Tag Archives: The Insights Family

The Insights Family forges alliance with InspiredConsumer to tap 50 million US families for research

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The kids, parents, and family market research outfit, The Insights Family, has forged a new partnership with InspiredConsumer, a US youth experiential marketing agency, to ‘transform the research sector in the United States.’

Operating the largest and most singular community centre network across the US, InspiredConsumer not only boasts 20 years of experience in the field, but a client list that includes the likes of Nickelodeon, Disney, and Mars.

Meanwhile, The Insights Family has established itself as a global front runner in kids, parents, and family research, by providing real-time data to clients such as Amazon, BBC, Mattel, and Warner Bros.

Through the forging of a new partnership, the pair aim to ‘create unrivalled opportunities for kids’ research and insight,’ with solutions that will ‘drive significant value for clients; insightful data, cost reduction, fast turnaround, and elimination of the pain-points associated with traditional qualitative research.’

Nick Richardson, founder and CEO of The Insights Family, said: “Having spent the last four years developing the most comprehensive and dynamic real-time family insights solution, so many clients and partners have approached asking us to do something in the qualitative research space.

“Based on understanding their needs and requirements, we have developed a suite of solutions which meets their needs and removes the issues which they have previously experienced.”

As part of the partnership, The Insights Family will provide several research services to InspiredConsumer’s clients to help with planning and measurement, including evaluating and demonstrating the ROI of client campaigns.

Stav Vaisman, CEO of InspiredConsumer, said: “We have spent the last 20 years building and nurturing relationships that sustained our firm, while also investing in the communities we work in. So, it is with great pride that we are embarking on this new research endeavor with such an impressive partner. We will work tirelessly to ensure we provide incredible value to our clients, and participants.”

With kid’s influence now growing across 90 per cent of expenditure categories in the US, the pair believe ‘it’s more important than ever to understand the attitudes, behaviors and consumptions of the next generation of families.’

To find out more, and download the new free report on “The Next Generation of Families” visit https://get.theinsightsfamily.com/familyreport/

The Insights Family forges alliance with InspiredConsumer to tap 50 million US families for research

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The kids, parents, and family market research outfit, The Insights Family, has forged a new partnership with InspiredConsumer, a US youth experiential marketing agency, to ‘transform the research sector in the United States.’

Operating the largest and most singular community centre network across the US, InspiredConsumer not only boasts 20 years of experience in the field, but a client list that includes the likes of Nickelodeon, Disney, and Mars.

Meanwhile, The Insights Family has established itself as a global front runner in kids, parents, and family research, by providing real-time data to clients such as Amazon, BBC, Mattel, and Warner Bros.

Through the forging of a new partnership, the pair aim to ‘create unrivalled opportunities for kids’ research and insight,’ with solutions that will ‘drive significant value for clients; insightful data, cost reduction, fast turnaround, and elimination of the pain-points associated with traditional qualitative research.’

Nick Richardson, founder and CEO of The Insights Family, said: “Having spent the last four years developing the most comprehensive and dynamic real-time family insights solution, so many clients and partners have approached asking us to do something in the qualitative research space.

“Based on understanding their needs and requirements, we have developed a suite of solutions which meets their needs and removes the issues which they have previously experienced.”

As part of the partnership, The Insights Family will provide several research services to InspiredConsumer’s clients to help with planning and measurement, including evaluating and demonstrating the ROI of client campaigns.

Stav Vaisman, CEO of InspiredConsumer, said: “We have spent the last 20 years building and nurturing relationships that sustained our firm, while also investing in the communities we work in. So, it is with great pride that we are embarking on this new research endeavor with such an impressive partner. We will work tirelessly to ensure we provide incredible value to our clients, and participants.”

With kid’s influence now growing across 90 per cent of expenditure categories in the US, the pair believe ‘it’s more important than ever to understand the attitudes, behaviors and consumptions of the next generation of families.’

