By Ashoke Agarrwal
As one of Indian advertising’s first wave of account planners, I positioned the discipline as representing “the creative dimension of strategy and the strategic dimension of creative”.
Before joining the ranks of account planners, I was a founder of a research agency – Francis Kanoi – a deeply modelling-oriented quantitative agency. In 1983, Kanoi pioneered the large sample annual syndicated study of the consumer durables market that used the Bass Epidemiological Model to forecast consumer demand. This study, in its various avatars, continues to be an integral part of the marketer’s toolkit in the consumer electronics and durable industries.
This grounding in quantitative research and market modelling proved to be of limited utility in practising the art of account planning, which consists chiefly of fine-tuning the positioning of a brand for lasting competitive advantage through insight-driven advertising. I leaned into qualitative research – focus groups and such – to find that fresh glimpse into the consumer psyche in general and her interaction with the product category and the brand that could lead to effective and advantage-yielding communication and creative strategy.
However, over the years, I discovered that the source of helpful insight rarely came from focus groups but from elsewhere. They came from mining the psyche of the team – the planners, the creatives, the client servicing people and the client’s brand and marketing team.
Each of us is a repository of sub-conscious insights into our behaviour and that of others we interact with daily and come across in popular culture – films, books, and the news. The mining of these insights – bringing them up from the sub-conscious depth to the conscious realm – is through free-form contemplation and discussion. It is brainstorming without the “driven intensity” that the word “storming.” implies. I find that insight mining is most productive when done in a relaxed setting and when it is open-ended in that it begins with a general discussion.
The Insight Mining process yields richer results as the EQ and ITQ quotient of the team increases. EQ is, of course, Emotional Quotient- drives greater empathy and thus a richer storehouse of insights into behaviour and attitudes. ITQ is a coined term and stands for Intellectual and Travel Quotient. An intellectually curious and widely travelled team has broader experience and a more comprehensive range of insights into behaviours and attitudes.
How does one get the target consumer to join the Insight Mining team? The answer is simple – make them – team members. Make friends and engage with them frequently in an informal, interactive, and conversational fashion. FCB, the Chicago headquartered agency, give the process a proprietary name – Mind & Mood – with Mind standing for the connotative aspects and Mood standing for the affective aspects.
While insight mining was critical to generating practical and fresh ideas, traditional research also played a role.
Focus Groups and Depth Interviews run by moderators and interviews and analysed by researchers with high EQ and ITQ yielded valuable Insight Mining inputs.
Quantitative research helps confirm and ratify hypotheses and campaigns generated from Insight Mining and quantify and model subsequent marketing planning and market mix models.
Insight Mining yields results where conventional research could not find fresh insight. For example, it recognised weddings as a high-impact occasion for being mistaken to be younger than one is – a plank for a soap brand positioned on the “keep-looking-young.” benefit. Or recognising that freshness is the difference between how one feels when one sets out for work in the morning and when one returns from the office – leading to a memorable creative rendition for an eau-de-cologne campaign. Or how, for a young mother, a bubbly child is the most convincing metaphor for overall family health – the basis for positioning a packaged food brand.
Besides traditional consumer research, social and anthropological research tools like ethnography and semiotics are valuable inputs into Insight Mining.
Insight Mining is as valuable upstream – in product development, product form – in marketing as it is downstream – brand positioning and marketing communication.
Steve Jobs firmly believed that no amount of market research could have led to the breakthrough product concepts – the iPod and the iPhone. Top-flight creative people like Steve Jobs are a one-person Super Lode of insights. The success of many organisations or institutions in producing a continuous stream of innovations is the result of Super Lodes supported by a bright Insight Mining team and a diligent upstream process team.
To sum up, at its core, Insight Mining is the final step in the consumer research process. It takes place after everyone in the Insight Mining team has absorbed the relevant traditional primary and secondary research, ethnography and semiotics. The magical, mystical process of Insight Mining catalyses all that with the life experience of the Insight Mining team. To paraphrase Pink Flyod, Insight Mining is the synergy of what is contextually known with:
All that you touch/ And all that you see/All that you taste/All you feel
And all that you love/And all that you hate/All you distrust/All you save
And all that you give/And all that you deal/And all that you buy
Beg, borrow or steal/And all you create/And all you destroy
And all that you do/And all that you say/And all that you eat
And everyone you meet (everyone you meet)/And all that you slight
And everyone you fight/And all that is now/And all that is gone
And all that’s to come/And everything under the sun