MROC Tip (TMRE post #5) & “Insight” (TMRE part #6)

by Robert Moran, Strategy OneTMRE Post #5:

 

Dawn Lacallade at ComBlu gives those venturing into the insights community (MROC) space a helpful tip.

Instead of utilizing a massive intake survey to screen MROC participants and build rigorous demographic profiles, utilize a small intake survey and then add additional demographic questions after the community is launched. This can be done with brief, one question, demographic surveys once the community is launched.

TMRE Post #6

Here at The Market Research Event in San Diego we hear the word “insight” frequently.

We hear this at every market research conference.

But, how do we define an “insight” and how do we segment insights? After all, insights come in a number of flavors.

Interestingly, when you ask market researchers to define an insight you tend to hear a response that is less specific and concrete than you might expect.

Some definitions I have heard are:

“an aha moment”
“a trend or undiscovered need that we have the capacity to fill.”

This is a central challenge.

The industry is tasked with delivering insights, but it has not clearly defined the term or broken it into a taxonomy.

The strongest attempt at insight definition and taxonomy is in Smith and Raspin’s “Creating Market Insight.”

Here the authors:

1. Use the VRIO framework to define an insight
2. Create a rough draft of an insight taxonomy based on 3 dimensions: continuous vs. discontinuous, narrow vs. broad, and transient vs. lasting. My view is that this taxonomy can be improved based on anticipated vs. unanticipated findings.

These are good starting points and ones I hope the industry builds on.

Maybe someday at TMRE we’ll have a universal insight taxonomy that we use to discuss our business at a more detailed level.