Capturing the Peacock — A quest for consumer insight
Every effective marketing campaign works because it gets the consumer right. There is something about the ads that make us say ‘that’s about me’. This is what is called the ‘consumer insight’, and if you’re a marketing manager, you’ve chased it with zeal.
The end goal of finding the consumer insight is to position your product as the solution: ‘I wish I could fit into my high school jeans’: Kelloggs says, ‘Try Special K’. ‘I don’t want cavities’: Colgate presents itself as the oral care solution for you, recommended by 9 out of 10 dentists. All of these problem statements are based on basic human needs. For e.g.: If you want to look slimmer, your need is self-esteem and if you want healthy teeth, your need is to feel safe. Now try writing an insight for lipstick; really, try it.
You probably came up with something like ‘I want to look beautiful / sexy’. That’s a good start and if you tell your consumer that your lipstick will make her look beautiful (convincingly enough), you’ll probably convert a sale. But then, she* will turn around, go to your competition and buy another shade of lipstick. It may astound you, but she may buy up to 10 shades of lipstick, without batting an eye lid. She ‘needed’ only 1 to make her beautiful.
How do you articulate the motivations or the needs that lead to this type of consumer behaviour?

Consumer insights for women are easy to write when you see them as fulfilling a function: a mother wants to feed her child nutritious food; a wife wants to give her husband a clean shirt to wear. But what about the aspects of being a woman that supposedly do not fulfill a function, such as feeling stylish or wanting to be noticed (irrespective of whether she is single or not). When not placed in context of seeking a mate, what use do beauty or fashion have? Why do women spend on and enjoy crafting beautiful, elaborate versions of themselves for no one in particular? Society tends to dismiss these instincts without attempting to understand them. But for someone trying to build a brand based on this instinct, the investigation must go further.
Here’s what I understand about these needs so far:
1. They are individualistic — Trends make an appearance on our social media feeds on a weekly basis (see ‘cold shoulders’ or ‘unicorn make-up’) and many women do try them out. But there are many more than don’t. Do these women stop spending during the lifetime of a trend or are they choosing to remain on their own journey to find something that will ‘suit their style’
2. They evolve faster than other needs — What a woman thinks is the best style for her today may be completely different from what she believed a year ago. The environment plays a significant role in this evolution and so does the stage of her life. Starting a new job will lead to a considerable time and effort spent on creating a new version of herself.
3. Their fulfillment depends on a very specific type of acknowledgement — Let me paint you a picture. A young girl in her early twenties gets dressed in a black pair of torn jeans, black nail polish and heavy eye make-up. Her bag has metal studs on it and she’s wearing big clunky boots. She walks into a café, and her friend tells her she looks pretty. You can imagine her chagrin. It’s like her friend has not read the statement she is trying to make.
The third point is very telling. It brings us closer to articulating and classifying this group of needs. And the best option for a name I’ve found so far is ‘self-expression’#. I like to think of it as ‘the peacock’ in all of us, driven by instinct to show off its own unique colours.
A better understanding of these needs may bring us closer to articulating the insights for our products. It is a journey I’m still on. And given the changing economic and distribution landscape of our country, it is imperative to keep digging. So many categories of products defy the traditional process of finding the ‘insight’. Why do you NEED quirky mobile accessories? Or tales of exotic travels to post on Instagram? Or a sneaker collection? Or a Reddit handle, for that matter? It’s the peacock emerging in all of us. It takes pleasure in self-expression, in being ‘seen’ a certain way. It is saying to world, ‘See me as I am and see me as I become.’
*this article has been written using nouns, pronouns and examples for the female gender solely because of the projects I’ve personally been working on. Men also seek self-expression in many ways, though, anecdotally speaking, they seem less likely to seek it via altering their style choices.
**these types of depictions pervade advertising and I personally consider them sexist. The argument to continue with what works however may be too strong to hold brands accountable for them.
#Not to be confused with ‘self-actualization’ which comprehends many more things in its definition