Move over, Consumer Insight...

It's time to lead with a Human-Centric approach versus a pure Consumer-Centric one.

It’s the middle of the day. A young man is going about his business in the office, absent-mindedly picking his teeth, when we hear a loud squawk.

A chicken has appeared on his head.

Through the day, it stays there. While he’s at work, at play, at rest. Looking around, squawking every now and then. Like it belongs.

Then, a voiceover kicks in.

“Aksar daant mein atka khaana dimaag mein atka jaata hai.”

(”Often, the food that’s stuck in your teeth gets stuck in your mind.”)

And goes on to explain how Pepsodent’s Flexipic “toothbrush with toothpick” knocks out food stuck between teeth. Cut to product demo…and voila! The chicken disappears at that very instant.

Now that is an insight!

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As a young copywriter at Lowe+Partners (now MullenLowe Lintas), I was taught that the best work we could ever do was rooted in deep consumer insight.

“The insight - the unthought known,” as expert planners put it. “The undeniable truth that everyone knows, but seldom thinks of. The truth, that once surfaced, has its audience nodding their heads, asserting its veracity.”

The ad for Pepsodent Flexipic that I described above, wonderfully crafted by Shriram Iyer of Lowe+Partners, still stands out to me as one of the finest examples of the unthought known. Even nigh on two decades later.

It broke the clutter, sold a bunch of product and won us a bunch of Effies (if memory serves me right).

It also inspired me to begin tackling every brief by putting myself into my consumer’s shoes, and looking for a powerful insight to build my work on.

I didn’t always succeed; but when I did, the end outcome was really, really good.

Times, however, are changing.

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The advertising we grew up consuming - and, indeed, creating - is less and less relevant today.

Trust in advertising has been on the decline for a long time now. Enough has been written about this subject, by smarter people than me, that I don’t need to waste your time repeating all the factors that have contributed to this.

But I will call out one specific conclusion I’ve come to:

Humanity, Post-Covid, is a different species altogether. As of this writing, we’re staggering drunkenly from one crisis to another. The pandemic itself; the subsequent economic fallout; the resulting mental health crises; increasing polarisation - religious, political and racial; Russia’s unhinged invasion of Ukraine; further economic meltdowns; Hamas's inhuman attack on Israel and Israel’s equally inhuman response; layoffs everywhere; the AI explosion; the list seems unending.

As the relationship between people and brands changes irrevocably, as brands come under the brightest sunlight they’ve ever been exposed to, people are becoming more discerning about the brands they choose.

And choosing brands that look at their whole context, not just their buying context.

With that, the consumer insight becomes just one window into a person’s life, and just one route to engage with them, rather than the only one.

At SXSW earlier this year, I heard from a variety of brands and agencies on how the mental model of a consumer seems to be evolving rather rapidly. I’ve since synthesised this into a model I’m beginning to put to use in our work.

Welcome to the Human-Centric era.

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What does it mean to look at your audience with a Human-Centric approach?

First, it doesn’t mean the Consumer Insight is dead. It just means that you don’t stop thinking once you’ve found a powerful insight.

Second, it means you need to look at what impacts your human’s mindset and behaviour on a daily, weekly, monthly or even lifelong basis. I call this the “Trending→Trends→Culture” model.

• Things that are Trending have short-term influence…and could be symptoms of larger…

• Trends. These are mindsets and behaviours that have been established for some time now, and show up in different ways. At some point, the most long-lived trends might tip over into…

• Culture. And become part of the everyday, the way things are always done, taken for granted and understood by all.

Third, it means you need to think about making your human happier. Gallup’s Happiness Study shows that we’re the unhappiest we’ve ever been. (Surprise, surprise.) People are spending more time and money than ever before to find joy. And that’s an opportunity to tap into.

Fourth, it means that you need to think about building experiences that deliver happiness and novelty. You need to think beyond ads, beyond social, beyond film, to create immersive, rewarding, multi-channel experiences that help build relationships with our audiences.

Fifth, it means that you need to step back and rethink cultural relevance. This has shifted over the last decade. Cultural relevance today isn’t just about being seen as cool and desirable, or connecting to pop culture. It’s about understanding your audience’s values and beliefs, and aligning closely to those, fostering community and fandom.

Sixth, you need to start thinking about building for headlines, not conversions. Authenticity, surprise and delight need to become your buzzwords. Real people + real actions = headlines.

And, finally, you need to start thinking of yourself as a content creator and distributor. The era of the 30 second ad is swiftly passing by. We need to find ways to create content at scale and get it out to all our audiences, in the formats, languages and channels that they’d like us to.

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If there’s one thing I’ve learned about people recently, it’s this:

People are tired of being looked at merely as buyers. As mindshare to be gained, as prospects to be mined. The last thing that a human being needs today is to be treated like just another wallet to be opened.

The faster we marketers make that shift in thinking, the more relevant we’ll remain.

That is the insight.

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I’m going on summer break later this week. What Is An Insight? will return late August, with a deeper dive into each facet of this model. Miss me, ok?

Samit