The Magic of Insight - Projects that Moved Us

Edgardo de la Garza: Welcome back to Moderating Life, DLG’s 20th anniversary podcast. I am Edgardo. 

Elvia de la Garza: And I am Elvia. And in this episode we’re talking about something that’s at the heart of why we do this work. The magic of insight. 

Edgardo de la Garza: Yes. It’s that moment when a cultural truth or a human behavior you’ve been observing suddenly becomes clear and meaningful, and eventually you’ll see it show up on product shelves or in a campaign.

And those are the goosebumps moments. 

Elvia de la Garza: Yes, the kind of insights that stay with you even after the report is delivered. 

Edgardo de la Garza: Yes, and I have one for you. It’s a great example. This was for Sonic Drive-in the press the button campaign. The client wanted to increase their presence in the Hispanic community, so we conducted research with immigrants and first generation Hispanics, and we uncover some wonderful insights.

The first one is that the concept of Drive-in it was completely foreign because we don’t have drive-ins in Latin America, so the concept of ordering and pressing a button was very new and unfamiliar with them. So, um.

Many times they would drive in and expecting service, not knowing that you have to press a button. So that was a big cultural break there. 

Elvia de la Garza: I’m sure the uncertainty made them leave the place many times. 

Edgardo de la Garza: They sure did. They sure did. It made them feel unsecure and actually bad about failing.

So just simple task as ordering food. But not only that, we also discuss how clunky sometimes the speakers can be when you order. So if you are a native Spanish speaker and you’re trying to place an order and you have an accent, and the person on the other side of the speaker box. Cannot understand you very well.

Plus there’s technology, technology issues. It can be a big cultural breakdown. This one participant wanted a banana shake, but the employee kept hearing vanilla. So the customer was unhappy ’cause she got the wrong flavor. The employer felt bad because couldn’t get the order right. And it just show you a cultural disconnect, um, across, so this was, 

Elvia de la Garza: yeah, absolutely.

I mean that moment. It capture so many barriers, the cultural barrier, the language barrier and the confidence level, uh, barrier, to be honest with you. Yeah. 

Edgardo de la Garza: But the agency came up with a wonderful campaign. It was very simple and very powerful. Press the button, start the magic. It was simple. It gave instructions and a left it open for interpretation on how the wonderful things that you can get at Sonic Drive-in.

It was a great campaign that aired for a long time. And when we saw that on tv, Ooh, it was the perfect way of applying insight into a campaign. 

Elvia de la Garza: Yeah, absolutely. That is the power of the insight. Yeah. Wonderful. Do you have another story? 

Edgardo de la Garza: I Sure do. I sure do. This one is a project that we did with Kevin Turf while he was at the Environmental Defense Fund, and it really stuck with me because we talked about how people felt about air quality, especially here in Houston, that we have so many refineries, all refineries, so we talk to all kinds of.

People from different backgrounds and economic strata, and it really stuck with me the difficult choices that people in minorities and marginalized communities have to make and how they have to risk their own health in order to survive, really. So these people have to take jobs in industries and on their environmental areas that.

Don’t have the best air quality. Yeah, I can imagine. And they know it. They know it. But that’s a decision that they have to make. It’s about survival. So hearing those stories, they were very raw. They were very real because we want to improve our environmental footprint, right? We want to make the air cleaner.

But when you ask somebody that drives a diesel truck. To make a whole new investment into an electric truck. It’s a lot to ask because they’re just paying that one of course. Mm-hmm. They, they, they don’t have the money to go ahead and replace their truck, and a lot of these people, you know, they, they’re not employed by the refinery. They are subcontracted. So they’re own, their own bus and asking them to, to change their truck. It, it was just a lot. And they knew that. They know their air quality is not great, but they have to choose to provide to their family. So this was some really raw stories that we heard there.

Alright, your turn. What project stayed with you? 

Elvia de la Garza: So many to choose from. But you know, one that comes to mind is not a single project specific, uh, specifically, but a series of projects. Uh, this was for a new product development, uh, for Bush’s Beans. Mm-hmm. Um, they were working on creating a product line, uh, specifically for the Hispanic consumer.

Mm-hmm. So the whole thing started with lots of in-home, in-home where we talked to the home cooks and they showed us their recipes, their ingredients, their cooking techniques, how they always measure alojos. So there’s really not a, a, of course, recipes established, uh, and how recipes are, um, passed from one generation to the next.

