I was asked a question by someone on "how to be a good strategic planner". I am not certain why I was asked that question - because I have not been really a strategic planner in the traditional sense of the word (i.e., working with creative teams and brand-client teams to come up with positioning statements for brands).
Nevertheless, I ventured into providing some answers.
I think that being a good strategic planner requires first and foremost, curiosity about the humanity that is behind the term "consumer". I believe that when we plan marketing campaigns and advertising projects, we immediately put on our 'marketeers' hats', which is a bit constricting. With marketing hats, we start thinking of people as "consumers", "buyers", and "audiences", rather than "people who have needs". I believe that the first thing we need to do is to understand - deeply - the human behind the terms "consumer", "buyer", "audience".
Understanding and unlocking this makes our jobs a lot easier - and our communications campaign a lot more aligned with what exactly people need.
Now that's easier said that done.
A good friend of mine, who used to work with me in Vietnam and who has now moved to Bangkok, thinks that "insight is the most overused word in the marketing communications industry". And it is true. Information is often mistaken as insights. Charts, advanced and basic stats, percentages, and competitive benchmarks are all considered as "insights". In my worldview, insights do not come from a single chart or a single statistical test or a complex process - but rather from the agglomeration of all things that we know and have uncovered about the faces behind the labels "consumers", "audiences", and "buyers".
An insight, sometimes, is mistaken to be something that is supposed to be new - and differentiating. I don't think that insights need to be always original or new - in fact, some of the best insights that I have come across in my dealings with research agencies and consultancies are a reiteration of what we already know: that people drink certain brand of soft-drinks because everybody else drinks that brand. That people want choices - even if those choices need not be exercised by them.
These are nothing new - and not groundbreaking. But they are reiterations of the human condition.
And as long as it is rooted in the human condition - the humanity that lies behind the labels "consumers", "audiences", and "buyers" - I believe it is an insight.
And insight comes from asking questions.
The most important question I think is not "What's the observation? What did you observe? What are the measurements? How high, how low?" I believe that to arrive at an insight, the most important question is "So what?", which can be broken down into
- Given these N-number of things that we already know from different sources, what ties them all up together?
- What is the common theme? What is the underlying story? What does it mean to the business? What does it mean to the brand?
- What is the underlying human truth that can encompass all these observations? How can we leverage this deep human truth to drive our business? To drive connections with brands?
- What is different then? Why is it different? How can this difference be important/detrimental?
The other thing that agencies and clients are most wont to do is saying "But is it actionable?", which suggests that there are actionable insights and non-actionable (worthless) insight. I believe that no such distinction between actionable (and therefore, "worthy") and non-actionable ("worthless") insight exists.
All insights - since they are based on human truths - have a potential to be actionable.
What makes an insight "non-actionable or worthless" is the lack of creativity and openness in either the client or the agency-side to act on it. It takes will to create something out of insights. In fact, it may take more than a department to make an insight truly actionable. Some insights - if not most - demand that Marketeers go beyond their comfort-zones bound by the marketing department, and involve others - R&D, customer service, corporate communications, sales teams, the senior management team - in transforming insights into action-steps.
An insight - because it is based on human truth - have the potential to create a difference - but it will take guts to make it a reality.
Do insights change across time? Tricky question. Here are my thoughts: Insights do not change immediately across time because they are based on human truths, the human condition. What changes is how these human truths expressed by consumers.
Here's an example: Because of advances in communications effects measurements, we are now able to say that "word of mouth and peer recommendations are amongst the most influential sources of information". Is that an insight? Yes. Is it new? No. It's been there forever - we've always known that if Person A hears from her friend, Person B, that "Brand M sucks", chances are Person A will believe Person B and assimilate that "Brand M sucks" and consider it in her next purchase decision.
Has it changed across time? The insight that peer recommendations are influential is as true now as it was back then - when neighbors talked to each other about their experiences on childcare, laundry bars, medicine, and a whole gamut of products. It's always been a truth - a characteristic of our humanness (our humanity) - to believe our friends more than that celebrity with glowing skin on TV that a certain facial care product works.
What has changed however, is the medium through which these peer recommendations are made - and the definition of what a "peer" is. These days, "peers and acquaintances" are no longer just people you know personally and people you've met in person. They could be in your Facebook community or MySpace followeres or Friendster rolodex. They could be email pals or part of a discussion forum.
The manifestation of what a "peer" is has changed - but not the power of the peer. The insight remains - but the manifestation and its speed changed.
There is the danger of course, of being too reliant and too stubborn about an "insight" uncovered aeons ago. Because humans change and evolve in response to the changes in their environment, it is necessary to continually check the insight. Human truths also do change - in the same way that demographics change and evolve across time.
The challenge is to know when to update - or even discard - an insight and replace it with a new one. It is not something easily done again because it entails a return to discarding our marketeers' hats and be a curious soul about our people - the people who are "consumers and buyers and audiences".
I know I kind of veered away from the original question: "How to be a good strategic planner". But the role of the strategist is in fact this: to continuously look at the human truths that lie behind or beneath the terms "buyer, consumer, audience" (and therefore insights) and weave them into one coherent strategy that would make that human truth be expressed, communicated, and delivered to those with whom the brand will make highest probability of success.
