In this second interview by the VIA Task Force on Consumer Insights, Dick van der Lecq, shares his views on the Maturity Model.
The mission of the VIA Consumer Insights Taskforce is to help marketers use insights intelligently in developing marketing and communications strategies. One of the tools they have developed to do this is the"Model of Insights.
To investigate whether the model achieves the desired effect, task force members Youri Harmsen, Strategy Director at Springbok, and Martijn Jaartsveld, Strategy Director at STROOM, entered into conversation with several peers. Previously they spoke with Esther Overmars and Maurice Barten, this time Dick van der Lecq shares his experiences. A conversation with the former CEO of DDB, who recently launched two new companies.
To get right to the point: what do you think of the model? Does it bring overview, is it useful?
Absolutely. I myself find it a very useful model. It contains everything you need to come up with a strategy or briefing. It works like a checklist. What I do find a bit tricky is the name of the model. The definition of insight is not the same for everyone.
You're absolutely right about that. The broad meaning of an insight that we generally use is: `Placing interconnected information in relevant context, which gives direction to a solution.' If we then translate that into a workable formula you get:
Insight Formula: (Data / Information / Observation) + Context = Insight
You guys do that well. I think that as a task force and industry association, you can also be quite strict in the definition of an insight. Maybe even a little purist. I think ninety percent of what is called insights is just information. Those are patterns that you find in data, but those are not really psychological insights that you can expect to change behavior. All that knowledge, of course, is a blessing. Much less black box than what we once had. That's also why you need people who can separate the wheat from the chaff and turn it into a psychological insight for communication.
But then what is your definition of an insight?
Personally, I see an insight as a splitting pass for the attacker. And I mean that from a soccer perspective. A lot of people in the world of data play defensively and prefer to stay in the same place. But you also have people who are very good at converting data into information. Those are, so to speak, the midfielders. There are not that many people from midfield who can kick the splitting pass in front of the attacker's shoes so that a goal can be scored immediately. You have a lot of people in the front line: the creatives, and you have a lot of people in the back who are sitting on a mountain of data files and making crossings into that, and so on. But ultimately you need those midfielders. Preferably midfielders who can also play soccer forward.
There used to be a strategy, I don't remember from whom, but it went from 'smoking is bad for you' (with all the nasty pictures on the packaging) to 'smoking makes you ugly'. And then you noticed that people suddenly thought: ahaa, that's really not good. Then you start looking at the same product and/or your own behavior differently. That is why, to me, an insight is: a strategic invention that inspires creatives to make consumers look at a product in a different way.
An insight is like the splitting pass forward from an attacking midfielder, from which the goal is scored
Back to the metaphor of the splitting pass for a moment: the defenders often prefer to do a tap back and the attackers walk around a bit lost. So what makes it so difficult?
It starts with the fact that in advertising land very few people can play this game. A Marc Leurs can do it, Boris Nihom, Marc Oosterhout, Joris Gruiters and a handful more. The good news is that there are also creatives with strategic ability. Eager guys who think: now it's done playing around back there, I'll come and get the ball. But there really are only a few of them; it really is an art in itself.
What is your experience working with insights outside the marcom chain?
I think in terms of product development, agencies at this stage are less involved than they hope to be. But I can't substantiate this numerically, that's a feeling. Agencies do get involved in the design exercises, but by then the innovations have actually already been done. And that while the insights 'on the front end' are extremely important.
Just look, for example, at the "Helping Plate campaign" that DDB developed for HAK several years ago. As an agency, we were tasked with developing a campaign to get children to eat more vegetables. But changing consumer behavior, especially with small children, is incredibly difficult. Perhaps even impossible. So we took a different, non-advertising approach. Together with Wageningen University, we made a kind of bypass by investigating how to change children's eating behavior in terms of vegetables. That was very interesting.
The design of the board was inspired by the insights gained: everything we learned there was immediately implemented in the shape of the board. And not a children's board with Mickey Mouse on it, but an ordinary board. In fact, the research showed that children just want their parents' plate. Maybe when children are very young they want a children's plate, but from a certain age they just want the same plate as the parents. Thus, all sorts of facts emerged from the academic research. For example, the portion of vegetables seems smaller and the color of the plate is more attractive to put vegetables on. And that works.
The point of the nail is more important than the weight of the Hammer
Can we conclude from this that good advertising and good communication are always based on an insight?
Sure. There are few advertisers with the budget power to keep pumping GRPs around with mediocre expressions. That's an expensive business. With brilliant insights and creation, you make it much easier and cheaper for yourself. The point of the nail is more important than the weight of the hammer. In other words, the sharper the insight and creative idea, the less media you have to put behind it.
But if you're collaborating a lot, with clients, media agencies and so on, or perhaps even relying on third parties to gather insights, doesn't a strange triangular relationship arise?
Whether to call that a strange love triangle I don't know, but I do think media and creation have grown apart. This is partly because margins in the market have been under pressure for years. One's own income comes first. But of course that's not always the case. For example, look at the creation of the new brand Odido. That is truly a feat of direction and cooperation. I would also welcome more intensive cooperation between creative agencies and media agencies in the area of budget allocation. Often with a slightly different allocation between production costs and media, you can create an expression that works much better, without having to throw millions in media exposure against it.
Thank you Dick for your enlightening presentation. Based on the various conversations we have had, we as a task force now dare to say that the various professionals from media, advertising and from the advertiser side look at insights differently. What everyone agrees on to a greater or lesser extent: Data on its own is meaningless. In fact, data only becomes information when you put it in context. Knowledge is gained when you can make connections between different types of information. Insight only arises when you can connect underlying principles of information and place it in a different context. Then a different image, story, brand, media plan or creative expression emerges. An insight shows you a different, often recognizable reality, discovering new ways to be successful in business.
This interview previously appeared on Adformatie