How to write the insights section of an advertising plan?

As a creative planner, a core professional quality is to explore consumer insights and then develop subsequent strategic ideas and creative approaches based on these insights. Of course, insight comes first, creativity comes later, which has often become an "idealized" working situation nowadays.

On the one hand, it is because of the current short, frequent and fast pace of work, which basically requires insights and creativity to be produced at the same time. In most cases, people think of creative ways of playing first, and then work backwards to deduce insights. The so-called "insights" written under these circumstances are often not very good.

On the other hand, there are indeed many clients who are not willing to listen to this part when listening to the proposal, because they often feel that this has become a routine of advertising companies. They just want to see whether the creative approach is interesting.

The above two aspects form a vicious circle. The result is that the insights portion of the solution becomes increasingly a mere decoration. For many young people who have just started working as planners, they have no idea what insight is.

So, in today’s article, let’s talk about the topic of insight in advertising planning .

01. First of all, let’s make it clear: what exactly is the insight mentioned here? What is a good insight?

There are many kinds of insights. Let us first define them. The insights we are talking about here are consumer insights at the marketing level.

So, what are consumer insights?

The explanation in one sentence is: it provides a communication entry point for brands to better impress consumers in their marketing activities.

Let’s think back, why do we go to such great lengths to dig out insights?

We could have delivered the brand's message exactly as it was, but we didn't do that because it would be difficult to impress consumers.

Therefore, the significance of mining insights lies in finding the communication entry point that can better impress consumers.

Okay, now that we have figured this out, let’s talk about what are good consumer insights?

Many times, customers are unwilling to listen to the insights in our solutions, probably because what is written is not good insights for them.

I think a good insight meets the following three conditions at the same time:

First, freshness.

What is said is not some common sense, but fresh trends, viewpoints and opinions that others may not have heard of before.

For example, I often see many people writing so-called "insights" such as "they are more self-centered and have distinct personalities" when writing about their insights into young people born in the 1990s.

This was a good insight around the beginning of the 2000s. For example, I remember that at that time, M-Zone asked Jay Chou to make an advertisement called "My Zone, Listen to Me". It was based on this insight and it seemed quite fresh at the time.

But now, it doesn't attract anyone's attention, because too many people have said it, and it's not new. If you see such words in the plan, you will think it's nonsense.

But if you say, "The younger generation doesn't just know how to have fun, they are also a passionate generation," that would be a good insight.

On the one hand, it is refreshing to listen to, and on the other hand, it is really touching. During the epidemic, many of the staff who rushed to the front line of medical care were from the younger generation; many of the soldiers guarding the front line of the motherland were also from the younger generation.

This insight is indeed associated with some brands that embody contemporary values. For example, Zhihu’s latest advertising film this year, “Reunion,” is based on the creativity produced by this insight.

Therefore, in order to find good insights, we cannot allow ourselves to stay at those universal views, but we must dig deeper along these universal views.

For example, we know that maternal love is great, but this is certainly not a good insight. Therefore, we need to think more deeply about what is the greatness of maternal love?

I have seen an advertisement whose creative idea behind it says that the reason why maternal love is great is because it is irreplaceable and is customized exclusively for a mother's child. Based on this insight, this creative advertisement reversely interprets a series of embarrassing and funny scenes when others can easily give you maternal love.

Second, resonance.

It's the feeling that you have said what others want to say but haven't said yet. This is more difficult, because the first point of "freshness" may be easier. But there are not many that are both fresh and resonate with people.

When writing this, the first case that comes to my mind is a campaign conducted by professional sports brand UA last year, with the theme of "Turning Hardship into Sweetness".

When I saw that commercial, I felt very connected to it. I believe that many people who often go to the gym to lift weights or love other sports should feel the same way.

The insight behind this is that truly high-intensity exercise is extremely painful. Just think about the various painful and ugly looks when lifting weights in the gym, accompanied by the soreness of your muscles being torn bit by bit. However, when you get through this painful time, you can enjoy a refreshing feeling both physically and mentally, just like eating candy.

If you have the habit of exercising, you can think back and see if this is really the case.

UA's insight expresses what we want to say in our hearts but have not said out loud.

In addition to being obtained from people’s inner selves as UA does, resonant insights can also be obtained from small habits and experiences that are common in our daily lives but may be overlooked.

For example, I saw an ad for a computer software that removes all kinds of pop-up ads so that you can work efficiently without being interrupted. The insight behind it is:

Many times, when we are working, we are easily distracted by some pop-up ads that suddenly pop up. We may see the information above and click on it, and then we will be redirected to a game or shopping interface, and then we will play games or shop, and maybe even chat with friends. At this time, you have already forgotten that there is still work waiting for you to complete.

Therefore, this advertisement is based on this everyday experience that everyone may have, and makes a series of exaggerated dramatic interpretations, such as:

A dad was playing hide-and-seek with his child, then he suddenly received a phone call (referring to a pop-up ad), and then he forgot that the child was still hiding there waiting for him to find him. In the end, the child waited from childhood to old age, but his father never came back to find him.

Third, relevance.

This insight must be linked to the brand concept/product selling point being served.

As we said at the beginning, the significance of insight is to help brands communicate better with consumers and impress them.

This is especially important for social planners. Because most of the time, we do social activities in order to attract public opinion. To do this, we rely on a lot of insights into society, culture, and hot topics. But in the end, it is often difficult to reconcile with the brand because the brand/product does not have relevant concepts or selling points to support it, which deviates from the meaning of the insight itself.

Again, a really great insight on relevance. It is the mysterious insight that "every stain on clothes is a trace of the child's growth."

This is the consumer insight behind OMO’s brand proposition “dirty is good”, which has been used since 2012. Not only does it sound fresh and touching: most mothers believe that they are competent only if they keep their children clean, but here the opposite view is put forward, believing that every stain on children's clothes is a trace of their growth, because behind the stain is the child's free exploration.

