BBC America

Long time client BBC America has a track record of providing ahead-of-the-curve content to ahead-of-the-curve viewers. As such, keeping up to date on the needs of its targets is critical to the network’s success. They asked Insight to help optimize a new brand positioning.

We started by understanding what needs the BBC America brand and programming fill for its viewers. Our next step was to define different BBC America viewers and understand their unique relationships with BBC America before and after seeing an evolved brand offering. We were curious—how would they react to BBC America’s new brand twist on the British Invasion?

Viewers spoke and we determined the new positioning works! And we provided BBC America with a tiered targeting strategy for growth.

Bands in Town

Want to know more?  Contact us: info@insightstrategygroup.com

Chorion

Imagine you’re four, and someone takes you to a place you’ve never been, with strange creatures, a fantastical setting, and eight new friends. That was the exciting yet daunting prospect of The Octonauts, a preschool property that introduces kids to undersea life. The Chorion team suspected they had a hit on their hands, but were unsure
how to make this exotic world and large cast of characters developmentally appropriate for preschoolers. On top of that, they had to please parents in multiple countries.

Grounded in research with kids and parents, we consulted on concept refinement and launch strategy. We created a brand book, reviewed scripts, and illuminated how to foster the property’s natural play patterns via consumer products. Kids the world over are now chanting “Explore! Rescue! Protect!” And moms and mums are happy to let their kids dive in.

Comedy Central & Spike

With smart phone and tablet usage moving faster than an Angry Bird in a slingshot, all the media world is in a scramble to figure out the best ways to use mobile technology to extend their brands. MTVN Entertainment Group saw particular potential for Comedy Central and Spike, and commissioned Insight to make them experts on smart phone users. That we did.

Through an innovative research design that included depriving self-described “tech-geeks”
of their beloved smart phones (gasp!), we uncovered not only behavior patterns but also the psychological needs that compel people to check their Facebook updates and forward the latest Colbert quip. We found that the joy and pain of “always on” connectivity had clear implications for all aspects of media consumption.

Our segmentation and consumer profiles gave the MTVN team clear direction for media development, as well as ways to monetize mobile content in partnership with advertisers. 

Corus Entertainment

Corus Entertainment came to us for help with reinventing everyone’s favorite elephant. They were creating a new Babar animated series, Babar and the Adventures of Badou, and had specific goals and aspirations for international property distribution. Corus sought to understand how to build on Babar’s heritage and position this exciting new world to kids and families in the US and Europe.

To understand how kids and moms were connecting with the property, we did qualitative research that was very hands-on, evaluating all pillars of the brand from branding to broadcast and toy directions.

Watching kids “play” Babar was a trunkful of fun!

At study’s end, we provided the Corus team with clear brand positioning as well as the product directions that will resonate most with moms and kids.

Discovery Networks

Discovery Networks engaged us in an authority study to uncover answers to a big question: Why do people watch TV?

To draw the connection between people’s deep psychological needs and the TV they watch, we first spoke with media experts and psychologists, then conducted deeply personal in-home interviews with consumers across the country about their lives and their needs, and why they watch what they watch. What’s the hook of Snooki? Why lose yourself in Lost?

Our findings provided not only a conceptual understanding of the American TV viewer, but also concrete strategic implications for Discovery Networks programming.

Daily Candy

Want to know more?  Contact us: info@insightstrategygroup.com

eMusic

Yeah, yeah, video killed the radio star. But will the digital cloud murder the MP3 maestro?

eMusic, the membership-based digital music service, needed to know. In a landscape that’s changing faster than Lady Gaga’s wardrobe, eMusic wanted to predict the cultural progression and ensure they were targeting the right consumers with the right offerings.

Our research tracked the core aspects of consumers’ music experience, from their first listen to after they downloaded it or shared it with friends. We uncovered the essence of why people listen to music, and the benefits of owning vs. streaming.

Our findings gave eMusic a deep understanding of the crowded and clouded space they play in, a motivating consumer target, and a powerful brand position to help win them over.

iVillage

Want to know more?  Contact us: info@insightstrategygroup.com

MTV

Wanting to maintain its status as an emblem for youth culture, MTV came to us to demystify the new Millennial generation – who they are, what they like, and why they end all their wordz with z’s.

We embarked on an enormous and ongoing partnership with MTV that has helped them understand Millennials holistically and keep up with their rapidly evolving tastes and behaviors. An initial authority study has since led to immersive “Millennial Days,” quarterly pilot testing of their entire programming slate, and intermittent deep dives into topics like gaming, relationship to marketing, and programming needs.

Our findings have become part of MTV’s DNA and have helped the MTV team intuitively understand its audience members and super-serve them with media that hits home, creates buzz, and pushes the edge of cool.

MTVN Digital

MTVN Digital came to us with a mammoth challenge – to understand what triggers its audience to interact with online advertising across its diverse portfolio of sites.

With 360°ethnographies and an intricate web of a survey (pun intended!), we explored how relationships to MTVN brands, content, and online behavior (e.g., social networking, gaming, researching) shape users’ preferences for advertising formats and content. Because consumers don’t readily admit their ad-related behaviors, we came up with a creative way to uncover the truth, sourcing the information from several angles and weighing what consumers say against their ultimate behaviors. And follow up Activation Labs allowed us to see, in real-time, what advertising was most compelling.