I mean, it was so rich and 

Edgardo de la Garza: Enriching, yeah 

Elvia de la Garza: Oh my god. It was amazing, eh? Yeah, from all of those in-home the team at Bush’s decided to create four recipes. Um, but of course it’s not as simple as it sounds because, not 

Edgardo de la Garza: because, yeah. Not two people cook borracho beans the same. 

Elvia de la Garza: Exactly. So they needed to come up with four recipes based on all this feedback and somehow make them authentic 

Edgardo de la Garza: Uhhuh. 

Elvia de la Garza: So, um, it, this food scientists had their hands full, but what I’m sure. It’s truly amazing about this project is that it was a collaboration from the very beginning because of course there was the research team, there was the marketing team, there was the food scientist, and we all were in the same room.

And, and, and 

Edgardo de la Garza: that’s amazing. 

Elvia de la Garza: It doesn’t happen very often. And then you see the tweaks they were doing and then we have, it was magic. We would be testing prototypes and then tweaking the prototypes and retesting them and then. And, and then talking to, um, uh, bringing more recipes to fine tune the final recipes anyways, I mean, it was, it was 

Edgardo de la Garza: a process.

It was a process, but eventually it show, it hit the shelf. 

Elvia de la Garza: Yes, definitely the product hit the shelf and it was amazing that. The product really resonated with the consumer that was meant to and it was not only hitting the shelf because more of the process was testing the labels, testing the campaign mm-hmm.

For the launch. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I mean, it was a whole, I mean, it was years of research, of working. Yeah. That’s amazing. And that’s why it really, you know, it’s, it’s a project. It’s been a while from that, uh, from that, but it’s, it. I ha I hold it dear in my heart. It’s, it was amazing. 

Edgardo de la Garza: And that’s what it’s all about.

When cultural understanding actually becomes a product that people can hold and people can taste. 

Elvia de la Garza: Yes. Yes. Definitely. I, and I have another one actually. Okay. The um, and it’s, I mean. Talking about that when you actually see the product coming from an inside, and this was for SCJ. Mm-hmm. Again, long time ago.

Uh, but we were doing in-homes again, you know, trying to understand the Hispanic consumer, how, uh, the claim, the, the cleaning behavior, the products they use, the techniques again, all of that, right? So one insight that kept on showing up and. Every other, or every, uh, in-home was the use of vinegar. Vinegar here, vinegar there.

They were using, using it for different purposes. Some for, for deodorizing. Mm-hmm. Others for disinfecting, other for spot cleaning. Cleaning, um, but vinegar was the. The common denominator. It was there. So, um, you know, among other findings. But in the report, I remember that, that being highlighted, the use of 

Edgardo de la Garza: vinegar constantly.

Yes. In yes, yes, yes. All areas. Gotcha.

Elvia de la Garza: In all Hispanic families or in most Hispanic families, but you know. The power of the insight comes when you are, or when I was walking in the grocery store aisle and I see Windex with vinegar and I knew,

Edgardo de la Garza: oh, wow, what a moment 

Elvia de la Garza: that came from the insights that, that we, that we you at 

Edgardo de la Garza: hand on creating that project.

Oh, yes. That 

Elvia de la Garza: is the magic. And that’s, I mean, it’s. Beautiful. It’s beautiful. 

Edgardo de la Garza: Yeah, absolutely. That is such a powerful moment, right? When you get to see the insight put into action. Yes. And make the shelf, make the tv. Oh, that’s so powerful. 

Elvia de la Garza: Yes, yes. And I mean, you said it, it’s doesn’t need to be a new pro, a new product like that.

Even when a commercial, you know, and when they, uh, get, when you get an insight and then you see that, you see that insight somehow depicted in a beautiful. Add, add. It’s amazing. 

Edgardo de la Garza: Absolutely. It’s amazing. It’s amazing. Uh, you can 

Elvia de la Garza: tell that we love what we do, right? 

Edgardo de la Garza: Absolutely. And that wraps up for our second episode.

Thank you for joining us on the Moderator’s Life. We’ll be back soon with more stories from the field, behind the mirror, and beyond the brief. 

Elvia de la Garza: Until next time, keep asking, keep listening. 

Edgardo de la Garza: DLG Research, Insightful research, 

Elvia de la Garza: Actionable results. Until next time.