Are you struggling to get the most from your analytics?

Are you overwhelmed with an explosion in big data and analytics?

Are you struggling to act on this sea of data?

A study by Accenture showed that only 1 in 3 companies are extracting tangible value from their expanding data infrastructure.

The potential for analytics and AI to extract learnings, identify new revenue streams and predict consumer behaviours is huge.

But to maximise the value of your investment in data you need to integrate human insights into the equation.

Data doesn't explain why somebody acts as they do, i.e. their motivations and unconscious actions in a given context.
That’s why human insights are critical.

System 1 or Automatic Thinking are the terms for the spontaneous process of acting without thinking. People are irrational. They struggle to articulate the real motivations behind their actions.

You need to get into the mind of your consumers, to make sense of complexity and turn data into action.

In this post we look at how you can capture and act on human insights in combination with your analytics.

What we cover in this post:

Start with what you know and identify what you don’t know from your data and analytics
Extract themes and opportunities
Use creative techniques to unlock human insights
- Juxtapose different user needs
- Consumer storytelling
- Talk to extreme or unusual consumers to capture surprising insights
Co-create with consumers to turn insights into actionable ideas

Start with what you know

Identify themes to investigate using people-centred techniques to get to the underlying consumer motivations.

To do this:

Review your existing market research, data and analytics.
Go over customer complaints and frontline sales team feedback.
Talk to internal experts (marketing, market research, supply chain etc.).
Conduct social listening.

Unpack what you know and don't know.

Deep dive into these themes to unlock human insights

Next, spend time with target users to explore these themes. Either through observation or depth interviews.

There are lots of techniques you can use. Here are a couple of examples.

Example: juxtapose different user needs

By contrasting different types of users you’ll uncover new perspectives: how their needs vary, unexpected behaviours, fixes and workarounds to problems they’ve encountered.

For example, on an eye-care project, we spent time interviewing opticians in their clinics, followed by customers in their homes. We captured experiences throughout the journey of consultations, tests and fitting of spectacles, comparing and contrasting that with contact lenses.

By juxtaposing the eye-care professionals' perspectives and goals with customers' experiences and expectations, we spotted tensions and pain points to solve.

Compare and contrast the needs of different types of users

Example: consumer storytelling

During Covid, we set up online consumer panels to determine growth opportunities for different brands. To probe their motivations, behaviours, and stress test concepts, we gave people numerous tasks over 1-2 weeks.

One task worked well and was simple to do.

We asked people to video themselves taking us through the products in their fridges and cupboards. It was intriguing to hear them describe why and how they used them and how they reflected on their decisions. The very act of self-narration surfaces unarticulated feelings and needs. For instance, they might talk about why they combine product X and Y to achieve an outcome or have switched from brand A to brand B in the last six months. We often heard phrases like 'I hadn't thought about it this way, but …..'

This task always unlocked new ideas when triangulated with the other insights captured over 1-2 weeks and supporting analytics.

Consumer storytelling surfaces unexpected insights

Extreme or unconventional users provoke new insights

A solution is already out there; it's often said. It is just on the periphery.

If your data has uncovered a potential opportunity and you need inspiration to figure out how to tackle it, sometimes you need to speak to 'expert' or unconventional users.

People deeply involved in a topic or with specialist expertise are a source of surprising insight. They won't be your mainstream target audience. But they can help you break free from conventional wisdom and interpret your data in new ways.

When improving patient experiences, we've found people who have lived with a disease for a long time are a source of profound insight.

They've experienced the ups and downs. They've worked the system to find fixes to improve dialogue with clinical specialists. Plus, they've discovered where to get the help that is not immediately obvious but important to their quality of life.

Find people who have a deeply involved relationship with a topic to uncover compelling insights

Co-design, co-create to realise opportunities

For close-in incremental improvements to your core business, you've probably got a good understanding of the sector, robust data on your customers and a grasp of the analytics. The solutions will be more obvious.

But for complex innovation challenges, the path forward is not apparent. Certainty is in short supply.

The data might show opportunities but how do you realise them?

It might require a new business model, a novel customer experience, the adoption of new technologies outside of your expertise. You’ll need to figure out the desired customer experience but also the implications for your organisation.

In this case more agile, iterative methods such as co-creation are ideal for experimenting, testing and learning. With each iteration your understanding increases and the solution comes into focus.

Use your target consumers - and other stakeholders - to help give feedback, refine and co-create with you. You'll uncover surprising insights, and your final ideas will be more impactful and relevant to customers' unmet needs.

Let’s look at a couple of examples of how co-creation can work.

Breaking out into a new space

For a well-established food brand, breaking into meal solutions was new and not an area of expertise. The data showed emerging opportunities, but what was the right concept - for the brand and the consumer?

To help identify winning concepts, we ran several sequential co-creation workshops with consumers and the product development chefs over a short period.

This approach helped to spot flaws in our thinking and cull weak ideas quickly.

Between sessions, the chefs went back into the kitchen, experimented with and adapted recipes, considered different packaging solutions.

This iterative co-creation approach resulted in concepts that outperformed the client's norms in quantitative testing.

Novel technologies

With emerging new-to-the-market technologies your data shows changing consumer behaviours and favourable tailwinds.

But often with these technologies it's not immediately apparent how to position a concept to maximise its potential.

What features do you focus on?
How do you talk about the benefits?
What's the desired user experience?
What emotional needs do you need to address?

To solve such a challenge with a new technology in beauty, we ran co-creation workshops with consumers and the client team, including the R&D experts. This helped us figure out how best to talk about a novel technology and articulate messages and claims. With lots of stimulus and explanations from the technical folks, consumers helped to rework and refine concepts.

The result was ideas that spoke directly to the target audience's needs in their language.

To sum up:

Many companies struggle to extract maximum value from their analytics.

Data doesn't explain the 'why' - the unconscious, unarticulated customer motivations and behaviours.

Human insights - when combined with analytics - help you make sense of complexity and turn data into customer-centric actions.

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