The leap from information to insight (and why it's so hard to make)

“Insight” might be the hardest-working word in this industry. It's on every brief, it's the header on every research summary, and it gets said out loud in every kickoff.

A lot of the time, what's labelled as an ‘insight’ is just a fact.

That might sound like semantics. But knowing the difference can determine whether the work you get on the other side of a briefing feels like a breakthrough, or a letdown. That’s why it’s worth parsing what an insight actually is, why it isn't the same as the statistic sitting beside it, and why landing one can make or break your work.

First, a primer. The insight section on your brief is informed from two perspectives: strategy and creative. The strategic job is to push past a data point and identify the relevance behind it. And the creative job is to confirm that insight can be translated into the work itself.

Because of that shared responsibility, we asked members of our strategy, accounts and creative teams to share their perspective on insights. Here’s where they agreed, and where those perspectives diverged — illustrating why insights are such a finicky, but essential, part of your brief.

Information versus insight — the difference between what, and why

“An insight is a deep, unique understanding of customer behaviour,” explains Tom Boresky, our Group Creative Director. “Other aspects of the brief can tell you what is happening. The insight points to why.” Show and Tell’s EVP Audra Lesosky agrees: “An insight is born from data, not a restatement of it.”

She goes further: “Information is cold. Insights should feel warm. That doesn't make the stats disposable — they're the proof points that validate an insight and keep it honest.”

To support this, Audra offered up the following (real) example from a retail campaign the agency was engaged on.

Information: Denim is a fabric with a ‘memory’ that reshapes to the wearer over time.

Insight: More than any other piece of clothing, people have a personal relationship with their jeans.

Spot the difference? The first is a fabric-science fact — accurate, useful, even interesting. But it tells you nothing about the consumer’s state of mind. The second is a human truth you could build years of brand work on (we did). It’s a departure from the facts, but the connective tissue between ‘memory’, ‘shape’, ‘time’ in the information — and ‘relationship’ in the insight — are obvious. And it’s focused on the buyer, not the product itself. No wonder it resulted in campaign creative like this.

Client credit: Warehouse One

If you can trace an ‘insight’ straight back to a line in a research deck with nothing changed along the way, it's a finding. Findings are valuable. They're just not the same thing.

The leap from information to insight is the agency’s job

If that seems like a difficult distinction, that’s because it is. Well-stated information can seem insightful. And spotting the difference is a learned skill.

Luckily for you, that’s not your job. It’s ours.

In an agency/client relationship, the information is your contribution, and the leap is ours. You hand over what you know — the data, the segmentation, the category history, the thing the sales floor keeps hearing. All of it is essential: no one can ‘invent’ a human truth out of thin air.

Information matters: No one can ‘invent’ a human truth out of thin air.

What happens next is on us. “Making the leap from information to insight is one of the toughest, and most important jobs an account manager or a strategist does,” Audra says. “It's also why two agencies handed an identical research deck will come back with two completely different campaigns. There's no one right creative solution.”

It's a noticing problem, not a reading problem

The raw material almost never contains an insight in plain sight. “The hard part is figuring out what the data is telling us, not just what it says,” Audra says. That gap doesn't close with more research — you can commission another study and end up exactly where you were, holding a larger pile of ‘what’.

Jesse Cringan, VP Accounts, offers this analogy: “Think about great stand up comedy: it’s rooted in insight. The Monday morning pitch meeting at a show like SNL is functionally an insights meeting — a room of people saying ‘I noticed that thing where…’ Nobody's presenting a chart. They're presenting something so specific and so recognizable that the room nods before it laughs.”

The analogy holds: facts are widely available and fairly obvious. But the take, the perspective — the insight — is unique, requires specificity, and earns the laugh.

Or in your case, an engagement.

Is an insight earned, or felt? (Answer: yes)

While there’s alignment on why an insight’s important, our team has slightly different reads on how you know when you’ve got one.

Tom's answer is rigour. “Insights are hard because they aren't obvious,” he says. “It can take a lot of research and experience — both professional and lived — to land on a unique insight. Much like a great idea, you don't just wake up one morning and decide you're going to come up with one.” From Tom’s perspective, an insight is the output of accumulated work. You earn it, or you don't get it.

Much like a great idea, you don't just wake up one morning and decide you're going to come up with an insight.

Audra's approach is a little more art than science. It makes room for instinct that’s grounded in the research — but not so constrained that you need to draw a straight line from a specific data point. “If it feels inspiring and true to what you know about your business, your experience and your audience, it's probably a good insight,” she explains, warning that it comes with a condition most organizations aren't built for: it takes trust from leadership when an insight is ambiguous.

The friction between rigour and instinct is a working condition of the job. Rigour on its own earns you the right to a logical leap, and the proof to defend it. But on its own, it may not inspire. On the other hand, instinct without foundation yields vibes (and not much more).

A great insight opens doors — it doesn’t walk through them

It’s also important to note that an insight is intended to be a directional sign, not a destination. “Creative teams will intrinsically know if an insight is something they can run with,” Audra says. “It should be specific enough to feel true and unique, and still broad enough to spark more than one solution to the challenge. More simply, it leads to creative solutions, but it shouldn't be the creative solution.” Something that inspires without painting creative into a corner is the true alchemy of a powerful insight.

An insight inspires without painting creative into a corner.

Tom cosigns this: “A solid insight allows us to hit the ground running. It ensures we explore the right kinds of ideas and tactics to address the challenge at hand — thematically, tonally and aesthetically.” He adds: “There is nothing new under the sun, but a great insight can lead to a fresh perspective and visual interpretation.”

Which shows why landing on an insight is a negotiation, not a handoff — and why account leads and strategists need to understand how creative people think to strike the balance.

Two things you can do to make the leap likelier

None of this is work we're handing back to you. But understanding the distinction makes setting your agency (and really, your work) up for success a whole lot easier.

First, when handing over research and background information to your agency, send the unglamorous material too — let us worry about sorting through it. Messy verbatims, complaint logs, sales-floor anecdotes, stuff your category insiders find obvious. An insight can come from anywhere... and it usually isn’t evident in the research deck’s executive summary.

And second: trust your gut — and ours. When we present an insight that’s based on instinct, feel free to challenge it by asking what data it’s grounded in. But don’t dismiss it outright for making an instinctive leap beyond the data. If you’re excited by the idea but nervous about the leap it’s making, that probably means we’re on to something. And that’s where focus testing comes in. 

If you’re nervous about the leap, that probably means we’re on to something.

Conversely, if an insight feels off in your bones even though the data supports it: it probably is. You know your company better than anyone (and we know you do). Again, focus testing can help alleviate your concerns here. But if an insight feels wrong, it usually is.

A strong creative insight is the difference between something pretty, and something persuasive. If your advertising is nice to look at but fails to move the needle, you may need an insight intervention. 

Reach out to Show and Tell for a FREE discovery call about your creative strategy.