Nowadays we find that the market saturates us with thousands of products and we often wonder what are the motivations that lead us to choose a product or a brand. The truth is that if we ask ourselves that question we will most likely give logical and rational answers, but the reality is that many of our decisions are based on unconscious motivations.
Hence, more and more brands are seeking loyalty through emotional means. Differentiation is sought through feelings. That is why emotions become the main concern of companies and marketing efforts follow this line with the aim of exploring and defining new spaces.
In this entire context is where “insights” arise and the importance they have in knowing the consumer in a deep way. Therefore, brands are increasingly concerned with discovering them among consumers and analyzing how to reach them. To talk about their importance, let's first define what is meant by insight. You can find many definitions around this term:
• “An in-depth understanding of the real, latent, unconscious or unspeakable needs of the consumer.”
• “A deeply differentiated consumer need, desire, or belief.”
• “Consumer's central value or belief that triggers purchasing and consumption behavior.”
• “New business perspective regarding the symbolic relationship established between a brand and its current or potential consumer.”
• “Get closer to the real consumer as this consumer is and defines himself.”
• “Discover the real needs, desires and beliefs of the consumer.”
But why talk about insights?
Because it has become a topic of increasing importance in market research and communication. In recent years, many brands have opted to work on these insights in their advertising campaigns in order to reach their consumers through sensations and emotional messages.
There are many advertisements where brands appeal to these sensations. Let's look, for example, at advertisements in the automobile sector. Advertisers increasingly lead you to dream without giving much importance to the physical or technical characteristics of the car itself and many times without even showing you the key element: the car. A clear example of this is the new Volkswagen Passat Campaign: where a story is explained, lived by a child who tries to have powers dressed as Darth Vader. The tenderness that comes from seeing the child unsuccessfully trying his goals and the “little help” that the father provides him, transmit a message of success encompassed in a family framework.
Other sectors such as food are also beginning to use emotional advertising. And now that summer and ice cream season are coming, we can see the new Cornetto Enigma campaign that, under the title Teddy bear, encourages young people to show their softer side, like the teddy bear that stars in the spot and that gets be irresistible thanks to its tenderness. The same thing happens with the new Cornetto Enigma, a frozen chocolate cone with caramel sauce inside.
Therefore, today, exploring new insights is essential to impact consumers. And to find them it is important to know the consumer and how they relate to the product, what it offers, when and what they use it for. We not only have to know our target audience to know what they buy and why they buy it, but also detect what motivations unconsciously move them towards consumption.
With indirect traditional market research techniques such as the Laddering model, ethnography or projective and creative methods, as well as, through more innovative techniques, such as neuromarketing, we can discover and interpret what emotions brands, their communications, their formats, their odors,... determining the main parameters that make up the consumer's consumption and/or purchasing "experience" and allowing us to understand what insights generate that experience that can become the basis for a competitive advantage.
Monica Rabasó
Project manager in Hamilton
