Consumer insight
A true, specific and previously unexploited observation about how people think, feel or behave, sharp enough to build an idea on. Not a statistic and not a trend: the test is the wince of recognition, and the tension it exposes is where campaigns come from.
Where it's used
Used at the heart of strategy and creative briefs. Good for giving creatives a true tension to work from, rather than a demographic or a product feature.
See it in a campaign
Dove: Beauty Sketches (2013)
The insight: women judge their own looks more harshly than anyone else does. It is not a statistic about the beauty market. It is something the audience recognises in themselves with a wince. Everything in the film, the artist, the two portraits, the reactions, is built just to make that observation visible.
