Leveraging insights for great work: How understanding drives creativity

At The Brand Pool, we thrive on insights. It’s not about how much data you have; it’s how you use it to create truly meaningful campaigns, brand ideas, and strategies. Whether we’re developing Employee Value Propositions (EVPs) or working on Behaviour Change campaigns, our insights drive impactful outcomes. This blog explores our approach to transforming insights into creative action that connects and resonates.

The power of insights in the creative process

Great creative work starts with understanding—understanding people, cultures, environments, and moments. At The Brand Pool, we dive into research, audience analysis, and trends to unearth the most compelling insights. It’s these insights that become the spark that lights up our campaigns.

Understanding goes beyond simple demographics. We ask: What motivates people? What makes them care? These questions lead us to insights that can fundamentally change how we approach a creative problem. Whether it’s discovering an unmet need or finding a new emotional trigger, our process reveals what really matters.

Bringing insight to action

Take our collaboration with the NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS) on ‘Project Firestorm’. We embraced the RFS’s challenge to revamp the bushfire Unit of Work, reaching 100,000 students annually in NSW. Acknowledging the need for an immersive and engaging educational experience, we created Project Firestorm.

The guiding insight was that children’s ever-increasing tech-savviness and appetite for innovative technology drives rapid learning. From coding websites to programming robots, young people today are highly receptive to tech-based learning experiences. The Project Firestorm concept involved an immersive educational experience with The Firestormers—a team of young heroes using innovative technology to battle bush fires. Drawing inspiration from superhero and gaming genres, we created hyper-realistic 3D avatars to guide students through five levels of learning, fostering the development of innovative ideas and solutions.

Insight-driven: More than just words

At The Brand Pool, ‘insight-driven’ isn’t a buzzword. We live it. We listen, learn, adapt, and ensure that our campaigns resonate deeply with audiences. From bush fire safety to environmental advocacy, we take what matters most to people and build solutions that inspire action.

Take our work on the NSW EPA Wood Smoke campaign. Many people were unaware of the negative impact of wood smoke. Our guiding insight focused on the power of smell, which is closely linked to emotions and memory, to trigger behaviour change, evoking strong responses and influencing actions and behaviours.

Understanding behavioural insights to drive change

Our recent Bayside Waste campaign is an example of leveraging behavioural insights to create meaningful change. The challenge was to encourage better waste management practices and to get the community to embrace a new garden organics waste service. Our driving insight was understanding the behavioural barriers that prevented effective waste management. Research revealed that clear, relatable, and localised messaging was needed to foster a sense of shared responsibility among the community.

We used this insight by developing educational campaign content and targeted messaging that was relevant to the local multicultural audience, encouraging better waste practices and making waste management feel like a collective effort.

Understanding audience insights to resonate and engage

Our ‘Fish For Life’ initiative, in collaboration with NSW Fisheries, aimed to introduce more women and families to fishing, a traditionally male-dominated pastime. The key insight was that focusing on women who were already engaged in outdoor activities or gateway activities like camping, hiking, and surfing would be far more effective in creating a meaningful connection. By tapping into their existing love for nature and adventure, we positioned fishing as a natural extension—family-friendly, accessible, and fun—encouraging inclusive participation and fostering a new generation of fishers.

The future: From insights to innovation

We see a future where creativity and data go hand-in-hand. As we look to the future, The Brand Pool is committed to using technology to uncover new insights. AI tools allow us to go deeper—to analyse social media conversations, sentiment shifts, and evolving cultural values at a scale previously unimaginable.

But our human touch remains key. It’s our empathy, intuition, and understanding that turn raw data into creative magic—the kind that doesn’t just capture attention but drives action and change.

Ready to leverage insights to make great work happen?

We’re here to partner with you on projects that matter. Our insight-driven approach means we dig deep to find what will truly move your audience. Let’s connect and create something that stands out and inspires.