Abstract:

Insight and marketing professionals are constantly asked to anticipate how changes in culture will impact their business. Despite billions of data-points being analysed across thousands of tools, we remain overwhelmed with information and underwhelmed with insight. We continue to miss the mark as we overvalue the explicit (consumer verbatims) and under-value the implicit (an analysis of meaning and beliefs). This is disconcerting in a business context. But it is even more disappointing when you consider that consumers are revealing breadcrumbs and clues that can help us better understand what drives positive change in the world. Things like decoding what will motivate consumers to care about sustainability? Or what will drive people to better plan for their financial future? Too often, these highly complex issues and the beliefs and values that drive a person to care about them are misconstrued. Because traditional approaches to research have relied on asking consumers to self-report on WHY they care about a given issue. And the answers have failed to convey the deeper, unspoken and sometimes even unflattering motivations that are more relevant and, if leveraged, more impactful.