To find out more, and download the new free report on “The Next Generation of Families” visit https://get.theinsightsfamily.com/familyreport/

Green age waste ban | The Insights Family explores sustainability in the kids’ market

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This article appears in the Spring/Summer edition of ToyNews

With greater purchasing power comes greater social responsibility… or words to that effect. Undeniable though, is the increasing demand and interest in sustainability and eco-consciousness among target audiences. Here, The Insights Family’s founder, Nick Richardson explores the issue

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Figures from the latest Kids Insights data shows that over half of UK kids aged three to 12 have “a lot” of influence over the toy purchases their parents make. In addition to this, UK kids spend a collective £709m of their own money on toys and games in 2020.

However, children’s purchasing power has changed with growing interest in the environment.

Sustainability is becoming a way of life for many consumers as more people are choosing to buy greener, healthier, ethically sourced, and more environmentally sustainable products. Eco-friendly products accelerated their infiltration into toys in recent years and companies – the likes of Hasbro, LEGO, Mattel, MGA, Playmobil and Clementoni included – also understand that a clear and transparent environmental strategy can give them a competitive advantage while staying relevant.

This trend will increasingly affect families’ purchasing habits and toy brands are strongly recommended to emphasise their environment friendly credentials when planning their marketing campaigns.

The increasing penetration of smartphones and tablets among children is stimulating social activism while also driving eco-friendly product purchases. So-called ‘Greta effect’, named after Greta Thunberg following her “how dare you” speech at the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit, raised the awareness further.

There is also a large eco-influence coming from parents. According to our Toys & Games Global Report 2020, over a third of UK pre-school parents think that it is important for their children to take care of the environment – a year-on-year increase of 56 per cent. Over a third of parents hope to teach their child to take care of the environment before they have even reached their fifth birthday.

Brands have already started to work on producing eco-friendly toys, or at least use more recyclable packaging. According to our Kids & Family Industry Report 2021, 69 per cent of toy companies believe they can make a difference in the sustainability sector.

As a good example, LEGO is another toy manufacturer which has made substantial progress and commitments to change by 2030. The company introduced reusable plastics for bricks and is said to be considering the idea of a LEGO subscription service. In an effort to improve the brand’s sustainability, a rental service could reduce the fossil fuels required to make LEGO, all while keeping eco-conscious parents happy. LEGO is also making a switch towards paper bags instead of single-use plastics.

Meanwhile, Mattel introduced its own MEGA Biobloks at 2020 Nuremberg Toy Fair with the aim of reaching its 100 per cent recycled materials goal by 2030. Likewise, Clementoni revealed its Baby range made from 100 per cent recycled materials in January 2020 as part of its own sustainability push.

The same with Amazon, the favourite online shop of two million kids aged three to nine in the UK, has revealed plans to roll out 500 electric delivery vans in the UK as part of their Climate Pledge. From manufacturing to distribution, there are opportunities for corporations to make improvements to their sustainability practices to engage sustainable consumers.


What does this mean to you?

Brands need sustainability to be incorporated into long-term business strategies, with public transparency and accountability surrounding these targets, to show their loyalty and awareness.

We believe the brands that will succeed at appealing to the sustainable consumer will be the ones who make it straight-forward and rewarding for customers to change the way they consume, purchase, or behave.

Children’s influence on their parents and brands continues to grow every day. Therefore, understanding what attitudes kids hold in real-time and how this affects their purchasing decisions is a critical advantage for brands.

With the purpose to provide children, parents, and families with a voice to shape their worlds, The Insights Family is highlighting why brands need to pay attention to trends like this and carefully reflect on consumers opinion.

The Insights Family® has released its Kids & Family Industry Report 2021 where we have shown how companies are also responding to societal needs, with 64 per cent reporting their business decisions will be affected by a drive towards sustainability.

To read the Kids & Family Industry Report 2021 and learn more about the attitudes, behaviour, and consumption patterns of kids, parents, and families, and to get freemium access to The Insights Family® real-time data portal, please visit: https://try.theinsightsfamily.com/toynews

The Insights Family (formerly The Insights People), is a global leader in kids, parents, and family market intelligence, providing real-time data on their attitudes, behaviour, and consumption patterns. Every year the company surveys more than 362,100 kids and more than 176,800 parents.