More importantly, this insight can be strongly associated with the Omo brand because not all laundry detergent brands are conveying this message.

02. So, how do you find good insights? Is there any method?

Good insights are very scarce. Because of this, insights have become a metaphysical existence in the minds of many people. They believe that good insights will only appear in their minds by chance when God favors them one day.

But this is not actually the case. Although finding insights does not follow a fixed procedure like solving arithmetic problems, there are some methods that can be used as reference.

The first approach is to discover insights from data.

We can discover some insights from the brand’s data platform, industry research reports, or qualitative/quantitative research, but such insights are usually more strategy-oriented.

For example, a famous case is that Walmart found:

In the United States, when fathers buy diapers, 30%-40% will also buy themselves some beer.

So they put diapers and beer together on the shelves, and the result was that sales of both doubled.

For example, McDonald’s found that:

There are 2 billion smartphone users worldwide, and 6 billion emojis are sent every day.

Based on this insight, McDonald's first began to create various chat emojis, winning the favor of young people on social platforms.

The second approach is to find insights behind the phenomena of contradiction and conflict.

There are some insights hidden behind many contradictory and conflicting phenomena. If you observe, summarize and refine them carefully, you will have good insights. This kind of insight is more creative.

For example, this insight:

Female driver may be an everyday term that everyone is accustomed to, but in fact it hides prejudice against girls.

In the stereotype, female drivers have always been regarded as "road killers", but in real traffic accidents, the proportion of female drivers is far less than that of male drivers.

What lies behind this is actually the prejudice against women, so on March 8, Women's Day of a certain year, Gaode took a series of actions to vindicate female drivers based on this insight.

Another example is this insight:

Many people appear serious in front of others, but when they are taking a bath in the bathroom, they release all kinds of "inner dramas".

So-called "adults" have to behave seriously during the day, but sometimes they also need an outlet for their inner feelings, and the bathroom is a place where they can carry out all kinds of "inner dramas". This insight was once mentioned to a shower gel brand that mainly sells flower petals, and it was unanimously loved by customers.

The third approach is to find insights from our own experiences/feelings.

Sometimes, after we express our experiences or feelings, many people actually resonate with them, but no one has ever expressed them for them.

for example:

When running, after you have passed the most difficult part, you will enter a particularly smooth "running feeling" state.

This is my own real experience. After running for about ten minutes, you will enter the most difficult moment, but as long as you persist through this period of time, you will be able to enter a state of "running feeling", and your breathing and rhythm will become very smooth. I once mentioned this insight to a running shoe brand.

For example:

Many people are unable to explain clearly to their parents what their jobs are, and their parents only have a vague understanding of it.

Due to the differences in the era background, many of the jobs we are doing now did not exist in our parents' generation, so it is difficult for them to have an idea of ​​it. Based on this insight, can short video platforms like Tik Tok launch a topic activity like #Record your work for your parents#?

03. Finally, with good insights, how can we best present them in the plan?

If a plan is essentially a tool to persuade local governments to adopt our creative ideas, then the insight part at the beginning of the plan can be said to be the first, or even the most important, step in determining the success or failure of this persuasion.

Because I've been through this a lot myself:

The client finally chose us, but apart from the part about insight into entry points, all other creative gameplay parts had to be readjusted.

But sometimes a pitch is like this. Only when the other party feels that you have found a good insight will they be willing to give you time to slowly polish the subsequent creative execution gameplay on this basis.

Therefore, it becomes particularly important to write a good insight section in the plan.

So, once you have good insights, how do you best present them in your plan?

Based on my own countless proposal experiences, I have summarized three principles for writing insights in the proposal:

The first principle is that it must be entertaining.

The so-called "watchability" means that the proposal should be novel and interesting to those who listen to it, and the on-site proposal should be like a show. Therefore, the presentation of the insights section needs to be well organized. for example:

It can be the traditional 4A style with concise prose-like text on each page of the PPT, creating a movie-like feeling.

This method is more suitable for expressing some insights on TA's emotions/attitudes/stories that are more on the inner level.

It could also be like a social company that uses some emoticons and animated images that young people like, paired with some popular "dirty" texts, to create a feeling like a talk show.

This method is more suitable for fast-moving consumer goods brands that are more open-minded and want to provide insights into young consumers born in the 1990s and 2000s.

Of course, if your team is open-minded enough, you can also act out the insights in advance, shoot a video and broadcast it at the proposal site.

Or other entertaining presentation methods can be considered.

The second principle is to have a sense of immersion.

The so-called "sense of immersion" means that the other person can be involved in the story, feel the same, and be moved.

This requires us to be good at describing and restoring some details of life scenes when writing creative insights, so that the other party feels that it is true.

For example, when writing the insight of the computer software that removes web ads, the scenario where everyone forgets their original work because of a pop-up ad should be described in the plan:

One day, you were working and suddenly a travel advertisement popped up on your computer. You were attracted by the information on it, so you clicked it and found that you had entered an interactive activity to get a 1,000 yuan coupon. You need to invite 3 friends to come in together to get it, so you shared this information with your friends and started chatting with them...

At this time, you have already forgotten that there is still work waiting for you to complete.

I believe that many people will feel more or less involved after reading the above scene description.

Third, there must be relevance.

The so-called "relevance" means that after listening to your insights, the other party feels that they are related to their own brand. This part is particularly important, otherwise everything you said before will be in vain.

Therefore, usually when I write the insight part of the proposal, after writing the consumer insight, I must use 1-2 pages to clearly explain how this consumer insight is related to the brand.

It can be related to the entire brand's proposition or the product's interest points.

Author: Pulang

Source: Pulangne