Our work fueled Ad Sales pitches by proving the value of the MTVN audience, and also enabled MTVN to recommend the best MTVN brands for clients to advertise with and the best types of ads for each site.

Nickelodeon

Nickelodeon and Insight kind of grew up together. We started working with Nick when they were just a little splat, testing pilots for favorites like The Rugrats, Blue's Clues, Dora the Explorer, The Fairly OddParents, iCarly, Drake & Josh, and  the ever-porous SpongeBob SquarePants.

As Nick grew from a beloved TV network to a family entertainment behemoth, our projects together became increasingly strategic, tackling topics like gaming, consumer product needs, sibling relationships, social media, and the gigundo, ongoing task of building their united, multi-platform brand, ensuring that each sub-brand has its place in the family, and is headed in the best direction.

We’re very proud of this collaboration, and look forward to an animated future together.

Quantifying fatherhood

To further its authority on men, Spike came to us with a unique challenge – to find a way to quantify fatherhood. We leveraged our expertise in media and parenting to develop custom and proprietary methods to explore the many ways that fathers today build close relationships with their kids, and measure which had the strongest impact.

Busting myths, we found that, rather than guidance, dads need a pat on the back for a job well done. Implications helped Spike connect emotionally with its viewers, informing strategies for programming, ad sales, marketing, and communications (including a public service campaign aimed at fostering healthy dad/kid relationships). The study garnered significant attention for Spike, including first prize at the 2008 CTAM Research Conference.

Real Simple

Becoming a multimedia go-to source for women is anything but simple. Yet that is the task the Real Simple team undertook, fueled by our research.

Step one was understanding women’s needs throughout the day, and the platforms and information sources they currently use and trust. Our not-so-simple process involved qualitative and quantitative explorations on multiple platforms, to catch the various aspects of women’s complicated daily lives and distill them into a compelling and differentiated strategy for Real Simple. Our work helped map different types of content on different platforms to archetypes of women who were craving them.

This new authority on women’s needs proved to be quite a boon for the Ad Sales team, and also provided inspiration to writers, editors, and designers.

Scripps Networks

We have a long history with Scripps Networks, including HGTV, DIY Network, and Food Network. Projects have ranged from strategic portfolio brand work and brand tracking to tactical studies informing on-air and web properties.

We are especially proud of our exploration of on-air diversity across the portfolio, uncovering the perspectives of minority audiences. As a direct outcome of focusing on this issue, in five years HGTV:

Sony BMG Music Entertainment & Napster

When Sony BMG Music Entertainment purchased Napster, they were purchasing more than a file-sharing service – they were aligning themselves with a renegade brand known for its daring innovation. They wanted to capitalize on this opportunity with new products, but lacked direction for which direction to move.

In Innovation Labs with tech-savvy consumers, we took a bunch of “wouldn’t it be cool?” ideas and super-coolified them. And then group discussions and a survey among regular ole consumers helped us understand which ideas held the best potential in the general marketplace.

Sony BMG was left not only with a clear direction for moving forward, but also the features and functions necessary to make those products a hit, and the inspiration for future product invention.

The Orchard

Want to know more?  Contact us: info@insightstrategygroup.com

Warner Brothers

Warner Brothers came to us with a task that was anything but nonchalant. They sought a deep understanding of the casual online gaming space and its gamers. They needed a clear picture of casual gaming’s present and future that would inform their strategic business decisions.

We started by defining casual gamers—not only by their ideal game genres, but by the key emotional benefits they sought from playing games, their media consumption patterns, properties that appealed to them, and their engagement patterns with advertising and competitors. 

Our next stage of analysis pinpointed the key gamer segments who represented the most opportunity for Warner Brothers in the casual online gaming space. We determined that casual online gaming had a bright, solid, and serious future. We left Warner Brothers with a strategic direction to follow for a high score.

AMC Theaters

Want to know more?  Contact us: info@insightstrategygroup.com

AOL

Want to know more?  Contact us: info@insightstrategygroup.com

Classic Media

Want to know more?  Contact us: info@insightstrategygroup.com

DreamWorks

Want to know more?  Contact us: info@insightstrategygroup.com

ESPN

Want to know more?  Contact us: info@insightstrategygroup.com

Food Network

Want to know more?  Contact us: info@insightstrategygroup.com

HGTV

Want to know more?  Contact us: info@insightstrategygroup.com

Lifetime

Want to know more?  Contact us: info@insightstrategygroup.com

National Geographic

Want to know more?  Contact us: info@insightstrategygroup.com

Paramount

Want to know more?  Contact us: info@insightstrategygroup.com

Philips

Want to know more?  Contact us: info@insightstrategygroup.com

Scholastic

Want to know more?  Contact us: info@insightstrategygroup.com

Sundance Channel

Want to know more?  Contact us: info@insightstrategygroup.com

Syfy

Want to know more?  Contact us: info@insightstrategygroup.com

Time Inc

Want to know more?  Contact us: info@insightstrategygroup.com

VH1

Want to know more?  Contact us: info@insightstrategygroup.com

Warner Brothers

Want to know more?  Contact us: info@insightstrategygroup.com

YTV

Want to know more?  Contact us: info@insightstrategygroup.com