The Word Insight Has Multiple Personalities, I Simplified Each One For You

If you are reading this, you probably have wondered why comedians, data scientists, and marketing gurus constantly talk about insights so loosely and with such different meanings.

The reality is that an insight has too many meanings that depend on the context, and it often jumps from one meaning to the other. While you might be thinking “Oh well, it's just another word being misused” this lack of clarity on the matter might be the reason why companies are not achieving their goals, why some marketing campaigns feel ‘off’, and why some comedians have a not-so-funny round of jokes at the stage. 

Let's start with what an insight is. When you ask Google, multiple definitions appear on their Google Snippet. However, the most polished version comes from Oxford University: “the capacity to gain an accurate and deep intuitive understanding of a person or thing.” 

While this might be accurate, some things are missing in this definition. When it comes to data, for instance, the word ‘insight’ often explains the results of interpreting data analytics (charts, graphics, all that super fun stuff)  that gives you a certain segway to solve a company’s issue. For example, an insight could be reflected as a pattern in data that shows that a product is being used more in winter times than in the summer. For example, if Trojan sees a boost in sales during winter time and a decrease in the summer, we can conclude that more babies will be born in spring. The use of the insight in this industry is to generate accurate conclusions and take you to take action. 

In marketing, and especially in advertising, the word insight is different. Insights are a big revelation of a certain subject that will make you look at it forever in a different way. It normally comes from a deeper understanding of the motivational reasons why people think or behave in certain ways. For advertisers, this big revelation is the core reason why their campaigns (commercial, digital banners, out-of-home executions) are going in a certain path. The insight will determine the unrevealed reasons and sentiments of their audience, and they will do their best to place their company as the hero of that particular situation. One of the most admirable insights of this century comes from the Dos Equis commercials “The most interesting man in the world” back in 2006. They figured that people were less attracted to men with expensive possessions and more attracted to the ones with great stories to tell. Then that amazing campaign happened.

In comedy, for instance, insights are spotted with the sole intention of making people laugh. Comedians do a great job at observing certain behaviors of people that will give them material to make jokes. While this is great for their industry, not all jokes come from insights, and many of their insights are actually social observations.

The difference between a Social Observation and an Insight A social observation comes from the repetition of beliefs and behaviors of certain groups of people. A social observation example could be: Married women love to ask their husbands to run errands just when they are starting to take a break. While this might be true or not (if you are reading this and you are married, you know it’s true), it is the repetitive component of this observation that makes it real and true for an audience. 

The missing component for it to be an insight is the reason or sentiment behind it. In other words, once you find a social observation, you are just one step away from finding the insight behind it. In this case, the insight could be: Married Women love to ask their husbands to run errands because they know there are still too many things to do for them to be too relaxed. 

Accurate or not, my only purpose here is to showcase how close a social observation is to an insight, and how an insight gives you the revelation of sentiments that will make you see things in a different way forever.

 It is important to take notice that any type of insight is valuable information. Whether it is to make people laugh or to understand a certain group of people or behavior, insights are precious information that should only be shared once it's being utilized correctly. Think about it this way, most companies start their business endeavors by finding one insight of a group of people. Most comedians start their careers by finding the most amount of insights, and many data scientists get to managerial roles by making conclusions with their data findings. Whatever you use it for, please do not waste any insight.