96 SÉRGIO BRODSKY
marketingmag.com.auMARKETING 2019Wake from lies,
walk to truth
Snippets of truth alone don’t form insight,
says Sérgio Brodsky. Here’s his pathway from
uncovering genuine insight, to forming and
executing brilliant ideas.
working defi nitions can prove a very
helpful litmus test for the validity of
what you believe may be an insight.
Insights will most likely be:
==^ an unrecognised fundamental
human truth or an ‘unthought
known’
=^ a clear, intuitive and sometimes
sudden understanding of human
behaviour and underlying
motivations, which you know
to be true, but hadn’t
considered before,
=^ or, as stated by WPP’s Jeremy
Bullmore: “A good insight is
like a refrigerator...because the
moment you look into it, a light
comes on.”
Insight equips us with reason
to a given behaviour, it guidesI
n a world contaminated by
fake news, metastasised with
leadership lies and bleeding
with runaway corruption,
searching for the ‘truth’ may feel
hopeless and irrelevant... unless you
are in a strategy or research function
in your organisation. In that case,
there is some light at the end of a
narrow, stinky and very dark tunnel.
This light is called ‘insight’. When
facts have lost value and anything
can be manufactured, the validity of
an insight is the truth worth fi ghting
for in marketing these days. As with
most things, a good defi nition is
arguably the best way to avoid
unintended fallacies. As such, let’s
quickly establish what insights are- and, perhaps more importantly,
what they are not.
Data is not insight
Data can take many forms, but we
have to remember it is just that –
data! Alone, it is not an insight, and
it does not do your thinking for you.
Look at your data holistically and
be cautioned against becoming
attached to that singular inspiring
data point that can drive a swiftSérgio Brodsky is an
internationally experienced
brand marketing professional
and scholar of The Marketing
Academy. Having worked for
the world’s leading strategic
communications agencies,
he is a proven thought
leader, regularly being
published and featured in
high-profi le conferences
and festivals worldwide. He
is passionate about cities
and culture and the role of
brands and technology in
society. Sérgio is multilingual,
holds a BA in IP law and an
MBA in global brand strategy
and innovation. Follow him
on Twitter: @brandKzarconclusion. Maybe then you’ll be
able to generate a true insight.Observation is not insight
Observations are an incredibly
important part of generating insights- but they are merely anecdotes that
lack any ‘why’, motivation’ or ‘context’.
Be suspicious of fake prophets;
insightful observations will always
convey meaning and enable action.
Customer desire, statement
of need or opinion are not
insights
An insight is not an articulated
statement of need or NPS (net
promoter score) result. Insights
are intangible, latent, less apparent- a hidden truth that is the result
of obsessive ‘digging’. Any time
you hear ‘I want’ or ‘I need’ in a
statement, step back and pause, as
you probably need to dig deeper and
understand the motivation and the
why behind ‘the want’.
So, what is insight?
The truth that will set your strategy
and tactics free is not unambiguous
and clean cut. Yet, the below