Where to Find Insights

Working in the business of measuring advertising, I cannot turn off thinking about media implications when I am consuming content. I assume this would be the same for all occupations - a hairstylist will always discreetly sneak a glance at every single person's hair that they meet, an architect will always survey every building or room layout they walk into. So even when I'm watching television or surfing the Internet or flipping through a magazine, I inevitably end up studying the ads. This makes for great entertainment when normal consumers usually tune out. More than often, I wonder how the creator of the advertisement came to the decision to produce that particular ad - since I work in consumer insights, I'm more preoccupied with the 'why' and where it came from. Why is it that this particular brand chose to slam its competitor in a side by side comparison whereas this other brand decided to do a funny, irrelevant commercial with a talking animal or cute puppy? Especially if they belong in the same category, this clearly indicates that there are two different types of audiences they are trying to attract with the same product. One is rational, one is emotional. Insurance is a great example of this - some brands are dry and to the point, invoking an air of professionalism and no-nonsense and the majority lately seem to be based in silly humor. But both still want you to buy insurance.

If you end up studying the ads long enough, you can kind of get at how they came to an 'insight'. Lately, I feel like creatives are becoming way too meta. This isn't necessarily a bad or good thing, just an observation. I feel as though creatives are literally spelling out their insights in the advertisement, versus using it to portray an insight. I just recently saw a Domino's or some pizza commercial where the narrator talks about thoughts which normally I would hear in a brainstorming insight or strategy meeting, not in the actual ad. He was talking about how they could lie and say that getting pizza signifies that it's the weekend and so if you order it, you'll instantly get that downtime mood. A little slice of heaven, perhaps. I guess the insight came from how people love ordering pizza when they feel like relaxing, not cooking and chilling out, which is usually during lazy days e.g. the weekend. Therefore, to capitalize on that feeling of relaxation and downtime, order pizza on a Wednesday and it'll feel like the weekend! Similar to drinking a Corona and feeling like you're on a beach, this isn't a new concept and it intuitively makes sense. What was funny to me was the commercial was basically the narrator explaining that concept and then some - that pizza won't get you to feel like it's the weekend, but it's what you do with that time, cut to shot of happy family enjoying pizza. So order pizza, but spend that time wisely, is what the commercial is trying to instruct. I didn't understand the concept at all. I imagined a frustrated brainstorming session where the team is tasked with finding the emotional hook to pizza, and someone says, 'It's just fucking pizza. There's no emotions. It's what happens when you're eating pizza, family dinners, quiet nights in, etc.' And there's your ad. On one hand, I get that it's time now for brands to be purely transparent about their intentions - to sell you their stuff, and not hide it behind fluff. However, there's just a certain tinge of patronization in the ad, it kind of feels to me like they're saying that they studied you and are now telling you what you feel and why you should buy their product. That isn't supposed to be what an insight serves. An insight is supposed to shed light on a piece of information, and then create something new from it, not regurgitate it.

Hate to bring up the over-cited Dove but also now the recent Pantene commercial from the Phillipines - but those to me were good examples of using an insight and running with it. You find out women are insecure about their looks and don't see themselves the same way other people do? Do a test where you ask women to describe how they see themselves and how other people see them and spot the differences. That takes the insight and tells a story from it. For Pantene, it's been an age old complaint that women feel that if they act too emboldened, they're considered bitches as opposed to if you were a man, it'd be fine. Cue last year's whirlwind of feminism, Sheryl Sandberg, Marissa Mayer, the countless articles addressing the topic in The Atlantic, NY Times, NY Mag. Even Beyonce's new album was used as an example of feminism and whether it was different for black women. This had nothing to do with shampoo, but it had everything to do with women and women's rights. Pantene grabbed that opportunity and jumped on it - showcasing their product in the background. Another viral hit (I sometimes wonder, if 'viral' just means heralded by the ad/media world, whereas regular consumers barely bat an eyelid). Whether or not it'll help push sales of their shampoo off the shelves, I can't say. But it did get them attention and attached them as a brand and product that 'gets' women. So it was a success for the brand, if success doesn't always have to mean sales.

