight a quantitative exercise was conducted.
insight primarily involves two sets of people: those who
are to generate (e.g. market research professionals)
and those who are to act (executives in the client side).
therefore, for the purpose of this exercise, both these
sets of people were involved. the participants in the
exercise were from a wide spectrum of marketing
research clients from different industries and markets in
the middle east and north Africa region. the participating
marketing research professionals also belonged to
same markets and servicing similar client industries
for comparability.
the understanding of authors is that the ambiguity
about insight is a result of individuals not being able to
rationally defne the term. in such a scenario, a direct
probing (what do you mean by insight?) approach
is not suitable to generate the information. instead, if
individuals are presented with a stimulus, and asked to
react about whether the same qualifes as an insight
or not, the reactions and responses are likely to result
in more valid and reliable insight on insight. therefore,
participants in the study were asked to react to multiple
stimuli to understand the pattern in detail, and in a
robust manner. the stimuli were presented in sequential
manner, and detailed measures were captured after the
all the stimuli has been classifed as insight or not
an insight, to avoid rationalization by the participants.
the insights presented in the stimuli were not very
specifc to a particular market or an industry. Also, the
stimuli incorporated information generated from the
same basic data point with varying details (e.g. percent of
population noticing a billboard is one stimulus, total eyeballs
noticing billboards in a country is another stimulus, both
from same base data). this has signifcant implications in
communicating insights in the most acceptable manner.
extensive content analysis of the data captured in the
exploratory qualitative phase was done to generate
the exhaustive list of aspects and resultant measures.
for the descriptive quantitative phase, the data analysis
tools used ranged from using simple cross tabulations to
advanced multivariate analysis to fnd underlying patterns
and relationships between measures captured.
though the main focus of the study was quantitative
in nature, we have consciously stayed away from
reporting numbers and tried to explain, elaborate and
communicate the fndings in simple words.
THE STEpS TOWARDS BUILDING AN INSIGHT
to elaborate on the fndings from the exercise, we will
start with a simple piece of information and continue
building on that information gradually till it becomes
insight. While going through this gradual building process,
we need to keep in mind that when the authors say
its an insight it means a signifcant proportion (not all,
typically above 80%) of the participants have perceived
the information or statement as insight, and this is not
the subjective opinion of the authors.
to start with, let us consider this information: Globally
divorce rate is increasing.
this statement remains what it is, a piece of information.
As expected, clearly this was not perceived as insight.
When this information was reported, the reaction
varied from
so what?
Are you kidding? everybody knows that!
seems interesting, to what extent?
What do we do with this?
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CONSUMER INSIGHTS 2009
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this piece of information is intuitive, known, does not
have any apparent relevance and linkage to business
actions. it is interesting to analyze the reactions as it
provides some ideas about why this is not perceived
as insight.
issue # 1: the information is not new news, everybody
knows that it is apparent as the global society is evolving,
and a fair amount of debates, discussions and prominent
media space is devoted to this topic.
issue # 2: people would like to know the extent of
growth; the expectation is if this is really big, it might
lead on to something.
issue # 3: the information when presented in the
context of a branded clothing chain, does not have any
apparent actionability for the industry or the client.
next, let us elaborate this information statement a little
and see how it is perceived.
Between 1990 and 2005, divorce rate had increased by
33%, which means, by the end of 2010, there would be
estimated more than 40 million divorced individuals in
the world.
this quantifcation, did not make this as insight, however,
it increased the interesting quotient of the information.
the reaction to this can be broadly summarized below.
so what?
so, how is this information going to help me?
By adding this quantifcation, which is a substantial
fgure, we can see that the worth has increased a
bit. this has increased the interest and defnitely the
anticipation about fnding the implication for their
respective market. how-ever, one critical issue still
remains:
the information does not have any apparent
actionability for the industry or the client.
this statement was further modifed and elaborated
as:
Between 1990 and 2005, divorce rate had increased
by 33%, which means, by the end of 2010, there would
be estimated more than 40 million divorced individuals
in the world. As modern society is becoming highly
individualistic, growing numbers of individuals are fnding
it more acceptable for them to leave unhappy marriages
and pursue their individual goals. Differences between
consumers are expected and encouraged and this gives
individuals confdence that it is acceptable to focus on
oneself.
from here, it starts becomes confusing. no clear opinion
emerges, either among the clients or among the research
professionals. Almost equally, this statement was either
perceived to be insight, or not.
however, those perceiving this as insight have invariably
taken the individual effort in deciding on the various
possible marketing actions resulting from this. And those
who did not perceive this as an insight clearly perceive
the lack of marketing action as the reason.
therefore, key take-out is, even if there is a hint of
possible implications in taking marketing actions, there
is a considerable chance of being perceived as insight,
however, chance is the operative word in this case.
to take the learning further, lets look at the statement
again.
