Most insight teams don’t have a tools gap. They have a coherence gap. The average business is already paying for five or six consumer insight tools, few of which talk to each other and none of which produces a joined-up view of the customer. Before buying another one, it’s worth knowing what’s out there, what…
Brands compete on perception, not reality. In almost every category, the winner isn’t the objectively best option – it’s the one customers believe is best. Which makes consumer perception one of the most commercially significant things a brand team can understand, and one of the least reliably measured. Here’s what consumer perception actually is, how…
The job description will tell you a consumer insights manager plans research, analyses data and presents findings. That’s not wrong – it’s just a fraction of what the role actually involves, and it misses the bits that separate the managers who get promoted from the ones who quietly plateau. Here’s what a consumer insights manager…
The question is rarely whether consumer insight matters. Most CEOs, CMOs and commercial directors will nod at that in principle. The harder question is what scale of return it delivers, whether the cost structure justifies the spend, and how it compares to the other places that budget could go. Here’s the commercial case, built around…
The conversation about AI and consumer insight has split into two unhelpful camps. One says AI is about to replace most of what insight teams do. The other says it’s overblown – a shiny toy that can’t actually understand human behaviour. Both miss the real shift, which is messier and more commercially significant than either….
“Insight” is one of the most overused words in marketing. Almost everything gets called one – findings, opinions, hunches, trends, hot takes dressed up in a chart. Most of it isn’t. The question of what makes a good consumer insight isn’t academic. Most insight budgets are spent producing material that sounds like insight without doing…
The work is done. The fieldwork’s in, the analysis is rigorous, the findings hold up. Then you get to the meeting, and nothing changes. If you’ve been in insight long enough, you know this moment. Great research, mediocre impact. It’s rarely the insight that’s the problem – it’s the delivery. Here’s a practical playbook for…
Most consumer insight strategies aren’t strategies. They’re research plans with better packaging. They list methods, budgets, maybe a vendor or two. What they rarely do is tell anyone what decisions the insight is actually there to serve, who owns it, how it flows into the business, or how you’d know if it was working. If…
Most consumer insight strategies aren’t strategies. They’re research plans with better packaging. They list methods, budgets, maybe a vendor or two. What they rarely do is tell anyone what decisions the insight is actually there to serve, who owns it, how it flows into the business, or how you’d know if it was working. If…
Every brand says it’s “customer-led.” Most are guessing. The difference between the two usually comes down to one thing – consumer insight. Done properly, it’s the discipline that turns customer behaviour into commercial direction. Done badly, or skipped entirely, it’s the reason good products launch to silence and well-funded campaigns fall flat. Here’s what consumer…