The Insights Family partners with kids’ charity Starlight to help improve children’s hospital experience

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The kids, parents, and family market intelligence unit, The Insights Family has partnered with the national children’s charity, Starlight in a move to better understand UK families and modernise and improve the hospital experience for children.

The partnership was formed after new The Insights Family data helped enable Starlight to affirm its new strategic changes and shine a light on areas to focus on. The organisation, which focuses on improving the experiences of children in hospital, used The Insights Family to help further understand UK families’ attitudes, behaviours, and consumption patterns.

The pair also worked together to better understand what matters to children when it comes to technology, as well as helping to cement the charity’s new strategy. Working with The Insights Family team, Starlight was able to understand the nuanced difference of kids at different age ranges.

The data shone a light on how kids’ habits differ greatly as well as reiterating the importance of technology being an enabler when it comes to creativity, imagination, and storytelling. It also helped Starlight identify the latest characters and influencers that children know and love.

The data has therefore helped to fuel a new strategy with an aim to modernise and improve the hospital experience for children.

 Cathy Gilman, CEO, Starlight, said: “The Insights Family data helped support Starlight by illustrating the importance of new technology and digital trends. We have provided gaming consoles and DVD players for children, and we are now trialling VR and have recently launched a new partnership with Tonies, to entertain children through interactive stories. From all of us at Starlight, I want to thank The Insights Family for their incredible support and I’m looking forward to our future together.”

 Nick Richardson, founder and CEO The Insights Family, added: “Our purpose is to provide children, parents, and families with a voice to shape their world and this partnership with Starlight helps us deliver that.

“We are delighted to start working with Starlight and already have an exciting campaign of fundraising events lined up throughout the year, starting with my CEO challenge.”

Nick’s CEO Challenge will involve walking over 10 miles against the clock between Manchester hospitals. Finishing his route at the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, Nick will be dressed as the only kid’s character that fits his 6ft 5 frame – Sesame Street’s Big Bird.

You can sponsor him here:  www.justgiving.com/fundraising/the-insights-family

Where’s the fun in fungible? | Could the toy industry be key to unlocking the potential of the NFTs market?

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For those who remember typing BRB into their MSN chat box, or anyone still wrestling with the WFH concept, there’s a new acronym in town, and it’s potential to shape the future of entertainment and the collectables space is boundless. It’s probably time we all got to know NFTs a little better.

Here’s The Insights Family to help talk us through the concept and what the arrival of Non-Fungible Tokens could mean for the toy industry.

We all know this generation of children are like no other, growing up in a world with an unprecedented level of access to technology.

Even by the age of three, an average 51 per cent of children globally own a tablet device, and by the age of 12, 69 per cent of kids globally own a mobile phone. This generation are as comfortable existing in a virtual world as they are the physical, and they expect a seamless integration between the two.

We have seen many key development milestones just as likely to be reached today in a virtual world as the physical; a child’s first concert for example could just as likely happen within the gaming platform, Fortnite as it could in a real-life venue.

As the physical and digital worlds blur for this generation of kids, we are also seeing children spending and earning money digitally via gaming platforms like Roblox, Minecraft and Fortnite. Kids’ identity now lives online, whether that be on a social media feed or materialised through digital purchases. For these kids, a cosmetic skin they purchased in Fortnite is as much about self-expression and personality, as the t-shirt they put on the same morning.

The speed of innovation in this sector continues to accelerate and its important brands stay ahead of the latest trends and opportunities.

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) are currently one of the most popular trends within the cryptocurrency market. A token which verifies legitimacy and singularity of a digital asset, they have primarily been used to sell digital art or assets, such as the first ever Tweet, selling for over $2.9m. The technology has since been adopted by major art auction houses such as Sotheby’s and Christie’s.

According to The Insights Family data, from Q1 2020 vs Q1 2021, there is a 11 per cent increase in kids as young as six to nine who have heard of cryptocurrencies. While information about blockchain is permeating throughout the kids ecosystem, it is still a relatively niche market.

However, as global adoption of cryptocurrencies continues to increase, brands are using the NFT as a real-world use-case for the technology. It’s currently mostly fashion brands – such as Gucci experimenting with NFTs, enabling consumers to buy and ‘wear’ their products via Augmented Reality or in-game on Roblox.