The fact is, there are hundreds of insights to be found while watching television. I come across a dozen every commercial break. Groups of people had to sit around, cracking their collective brains trying to figure out what to say in their next commercial and it all comes through perhaps somewhat diluted, but lately, pretty clear in every single commercial I see. Why wouldn't I just glean insights from watching a few commercials? It's the same as curation really - I'm watching the end results of months of research coming together in a professionally put together sizzle reel, so to speak. What makes this less academic than sourcing it from a whitepaper? People tend to get obsessed with trying to come with the insight by themselves from scratch, in a roomful of data points - something revolutionary and the big 'a-ha' (hence the title of this blog). You don't really need to. You can if you want. But information is out there for the taking - why not just tune in?

Overheard on Twitter

Everyone that's bored and on the Internet would've read about the latest PR fiasco from Justine Sacco, and right off its' tail, Gogo wireless. Her tweet in itself, while definitely un-PC, has probably been uttered by a slew of comedians or drunk people during parties. That's my whole point entirely. Look at those scenarios. Context. You cannot capture context in Twitter. Twitter and any other social content curation websites are the worst at providing context. You pluck a sentence from a conversation and it's very easy for it to sound horribly worse than it is. That's why 'Overhead in....' websites are hilarious because you don't really know the full story but pick one out of every five sentences and you can turn it into a 'That's what she said' nudge-nudge joke quickly.

Twitter allows people to retweet their tweets with no relation to any prior conversation. Anyone who cares about their brand, be it corporate or personal, have to, despite how annoying it is, be aware of this. While this woman is in PR and probably has some exposure to the public, I am sure she never realized she would get picked up by the media. For example, if I'm on the street and I do something ridiculous, say, being engrossed in texting and walk into a pole, I realize that I am public domain. Literally anyone can take a photo or record me and that would be the end of it. Never mind that I was on my phone for a serious emergency, the first instinct anyone would react to when watching a video of me walking into a pole while texting would be ridicule.

I find it fairly impossible to present research that isn't unbiased. There is a difference between presenting data points, which yes, can be factual, and telling a story with data points. When storytelling, you have no choice but to form a string of information together, thereby omitting other information or building up a string of sentences to form a point of view. That's not unbiased. That's you picking a lens in which to tell your story. It can be based in facts - but it's still biased. I didn't grow up in the US, so I visit a number news sites that are non-American - some UK and some Asian. I have noticed that the same news stories can be told in entirely different perspectives, using the same facts but with nuances of words that change the story completely. I've noticed in more extroverted cultures, a quiet person can be described as 'withdrawn' whereas more introverted cultures use the word 'reserved'. Notice how this switches the connotation describing the person.

Back to the original story. In the past, it might have been that everyone was looking for their five minutes of fame, uploading photos and videos to try and strike Internet fame (evocative of settlers looking for 'liquid gold' in the Wild Wild West). Today, one would actually have to avoid it. At any step, you could explode into Internet. Your publicly shared photo on Facebook might be used for a post on Buzzfeed, a brand could pick up the tweet you hashtagged and retweet it to their million followers. The world is watching and waiting to pounce. I have several social media sites and while I am not consciously vetting my responses - I am always aware that they can be uncovered one day, in which case, I would probably suffer the same fate as the woman above because somehow, something I wrote or took a photo of would be taken out of context. I would probably delete everything, cover my tracks and try to start over. But in the mean time, I constantly remind myself that this stream of content I publish online that for some reason I feel is private, might be discovered one day.

Google Search India Reunion Video Comment.

Google videos so far have been home runs for me. The Dear Sophie one, the one with the father and daughter going off to college, their Google Chrome Everywhere ad (the Microsoft response ad to be fair, was also genius). Emotional, relevant and integrates Google perfectly with the storyline. Google isn't the leading star, but the supporting cast that helps the hero.

The latest one is about Google Search specifically - where a granddaughter looks up the long-lost childhood friend of her grandfather for his birthday and reunites them. I fell off the moment they showed how they were reunited. The woman started looking up Indian tourist visas to fly his childhood friend over (fine, maybe they're rich) but still. Seriously? In this day and age? I was so excited when the guy who handed the phone to the long-lost friend took out his own phone. I thought he was about to call back and start a Google Hangout or chat or something and reunite them instantaneously! I get that this was a Google Search commercial but why not integrate the full suite of their products? You've just located your grandfather's long lost childhood friend. You have his phone number. You have two young people with smartphones that definitely have video conferencing capabilities. Hook them up right away! Why do the montage of booking flight tickets and people reuniting? Or even just show them after reuniting and being able to keep in constant contact over video chat? This would be the perfect hook for the older generation.

