Published: 2/011/2025
Quyen Kossick
Account Director, Dynata
It’s the first week of February and one thing is clear – brands have a laser focus on data this year. And not just any kind of data – they are very keenly interested in knowing everything they can about their consumers, and particularly knowing what they don’t even know to ask for.
Which reminds me of my high school Calculus teacher, Mr. Bondies, who would always say, “You gotta know what you know, and you gotta know what you don’t know.” At the time, I thought he was the weirdest man on the planet. But now, I’m thinking he might have been on to something.
In research, knowing what you know is easy – your research data tells you quite a bit about your consumers, your brands, maybe your competitors. And knowing what you don’t know is also interesting – that’s when you design your questionnaire to capture data that you are curious about, asking the right questions to get to the right insights.
But what about the things you don’t even know to ask for?
Last year, I ran a study for a client where we appended hundreds of attributes to all of the survey responses. After we ran the typing tool and segmented the audience, we found that one particular segment had an abnormally high rate of dog ownership. Did my client know to ask about dog ownership in the study? Nope. But they used the data appends to paint an incredibly rich picture of their customers – and in doing so, realized there was a gap (or perhaps an opportunity!) they didn’t even know existed.
That is just the tip of the iceberg, my friends. Using that study as seed data, we could model out an audience of millions that looks just like your customers – but aren’t your customers…yet. Then you get to activate on that audience, and your rate of conversion is so much higher because it’s focused on the right people. Before you know it, all these dog owners are buying your products, making Tik Toks about it (until April 5th), your brand goes viral, your company’s sales skyrocket, your boss throws you a party, and you are promoted to Chief Insights Officer!
And as you sit in the C-Suite, you’ll think back to the story about my Calculus teacher and realize your outrageous success came down to one key thing…knowing what you know, and knowing what you don’t know.