You Have to Hear Before You Can See
The most effective advertising and promotion programs are created based on a unique insight that helps you translate your place promise into a heart and mind opening communication. But, what is an insight and how can you tell if a successful communication program can be built around it?
An insight is a discovery about your target that allows you to connect emotionally. It can be a discovery about their needs or habits. It can be about what they believe, value, desire or feel. It is a unique understanding that you can potentially turn into a competitive advantage by leveraging it to create a communication idea.
Communication based on a meaningful insight is a powerful way to connect with your target and get your place promise internalized. Creative Agencies are masters of converting insights into communication ideas. This is part of their campaign development process. In fact, whenever an Agency presents a campaign to you for consideration, you should always probe to understand the unique target insight that is underpinning the communication idea their recommendation.
But how can you tell if the insight is good enough to translate into a great communication idea?
Here are some questions to ask yourself –
- Is the insight compelling enough to overcome a barrier to believing my place promise?
- Can I connect my place promise to the insight in a way that feels natural and not contrived? Is it competitive and not parity?
- Is my creative team excited about developing messaging and promotional material based on the insight? Can they see the connection between the insight and a reason for the target to select my location for capital investment?
So how do you get insights in the first place? Here are some questions that will hopefully stimulate your thinking.
- Is there something about my location that can be considered the standard of excellence?
- Where does my competition come up short when compared to my location?
- Are there a unique asset set in my location that will help my target succeed beyond their expectation?
- Is there a world-class asset or company in my location that can lend credibility to my place promise?
- Why do my most loyal companies like being in my community?
- How does my community impact employees?
- What is the most important thing my community is known for?
- Who are the most credible third-party people or organizations that would support my place promise, and why would they?
- How do people feel living and working in my community?
- Is there a non-traditional concern that locating in my community helps minimize?
Not surprisingly, insights come from knowing your strategic target well. It takes work and good listening skills to hear what your target needs and some creativity to figure out how your place promise helps meet their need. But, when you have a strong insight and build a communication idea from it, your marketing and sales efforts are greatly enhanced. You begin differentiating your community from the competition, and over time you strengthen the image and identity of your place. This leads to an increased opportunity to compete for more capital investment deals.
What are some of the unique insights you have into how capital investment decisions are made? Share a story of how you turned an insight into a winning communication idea.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:
http://www.leadershipnow.com/leadershop/9781591841425.html
http://themarketartist.com/sitemap.aspx
http://www.thewisemarketer.com/features/read.asp?id=82
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Category Strengthening Brand America
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Melisse May
November 15, 2009
This blog brought to mind an insight I received from a European colleague. We were working on a project together in a joint partnership from my American and his German company. He described America as “energetic and somewhat willful” and Europe as “mature and steady”. He literally pictured America as more adolescent consistent with our younger history as a country. This wasn’t all negative in his mind as he liked the energy if not the willful. He extrapolated this image into the partnership and thought our approach to decision making was typical of our culture. Whether his view was fair or not (and I could argue it wasn’t), I was startled to learn his predisposition to our partnership and interactions. Just knowing where he was coming from helped in future communications with him. Net, understanding place branding can have a big impact on day-to-day business interactions.
Kenneth J. Weiss
November 24, 2009
One of the most effective tools I have ever seen for making insights come to life is focus group video clips where the participants are reacting to messaging. Too often committees and decision makers let their personal bias dictate messaging. Watching real targets react to messaging is paramount.
Terry Prime
December 9, 2009
The last comment is very important because it highlights the biggest obstacle to getting a true insight– overcoming internal bias toward your brand. Brand champions are expected to focus on the positive, and, at times, this can lead to underestimating the impact of the negatives on brand success. Objectivity (or seeing the brand clearly from the customer’s point of view) is essential. Also, market research is an artificial situation, where interviewees, knowing their being observed, consciously or unconsciously present their opinions as they wish to be seen. One option is to come out from behind the two-way mirror and interact with interviewees– asking questions that need to be answered and listening carefully. If carefully managed, this can be a powerful way to get the truth about what customers think.
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