Between 1990 and 2005, divorce rate had increased
by 33%, which means, by the end of 2010, there would
be estimated more than 40 million divorced individuals
in the world. As modern society is becoming highly
individualistic, growing numbers of individuals are fnding
it more acceptable for them to leave unhappy marriages
and pursue their individual goals. Differences between
consumers are expected and encouraged and this gives
individuals confdence that it is acceptable to focus on
oneself. This implies, companies in the branded apparel
segment need to focus on creating a diversifed portfolio
of products and ranges to cater to as many individuals
as possible to express their individuality. Mix and Match
product lines are expected to do well.
We have just fnished reading an insight now. over-
whelmingly majority of the clients and researchers
agreed that this qualifes as an insight.
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CONSUMER INSIGHTS 2009
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We will now analyse the reasons for this one by one
and discuss the implications as we proceed.
Factor 1: The Aha factor (surprise)
it seems that this factor singularly determines the
transition of a piece of information to insight. And, this
is evident in not only in the patterns derived from the
responses, but from spontaneous responses of the
clients and the researchers.
richard henchoz, director, market and consumer
research of pmi, says, For us, an insight is the Aha
effect, concerning a fundamental truth about human
emotions and behaviors that enlighten us to tap an oppor-
tunity that will inspire the brand growth.
Another researcher says, It is relatively easy to identify
an insight. It is when as a researcher I get bowled by an
unexpected and fresh perspective, the reaction to which
might be in either of the two ways. Either it is really!!
I never knew about this one. Or it is Thats so true but I
never thought like that.
however, that does not mean that every surprising news
should necessary be an insight. however, there is a
tendency, primarily among few researchers to classify
any interesting or surprising news or information as
insight.
for example, the statement Number of professionals
employed in night shifts, is on the rise. Compared to
2001, this number has increases 27%. was perceived as
insight by a few of the researchers, even though it does
go anywhere beyond this. Another example used in this
exercise, There were more than 700 SKUs launched
or introduced in the Food and beverages category in this
country in 2007, also found its fair share of admirers,
even without any apparent actionability.
the critical thing that we need to recognize is that what
is surprising for tom may not be surprising for dick
or harry. And therefore, the impact of the insight as
perceived by tom would be lost on dick and harry.
now, if tom is the researcher, and dick (or harry),
his clients, there is certainly going to be a mismatch in
expectations. if tom is equally involved in the business,
it is more likely that they will be on the same page as
far as their understanding of the market is concerned.
And therefore, the information is likely to be insight
for both. the implication is to deliver on insight
expectations, continuing involvement and medium to long
term relationship with the client business is defnitely
worthwhile.
As sharmila narayanan (research manager, consumer
research) says, they do not necessarily have to be
new eureka fndings regular observations that lead
up to renewed implication and action areas are also
insights. however, having the eureka value defnitely
increases the perception and acceptability of the insight.
Factor 2: The criticality or size of opportunity
to qualify as an insight, the information must be of
such a nature that it brings in a considerable change
in perspective and the way business is conducted.
As mentioned in richards quote, mentioned earlier, to
tap an opportunity that will inspire the brand growth. to
achieve that, obviously, the insight must be the enabler.
sometimes, it is easy to lose sight of the bigger picture,
by getting excited about a surprising and often a sub-
stantially big estimate. this aspect actually adds to the
surprise element. it is essential to translate that big
estimate into possible and relevant market size for the
business.
in the previous example Number of professionals
employed in night shifts, is on the rise. Compared to
2001, this number has increases 27%, the fgure of 27%
is quite big, possibly against any expected estimates,
and therefore, the reaction was Aha, and as a further
consequence was counted as insight by few. however,
it does not give any cue about how it could translate
to an action which might lead to brand growth.
We also need to recognize that, a surprising number
need not be always big. if the estimate of a particular
measure is substantially lower than expected, and this
can potentially bring a change in the way business is
conducted and contributes to brand growth, this will
be an insight.
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Factor 3: The reasoning (reason to believe)
the statement Consumers are increasingly craving
stimulation is not an insight in itself. it evokes the response
of so what consistently by all. to draw insight from
this, the researcher needs to elaborate on how this can
change the course of business through new perspective.
the fndings could be elaborated as, Consumers are
increasingly craving stimulation. They want to feel excited
by the world around them and for their senses to be
aroused in a variety of new ways. In a bid to stand out,
brands should make the extra sensory experience their
core differentiating beneft.
in the latter case, the perception of this being an insight
increases signifcantly. clearly, the task of the researcher
necessarily needs to incorporate communicating the
reasoning to the client team.