My mother constantly wants to video chat with me while she's at my grandmother's so they can actually see how I've grown and how different I look. Sigh.

Missed opportunity Google.

Why I Watch South Park Reruns After Work and Newsroom Marathons on the Weekend

I read an article on FlavorPill recently that called out the difference between 'binge-watching' and 'couch potatoes', which was the inspiration for this post.

"...what really distinguishes a binge-watcher from a couch-potato: both escapists, they’re each looking to get somewhere slightly different. The binge-watcher wants to escape into a real story, one he has chosen for himself, but not one which lets him rest, exactly."

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Working in the media industry, the main part of my job is to understand how people consume media. On the very base level, how much television they watch versus how much magazines they read and with the explosion of internet, how much they go online (shoutout to Radio and Out of Home, which is nice but purely supporting roles, sorry). As going online now means a gazillion different things, my job has expanded to what they are going online for. And as I delve deeper into understanding the intent behind each behavior and mindset, the golden question always lingers. Why do they do it? What is the reason that one watches a Seinfeld marathon for hours until end? Why do people Netflix Game of Thrones and lock themselves in for an entire weekend to complete the series when they could've just as easily caught it on HBO every week?

The article above captured this subtle but very significant difference. One is simply, that people watch television for very different reasons at different times. This might seem highly obvious, but an important observation that most people bypass when trying to think of the grander scheme of where TV fits in a person's life. Surely, this one screen only has one function! Entertainment? Winding down? Information? No, have they all been outsourced to the internet? Wrong.

Think about your own life - that's how I usually start down the path of a consumer insight. I wake up in the morning and I turn on the news (I actually don't. I turn on reruns for background noise because I don't care about the news but I know people do this). In the morning, I'm thinking about my day, about what I need to accomplish that day, and importantly, how I want to look while doing it. Therefore, I need to check the weather or since it's nearing winter, if there are any train delays. The morning news is prime-time in the morning for that reason. Again, might seem obvious, but hold on to this bit of information. People are getting ready in the mornings and need to plan for the day - arm them with the necessary information, what useful bit of news or information can they gain from you before they head out the door. Don't forget your keys, end of the month, need to mail that rent cheque,  it's going to rain, bring that umbrella. My brain is a sponge in the morning, eager to absorb useful information. I've noticed that when I get invited to random informational vendor presentations in the AM, I always seem to retain more information. Albeit, everyone groans and moans about a 9AM presentation but guess what, it's the first thing you see and it's the first thing you'll store into your brain for the day. Morning is all about planning and preparation. Reminder lists, coupons, quick and easy bite-sized knowledge.

When I come home, exhausted from work, all I want to do is wind down and tune out. I'm not ready for a show filled with smart, witty repertoire yet. I often relegate to some sort of syndicated rerun - most likely an animation like the Simpsons, Family Guy or South Park. Why? Because animated sitcoms are naturally written in a way where you don't necessarily have to pay attention to the screen all the time so I can multitask while still paying attention. For some reason, I've always been able to follow the plot of an animated show without looking at the screen easier than I would a live action one. Maybe it's because there's more descriptive language going on in animated shows - pay attention and you'll notice. Especially the shows I've mentioned, which are mostly satirical, it's harder to illustrate the scenario than it is to describe it. For example, South Park is making fun of Barbara Streisand. Having a visual of her without sound, I wouldn't immediately be able to guess that was her. But adding her voice and having them usually call out 'Oh hey Barbara Streisand!' because they have to give the benefit of the doubt that the audience still wouldn't be able to tell, and I can tell what they're going for. So, while I'm cleaning up, feeding the cat, preparing dinner, I can still enjoy 'watching' TV because I understand what's going on and once in awhile, if I don't get it, I just quickly look towards the screen. It's a low-attention show that I am interested in but don't want it to grab my full attention just yet. I've burnt my dinner that way watching a new show. That's why gossip shows like TMZ and Seinfeld and reruns are all on around the 6 o'clock spot. The TV people don't want you to burn your dinner. Right after work, people are not looking to focus on  TV shows, they just want some nice background entertainment while they get along with their errands.