In fact, these fashion sales of clothing for digital versions of yourself are not news anymore. It is a long-standing practice, and a lot of video generate their main income through it. For example, one of the most popular games of recent years – Fortnite, is monetised entirely through cosmetic microtransactions.

What this means to you…

One example of potential NFT integration in the kids’ ecosystem could be as an extension of collectable items – for example, trading cards, a digitised version could be available as a token. The popularity of trading cards in general increased throughout the pandemic – from six per cent of kids aged three to 12 purchasing in Q1 2020 to nine per cent by December.

Within the toy space, in theory, anything in the digital world which has scarcity and value derived from that scarcity could be reimagined as an NFT.

For instance, some collectors are already spending millions on ‘NBA Top Shot’ – a website that allows people to buy, sell and trade basketball highlights as NFTs.

Every year the number of younger kids who spend more of their money online increases. In the UK, since the pandemic began in March 2020 the number of three to 12 year olds has almost doubled from 17 per cent to 28 per cent in February 2021. This, along with fast-paced innovation, means that it’s important brands stay ahead of the latest trends and opportunities.

Therefore, The Insights Family team of researchers, data scientists and developers have created the latest version of our platform, Portal 4.0, which will open more possibilities for brands. The new tools will enable brands to understand the attitudes, behaviours, and consumption patterns of kids, parents, and families.

To learn more about the attitudes, behaviour, and consumption patterns of kids, parents, and families, and to get freemium access to The Insights Family real-time data portal, please visit: https://try.theinsightsfamily.com/toynews

Family fortunes | The Insights Family talks its ‘game changing’ Portal 4.0 and the ever growing business of family market intelligence

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This week witnessed some pretty major new developments for the kids’, parents, and family market intelligence outfit, The Insights People, which not only revealed its re-branding to The Insights Family, but also welcomed its new chairman – in the form of Simon White – and unveiled its ‘game-changing’ new client tool and platform, the Portal 4.0.

In line with the sweeping changes across the children’s and parents’ media and entertainment landscape, The Insights Family’s new platform now holds proprietary data collected from surveying over half a million children and parents across 17 countries every year, providing over 600 million data points for its customers to view, filter, and analyse. By anyone’s standards, that’s a lot of data.

Here, Licensing.biz catches up with Nick Richardson, founder and CEO of The Insights Family to explore the trails being blazed and the paths being carved by a Manchester start-up that over the course of the last four years, has made its international presence well and truly felt.

To kick us off, Nick, can you give us a bit of background on yourself and how The Insights Family came to be?

I grew up in Manchester and graduated Manchester Metropolitan University with a degree in Marketing Management. As part of that degree, I had a placement with Mattel Toys – where I worked on the Hot Wheels, Matchbox and Tyco brands.

After graduating, I worked in senior marketing and commercial roles for brands and agencies such as ExxonMobil, Momentum Worldwide (part of IPG group), Just Marketing (now CSM Sport & Entertainment), Hilton Hotels, Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research, and PennWell (now Clarion Events).

As a marketer, I have always been naturally curious and creative – and have worked closely with data. I have had several roles where I was responsible for auditing existing research, developing research, and using this information to redevelop commercial strategies.

After 10 years of living in and around London, I decided to move back to Manchester. When I returned to the city, I enrolled on an Executive MBA course. During this course I started to see an opportunity to develop a disruptive and highly innovative research business which could be scalable, so I started to look at which industries were lacking data and insights.

During a catch-up meeting with SuperAwesome’s Matt Lester, who I had worked with while leading Hilton Hotels F1 sponsorship, it became very apparent that kids’ lives were unrecognisable from when I worked at Mattel in 2002/2003.

However, the ways in which companies were approaching their marketing had not really changed. Companies who operated in this space needed help and support to understand what was going on, what it meant, and ultimately some clarity and confidence to make decisions to evolve their previously tried and tested approach.

That was the challenge, so we made it our mission to do that, a mission which still burns hard in everyone who works for us.

