Every business exists to fulfil a human need. In order to go beyond the superficial, it is important to immerse oneself into the vastness and intricacy of the human behind the need.

Human beings are complex – we don’t do what we say and we don’t say what we do. Which is why we are often poor predictors of our own behaviour. This is because our lives are full of workarounds and trade-offs. We live with constraints and conflicting needs.

Many businesses build brands based on theoretical principles, they build what is similar to existing market solutions.

Few brands are built on real human insight. Not the kind of insight that is found at a surface level. But the kind that is forged from the lived reality of the consumer. It comes from understanding what people do, and not merely asking them what they think.

Action is a reflector of thinking more than words are. Words can be masked and filtered and often are insufficient to represent true feelings. What is real is context and behaviour - this is often the ground from which human insights emerge.

Real consumer understanding requires investment. In time. In presence. In listening. In the willingness to sit with discomfort and complexity and seeing new possibilities rather than fit what we see into existing thinking.

The true test of an insight is hence, in its application. What you do with an insight is more important than the insight itself.

The more nuanced and layered the human insight, the more likelier you are to unearth a need that is fresh and unknown. These needs have to be created as they currently are not represented by existing products or brands in a category.

Hence, the business has to lead the way with a new perspective derived from this insight. This is where imagination comes in. The right human insight imagined into a fresh idea can be a powerful brand differentiator.