Finally, I've cleaned up, ate dinner, completed my various errands. What's my payoff? Dessert and a funny show? Oh my! I settle in with my ice cream, smartphone and tablet and tune into the latest episode of New Girl. If my laptop is on, it's too much of a distraction so I shut that but tablets and smartphone screens are small enough not to be enticed by. This is perfect. This is true prime time for me. I'm as engaged as I can be with my cellphone (to Whatsapp or Facebook in case something funny happens) and my tablet (for games during commercial breaks) next to me but I'm in it to win it. Not going to lie, I barely pay attention to the commercials, except that it signifies a break for my debilitating attention span so I can focus on something else. Usually it's games on my tablets but I've noticed some good commercials that have managed to grab my attention with a good song that encouraged me to Shazam them to find out what song it is (none that have yet figured out to lead me to some of their own branded content). But so far I've Shazamed the song from the Mercedes commercial (Runaway-Yeah Yeah Yeahs) and those video game commercials (I don't remember the name because the full version of the song wasn't as great) that's been tying old songs to all their video game releases which is pretty smart I have to say. So during the conventional primetime hours, people are going to be into the shows, but during commercial breaks, it's all about continuing to entertain them, and ideally, if it's related to the content or category of the show, you can ride off those coattails.

It's not possible yet to tie specific commercials to episodes but I think that would be smart once that is able to be done. Native advertising is a good way to start. The best example I've seen so far is actually Suburgatory and Lowe's. They took the Sheila Shay character, an avid gardener on the show and used her in-character on their spots during the commercial breaks, where she talks about their MyLowe's capabilities. I would have never learned about Lowe's in a commercial if it wasn't for her character continuing from the show. It doesn't have to be as literal as that though. Just match the right shows with the right brands or personalities. Lincoln was smart in tying with Mad Men. I thought the Community integrations with KFC and Subway were brilliant because it just made sense to fit in there. The one category I haven't seen doing this yet has been beauty brands. There's so many fashionable shows out there, I'm not sure why beauty brands haven't conquered a show and made it their own. Sure, Project Runway has a Tresemme booth or something along the lines, but that's literally a reality show using their product. What about just taking the 'pretty' one in every other sitcom out there and have her hawk a lipstick or two? Or even better, taking the 'smart' one, and making her look gorgeous AND smart because she uses your lipstick? Even better when you tie it in with some episode specifically about looks. Shows set in college and high school would be perfect for this.


My final comment to tie back to the initial quote I was inspired from and also my title. On the weekends, I come to the realization of how much crappy shows I've been watching because I worked too many hours or invested too much of myself into work again  (I'm at home sick and blogging about work, big surprise) and vow to make it up to myself on the weekend and watch what I really wanted to watch and not what was dictated to me by the television networks. Weekends are the rich, loamy soils of inspiration where people feel all happy and good about themselves. If you've seen Louis CK skits and how he rubs his stomach in glee and smacks his lips, that's what the weekend is. That's when marathon session indulgences happen. Weekdays are treats and rewards - like short sitcoms and desserts - the prize you deserve, the instant gratification from a hard day's work. Weekends are pure indulgence, while there is no clear reason why you deserve it, it's a lottery, it's a jackpot, you won this weekend so you can binge watch as many episodes of whatever you want. I did the Newsroom just to sound smart, but on some weekends, it's really just Roseanne or the Golden Girls on TVLand because it's smart but also familiar. Perfect for big-ticket items and expensive luxury products. Cars, electronics, a new washer/dryer if you're into that sort of thing. Impulse purchase are for chumps, e.g. the weekday, quick fixes to distract you from the monotony of work. But the weekend, that's where you really get to play.


What I've learned from all this is you cannot just delegate a single function to television (or any media channel). Good media planning requires people to consider where the creative will fit best contextually and plot it from there. The fact is that mass awareness can be spread digitally these days at much more efficient costs - why not use the big money you put into TV to really dig deep into your creative spots and fully engage your target audience? Today's consumer has reached far past beyond just wanting things for a functional purpose, everything now needs to perform its functional need but also offer some sort of added emotional value, most likely a brand association that fits perfectly with their interests. If they think they're quirky, be a quirky brand! If they think they're macho, be a macho brand. Extend your tendrils to grab onto everything around your consumer and make use of it. The show before the commercial, the television screen they're watching it on, the mobile device next to them, the beverage you know they're consuming. But be genuine about it - consumers can smell advertising a mile away. The trick is to not actually market to them, but to tell them an interesting story about your product using whatever medium you choose to. Once you get their attention, then you land them with the sell. Too many marketers go in for the kill too quickly, like an overzealous date who will eventually, strike out.