Using data and research can uncover customer insights that can drive growth and change how you see your business
A true customer insight can transform your brand.
Just ask Victoria Lozano. She’s executive vice president of marketing at Crayola, a brand whose products have long been considered to be for kids.
Lozano shared the story at this fall’s ANA Masters of Marketing conference of how Crayola identified a key audience insight that has helped the company unlock sales to an entirely new audience — adults.
Her presentation reinforces a core truth that brands willing to dig into data and conduct research can uncover customer insights that will help them:
- better understand their current and potential customers
- create more effective marketing campaigns
- drive business growth
- change how they see their business going forward
Crayola’s ‘A-ha’ Customer Insights and New Campaigns
In her presentation, Lozano shared the key customer insights that revealed a big gap in customer beliefs and helped reshape Crayola’s thinking about who would use its products:
- A whopping 92% of parents believe that creativity has lifelong benefits for their kids
- But only 55% of parents think they themselves are creative
As a brand with 89% market penetration of households with kids, these customer data points inspired Crayola to pursue sales with adults and educators through campaigns that give those audiences permission to be creative, just like kids.
Crayola developed a foundational idea that “Kids need a champion.” From that concept, the company launched campaigns including Creativity Week, where Crayola supports educators in making creativity a core classroom focus for that week.
In 2023, the Creativity Week campaign has resulted in:
- 195+ educators participating across 77 countries
- 3.5 million+ students engaged in creative activities offered daily
- 615 million impressions of celebrity videos supporting the campaign
- 97% of participants planning to take part in Creativity Week 2024
Based on that success, Crayola is planning even more adult-focused campaigns in 2024, Lozano said.
Finding customer insights is driven by curious marketers who explore data and conduct research.
Successful Campaigns Based on Deep Customer Insights
Many other brands have turned a customer insight into game-changing and iconic activity and campaigns.
- Coca-Cola was among the first brands to understand the insight that customers expect greater personalization. The company created its “Share-a-Coke campaign” that puts individual names on their packaging. That campaign led to an +11% sales lift and 1.6% growth in share.
- Brunner’s campaigns for YellaWood pressure treated pine are based on the consumer insight that modern homeowners treat their deck as an outdoor summer living room. Brunner developed a category-redefining approach called “YellaWood for Five-Star Backyards” to power messaging and creative assets, including award-winning video spots. Those campaigns are maintaining YellaWood’s position as a category leader, including as the top performer against competitors in all branding metrics. Read the YellaWood case study.
- Dove based its ground-breaking “Real Beauty” campaign the consumer insight that only 2% of women around the world consider themselves beautiful. The “Real Beauty” campaign focused on real women of all shapes, sizes, and ages and encouraged women to embrace their natural beauty. Dove reported a 700% increase in sales in the decade following the campaign’s launch.
Three Key Steps to Finding Customer Insights
Finding customer insights is driven by curious marketers who explore data and conduct research. At Brunner, we recommend three basic steps to uncover customer insights.
Step 1: Collect Your Data
The first step in finding customer insights is to collect data. Many clients start with their own customer data, which can reveal patterns, trends, and audience segments. Additional data sources include consumer trend reports by industry, search demand analysis, consumer insights from platforms like Resonate, and social media listening like Sprout Social, both of which Brunner uses. Industry news articles and reporting can also provide valuable insights.
The key is to be as grounded as possible in the relevant data from reliable, verifiable, and credible sources. Where necessary, you can round out your data with first-party research, both quantitative and qualitative, such as focus groups, shop-alongs, and surveys.
Step 2: Analyze Your Data
Once you have collected data, the next step is to synthesize what you have and analyze your findings across your various sources. Look for patterns and trends in the data to help you better understand your customers. Is a new topic starting to appear? Does a certain activity over-index with your core audience? From the analysis, you may be able to segment your customers based on demographics, behavior, or other factors.
The more work you put into step one, the more you can unearth at this stage. Research from Microsoft found that organizations that leverage their customer behavior data to generate insights outperform their peers by 85% in sales growth.
Step 3: Transform Your Data into Actionable Insights
The final step is to transform the patterns you find in your data into actionable insights. This skill becomes stronger over time and works most effectively when your process pulls in diverse voices from within your organization, from external perspectives, and from a trusted partner like Brunner.
When you uncover an actionable insight, you’ll recognize that it provides a unique and deeper understanding of why something happens with your customers. That understanding can change how you see your business in fundamental ways — as Crayola did — and inspire ideas for more effective marketing campaigns that resonate with customers and drive business growth.
Look for patterns and trends in the data to help you better understand your customers.
Ready to Find Your Customer Insights?
At Brunner, we work with clients to surface customer insights that solve an issue or change your brand in ways they never thought possible. We can fast-track steps one and two, especially if your organization operates in one of Brunner’s areas of strong category experience, such as building supplies, consumer packaged goods and wellness, food service, financial services, and higher education.
If you’d like to get started, we’d love to learn more about your situation. We can share more examples of brands generating results through customer insights. Please get in touch to begin a conversation.
Patrick Culhane, director of business strategy and development, has 21 years of agency experience in brand strategy, planning, and development. He has a BA in Marketing and the Psychology of Communication from De Montfort University and recently completed the ANA’s Integrated Marketing Certificate. Patrick advocates for diversity marketing as a brand growth source and co-presented at the Atlanta Business Chronicle and Brunner co-sponsored event, “Growth Through Diversity.” He’s a proud juror at the 2023 ANA REGGIE Awards.