Brand insights are the result of a process of deep understanding and awareness of your customers’ perspective and personal situation. Being able to see the world from your customers’ perspective – walk in their shoes – is key to an effective brand.

Why are insights so valuable when it comes to brand and business growth? Because they serve as guides and powerful measures of personal human truths that can build and engender brand success, engagement and loyalty. This in turn leads to business growth because the identity, beliefs and values of a brand – its Brand DNA – resonates with an individual customers intrinsic and innate sense of self-worth and belief. An effective brand’s goal is to literally ‘pull’ at a person’s core being.

But what is an insight?

There are many definitions. Commonly an insight is a feeling, emotion or thought that helps you to know something essential about a person or thing. When you look for and gain insight, you’re actually using your intuition, or sixth sense.

Insight is an ability to have a clear, deep and sometimes sudden understanding of a complicated problem or situation. It’s an unknown, undiscovered, unexpected, yet oddly familiar truth that is not obvious.

The benefits of insights for business are exactly that – a clearer understanding of a situation, person or problem. This can lead to new perspectives and solutions of seemingly immovable or insurmountable obstacles – often with an element of revolution about them – which can lead to positive change or business transformation.

I’m reminded of Einstein’s quote: ‘No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.’

We cannot expect to solve our business problems or challenges without seeing things from a different perspective – insights can therefore help businesses overcome existing ‘problems’ – one of which is business growth.

Insights act as a springboard to new thinking and reveal deep, intimate understanding of human behaviour. Once we understand the insight and its relevance to the situation at hand, it can shift our awareness of our customers experience and ourselves and help us adapt, improve and align our brand – our products, services, content, experiences, behaviour, language and interactions – to that customer.

Here’s a quick example/story for you:

A young female one day inherited her grandfather’s walking frame business. As a young Asian female, she was faced with the challenge of not only overcoming a huge patriarchal family dynamic, but also a male industry dynamic. Further to this, she was faced with the goal of breaking the US market.

As a specialist in manufacturing walking frames for the US market, her first attempts failed. Conferences and exhibitions failed as she could not engage or compete.

She was forced to think differently and look for other perspectives for business solutions.
She discovered an all important insight that her clients didn’t like the standard, rigid walking frames available to the market.

She uncovered insights that the grey coloured, poorly designed, shuffling and limited motion of the current walking frame range hindered the mobility of existing customers.

She began a dialogue and learnt that most users of walking frames want to be active and mobile – to gain independence or regain their self-esteem following hip surgery or injury etc.. They wanted to be able to move with support after years of difficulty, but were left frustrated with a perception in their head and the wider market that walking frame users are ‘old’ and ‘infirm’. The rejected the perception that the industry and society was forcing upon them but were at pains to accept this status or pigeon holing.

The huge insight here was that waking frame users themselves still ‘felt’ young and resented the negative perception they acquired by using a frame. Challenging this belief from a supplier perspective was key too. It was no longer a question of simply supplying users of walking frames – it was about empowering them.

What’s more her clients were prepared to pay more for better ergonomically-designed models – where the metal bar didn’t hit their legs when they walked. They were excited and compelled to purchase brightly colourful and streamlined design frames. Insights also revealed using lighter yet sturdy metals relieved the burden of the traditionally heavier, denser walking frames. Its one thing to walk with a frame, its another to be able to lift it too.

Insights can transform industries and brand fortunes. These insights enabled a female Asian supplier to become the leading supplier in a traditionally male-leaning and foreign market. That’s the power of brand insights.

What insights can you uncover about your customer or your industry that could be a game changer?

Be insightful.
Be different.
Be your brand.

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We hope you learned something new, insightful or useful from this blog.

At The Brand Experts, we believe that perception is everything. Why people recommend you, why people know, like and trust you and why people buy you. This drives us to help professional services build a ‘Brand DNA’ for business growth. We do this through a series of brand workshops designed to help professional services who value knowledge, expertise and professionalism, realise what drives their ‘Why?’, identify their true identity, and what matters to them and their customers most. The ultimate reason? To be the difference in their world and make impact. Successful brands in the future care about customers, not branding. We believe that future is now. We’re passionate about creating brand stories & design assets that help businesses be the difference.