Factor 4: The Implication
the holy grail of research. Any fnding which does
not translate the information into implications is not an
insight. insight needs to bring in a change in the way
business is done to enable brand growth. only when
the marketing implications are recommended were they
perceived as insight. either the researcher needs to
translate the fndings into possible marketing implications
insight, which is desirable. in absence of this, the client
team anyway would take the initiative to decide on the
future course of action. however, if the researcher has
not put in any conscious effort to think about the possible
marketing implication, there always remains a chance
that the perceived insight might not pass the fnal litmus
test of actionability.
taking on from the reasoning in the previous example,
the marketing implications are elaborated as, Consumers
are increasingly craving stimulation. They want to feel
excited by the world around them and for their senses to
be aroused in a variety of new ways. In a bid to stand out,
brands should make the extra sensory experience their
core differentiating beneft. Credit cards with differentiating
colour, shape, texture and a dash of smell can be
extremely appealing.
it is perceived as an insight by an overwhelming majority.
few, who did not perceive this as an insight, primarily
disagreed with the implications or needed further
elaborations on the implications suggested.
it needs to be noted here that the implications suggested
in the examples are by the authors, and they can be
debated. the purpose here is to understand what makes
an insight and not the implications themselves.
CHECKLIST TO IDENTIFy INSIGHTS
therefore, to summarise, to identify an insight, we
broadly need to check it by asking the following
questions
1. is it new news?
2. is it critical in terms of size of the opportunity?
3. is there suffcient reason to believe?
4. is there actionable marketing implications?
INSIGHTS ON INSIGHT
Qualitative and Quantitative
there seems to be a little difference between how
insight is perceived by qualitative researchers and
quantitative researchers in two critical aspects. more
qualitative researchers tend to ignore the size of the
opportunity, whereas almost all quantitative researchers
tend to evaluate the insight based on this.
to elaborate on this point, let us revisit the frst example
cited in this paper,
As modern society is becoming highly individualistic,
growing numbers of individuals are fnding it more
acceptable for them to leave unhappy marriages and
pursue their individual goals. Differences between
consumers are expected and encouraged and this gives
individuals confdence that it is acceptable to focus on
oneself. This implies, companies in the branded apparel
segment need to focus on creating a diversifed portfolio
of products and ranges to cater to as many individuals
as possible to express their individuality. Mix and Match
product lines are expected to de well. (size of the
opportunity is missing).
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CONSUMER INSIGHTS 2009
pART 1 / INSIGHT GENERATION
more qualitative (than quantitative) researchers tend to
agree that this is an insight. reaction from quantitative
researchers is more likely to be is this market big
enough to take this call?
on the other hand, a relatively less proportion of quanti-
tative researchers stress on the reasoning or reason to
believe, whereas almost all qualitative researchers tend
to elaborate a lot more on this aspect.
to elaborate on this point, let us again look at the frst
example, slightly modifed.
Between 1990 and 2005, divorce rate had increased by
33%, which means, by the end of 2010, there would be
estimated more than 40 million divorced individuals in the
world. Differences between consumers are expected and
encouraged and this gives individuals confdence that it is
acceptable to focus on oneself. This implies, companies in
the branded apparel segment need to focus on creating a
diversifed portfolio of products and ranges to cater to as
many individuals as possible to express their individuality.
Mix and Match product lines are expected to de well.
(Reason to believe is missing)
more quantitative (than qualitative) researchers agreed
that this is insight, whereas qualitative researchers
are more likely to ask how did you arrive at the impli-
cations? there is no clear link.
debate between qualitative and quantitative research
aside, what needs to be recognized is that client teams
invariably focus on these two aspects and therefore it
is critical for researchers, whether qualitative or quanti-
tative, to evaluate any insight on these two parameters.
Trend vs. insight
few researchers when exposed to information like
Between 1990 and 2005, divorce rate had increased by
33%, which means, by the end of 2010, there would be
estimated more than 40 million divorced individuals in the
world dismissed such fndings or information, saying
these are just trends and therefore not insight. however,
while exposing the same among the client teams, such
reasoning found no mention. What researchers need to
realize that, if any fnding or information, which might be
based on analyzing historic data, is:
1. new news
2. critical in terms of opportunity size
3. has reason to be believed and
4. has actionable implications
then it can safely be termed as an insight.
CONCLUSIONS
to qualify a research fnding as insight, it needs to
be evaluated on the following four parameters, and
if the answer to each of them is yes, it can safely be
termed as an insight. these four questions are:
1. is it new news?
2. is it critical in terms of size of the opportunity?
3. is there suffcient reason to believe?
4. is there actionable marketing implications?
there are small differences in how clients perceive an
insight and how researchers perceive insight. this
difference is often a result of the researcher being
the quantitative or qualitative exercise. if in all cases,
the four aspects are elaborated earlier is present, this
difference in perception can be easily eliminated and
insight delivery would be as per expectations.
References
Bullmore, Jeremy. (2009). Why is good insight like a
refrigerator? market leader, issue 29, summer.
Gordon, Wendy. Kapoor, Nitasha. (2007). it aint what you do,
its how you think. insights vs findings. esomAr consumer
insights.
Simmonds, Mark. (2006). springsight or thinsight? market
leader, issue 41, summer 2008.
Williams, Marsha.E. (2007). insights vs findings. esomAr
consumer insights.
The Authors
Suresh Ramalingam is Managing Director, Nielsen Consumer
Research, Asia Pacifc, India, Middle East, Africa.
Aruni Ghosh is Research Manager (Middle East, North Africa
and Pakistan), The Nielsen Company, United Arab Emirates.
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