It’s time to start understanding the Why, behind the What

Published on 23 11 2018

Blog Simon McDonald – Managing Director UK

DVJ Insights were once again a sponsor and partner to the AAI conference in London this year. The conference is one of the few and first to join data analytics, insight and market research to address the specific challenges faced by advertisers, media agencies and media owners. One of the key themes of the day was about understanding the Why behind the What.

Data is useless if you don’t understand the Why

It’s great to have lots of data and to know what your audience is doing. But it’s useless if you don’t know why they are doing it. This fits with the DVJ Insights philosophy of including mass qualitative and storytelling techniques into our solutions to give you more than just a number. In a project for a major food manufacturer, we explored snacking habits by asking 1.000 millennials to describe their last and ideal savoury snack across five European countries.  By measuring the gap, we uncovered both differences across countries – the Poles like strong, spicy savoury snacks, the French want chocolate in their savoury snacks! – as well as building a roadmap based on niche and major product gaps and areas. All underpinned by insight into why the products were desired.

But understanding the Why, is quite time- and money consuming, right?

That’s a thing of the past. Our presentation focused on how easy2survey from DVJ Insights is helping clients to understand the why, quicker, cheaper and better (instead of picking two!). By solving the iron triangle, we deliver results in 24 hours and at a far cheaper cost than before. This allows clients to measure for instance all copy across all channels and markets, at a fraction of the previous cost and time. With quality guaranteed thanks to DVJ validated methods.

Following the Italian Farmer’s wisdom

One question remains: When do you start? Among the many presentations, Bambos Neophytou, Brand Director at Simply Health, spoke about the reality of building an attribution model. In summary, attribution modelling can be hard – if you make it hard – but everyone has to start somewhere. It reminded me of the old Italian Farmer who was asked why he was planting a lime tree when he would likely not be alive to taste the fruit. His wise answer was “the best time to plant a lime tree was 10 years ago…. the second-best time to plant one is today”.

Making it simple and breaking down departmental silos can bring early results. So, it’s time to start understanding the why behind all the data. Of course, we all have to start somewhere. And the best time in this data rich world, is now.

 

Contact Simon McDonald (simon.mcdonald@dvj-insights.com) for more information or go to the AAI website https://aa-insight.eu/

Simon McDonald

Managing Director UK

https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonmcdonald/