What is it that makes a brand campaign not just noticed, but felt? In a word? Insight.
But not just any insight. If it’s effectiveness and long-term brand impact you’re after, we need something more than insight. Something uncomfortable, honest, and sometimes messy, but real.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. First things first.
What is an insight?
Everything we do at MadeBrave starts with insight.
It’s my job as a strategist to uncover them for the brands and campaigns we work on. And yes, there are lots of views out there on what an insight is and isn’t, but for us an insight boils down to three things:
- An insight is a truth that is hiding in plain sight (To quote Mark Pollard directly). It helps us understand people’s feelings, motivations, and behaviour on a deeper level, often by stepping into their shoes.
- Insight takes us beyond what is happening, to why it matters. It goes beyond data or facts; it adds meaning, context, and empathy.
- A good insight explains behaviour and gives direction for action. It’s the difference between creative guesswork and creative effectiveness.
In short, insights are not about what you see, they’re about what you suddenly understand.
This isn’t fine art. It’s not academic theory. Everything we do is part of a commercial endeavour. That means insights can’t just sit there, they have to move. They have to lead to something. And this is what can take us to the next level, beyond mere insights to human truth.
The power of human truths
Human truths are often unspoken. They live in the messiness of emotion, motivation, contradiction. But when you find one and you frame it in a way that feels real, it becomes deeply relatable. That’s when people nod along and say, “that’s so true.”
But you don’t have to take my word for it. Consumer marketing expert, Kate Hardcastle, puts it this way –
“You don’t need more data. You need better questions. The best insights come when you ask uncomfortable questions.”
Or as research professor Isobel Silvester says –
“Human truths can’t be made. They’re only discovered. They’re artefacts hiding in plain sight.”
So for us, an insight without a human truth behind it is only doing half the job. But when those two things meet? That’s when you get work that connects and ultimately delivers.
Real campaigns built on truth
1. “You only ever sh*t on your own”
That was the phrase that stopped us in our tracks when we carried out some research for Catherine McEwan. We’d gone in expecting to hear about fatigue and pain. We didn’t expect to hear about isolation. But it was a recurring theme; IBD made people feel utterly alone.
So, we created a campaign that spoke to that raw truth. With next-to-no budget, it delivered over 30 million impressions and hundreds of thousands in earned media. Why? Because it said what others wouldn’t, and what sufferers deeply recognised.
2. To What Matters
For Highland whisky brand Tomatin, the opportunity was volume, but the challenge was awareness. Through our research, we discovered that in a post-pandemic world, people weren’t just buying for taste, they were buying for togetherness.
The brand platform “To What Matters” became a toast to real life: shared, simple, and meaningful. A repositioning rooted not in product, but in people.
3. The Blue Balloon
For people living with Type 1 diabetes, life is a constant balancing act. That became the core insight behind a global medical device brand campaign that’s now run for five years, reached 200+ million people, and been recognised in parliaments around the world.
The creative metaphor? Living with T1D is like trying to keep a balloon in the air, all day long, without dropping it. Unseen, unrelenting, and unforgiving, but universally understood.
4. Dove real beauty
Look at Dove. Their “Real Beauty” platform started with one painful statistic: only 2% of women worldwide considered themselves beautiful– thanks to years of fake beauty in advertising for decades. That truth has now fuelled over 20 years of global campaigns and started a movement, redefining beauty in advertising around the world.
5. The Feeling of Moving Forward
First Bus were evolving fast. New tech, greener fleets, better service. But the brand hadn’t kept up. Through customer research, we found people didn’t see buses as a modern choice. The insight? Progress only matters if people feel it.
That’s the power of insight. That’s what happens when your brand gets real.
Next stop – creativity
Insight doesn’t just inform the work, it ignites it.
A powerful insight sparks original ideas. It gives creatives something to feel, not just something to solve. When we understand what really matters to people, we create work that’s meaningful, not just clever.
It also makes the work braver. With a strong human truth at the core, we don’t need to polish or over-explain.
Insights create the tension that great ideas solve. Creativity thrives on contradiction. Insight is the tension, and creativity is the release. That’s the spark that takes work from good to unforgettable.
If you’re simply aiming for attention or quick wins, you can absolutely deliver those without mining human truths. But if you’re striving to build a brand that truly resonates, one that lives inside people’s lives, sparks recognition, and earns trust—then these deeper, emotionally grounded insights aren’t optional “nice‑to‑haves.” They’re essential.
Only when insights are rooted in human truth can brands transcend messaging and forge connections people actually feel, remember and believe in.