You guys haven’t seemed to stop this past year, with international growth at a phenomenal rate. What has the thinking been behind the growth you guys have seen? What’s driven the growth? Does having operations around the world mean you’re set up with holidays for life?

Since our launch in 2017 and as the business developed, it soon became apparent that a lack of data on the kids and parents’ ecosystem was not isolated just to the UK – but there was a need on a global basis that nobody was fulfilling. Therefore, we set our vision to be the global leaders, and made it our business to achieve that.

While we are now operating in 17 countries, our international team of researchers and developers are driving these developments from our Manchester HQ. The growth has been quicker than I could have ever imagined, which is down to so many factors from our initial investor, some lucky breaks, but most importantly it is down to the culture we have created, and the incredible efforts and collaboration from all our team.

Once we and other countries come out of Covid-19 restrictions, I cannot wait to see our team and get to travel more, no doubt with a few extra days rolled on for the odd holiday.

Speaking of developments, there latest major development from you guys is the Portal 4.0, a new platform for clients, destined to ‘change the way it all works for them’. This sounds exciting. Can you tell us about this one?

Firstly, everything which made Portal 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 so special remain. The ease of use, real-time data, and the ability to view, filter, interrogate, and analyse the data intuitively remain.

However, with all the feedback we have captured, we have not only made hundreds of small but significant improvements and enhancements, but we have also now integrated all the cutting-edge innovations which we have been working on in the background.

First and foremost, the portal holds all our propriety data, collected from surveying over half a million kids and parents across 17 countries every year. It provides over 600 million data points to view, filter, interrogate, and analyse.

In addition to that, it houses all the tools we have been developing, such as our Media Mix Compass – which is a media planning tool that enables clients to compare 11 different categories of media, based on their reach, preference, and time spent.

The platform also includes clustering tool Persona Perspectives™. Powered by cutting edge Machine Learning and utilising the latest theory from the world of psychology, clustering will unlock previously unseen insights into an audience and fanbase. This tool was developed with a team of academics at Manchester Metropolitan University.

We have also added contextual data for every country which we operate in, providing socioeconomic and demographic data and insights for additional context. There are new API feeds from the likes of Instagram, TikTok, Twitch, and YouTube.

A new section of the portal has also been created to house all our clients’ bespoke research projects – enabling them to utilize all the functionality of the portal as well as our persona technology.

So, in summary we have not only moved the goalposts, but we have completely rebuilt them. But don’t just take my word, I would encourage people to go and have a look and let us know your feedback.

How will this new platform position you guys in the UK and on the international stage? How will it work to help position clients on the international stage?

Despite 2020 being a challenging year, we managed to grow substantially and lay the foundations for this year – which we believe will see us essentially double in size every six to eight months.

Our new identity and portal will also provide the foundations for this. As I mentioned, there are so many significant new developments in the new portal – with our team of researchers, data scientists, and developers working with academics, and collaborating with our clients from around the world to bring in a suite of solutions.

This will see us transition from not “just” being a research company, but to a business-critical partner to clients who can use the tools such as our Media Mix Compass™ to actively shape their strategies.

One of the core approaches to our research which makes us standout from anyone else, is that we are independent, and the kids, parents, and families surveyed are age, gender, and nationally represented and not recruited through our own platforms. This means the data is not biased, has no agenda, and can be analysed on a global, regional, national, or local basis – something which I believe will be critical as we transition from globalisation to localisation.

Why is it important that clients are armed in this way with the ability to spot and react to opportunities in the ever evolving kids’ and family market?

It is my belief that research, and data is now a critical part of all our jobs. If you work in advertising, content, licensing, marketing, product development, or sales it is an essential tool to provide understanding, test our convictions and ultimately measure our results.

However, there are still large amounts of market research and data which are not accessible, and worse than that – quite intimidating. And whilst we can call default to doing a bit of desk research or talking to our own kids, if we are honest with our selves – that doesn’t really stack up. That is why we have set it to be our mission to become the world’s top brands business-critical partner. Portal 4.0 is so accessible that even my mum can use it!

Our unique approach to surveying kids, parents, and families on a continual basis enables us to identify trends as they are forming. Likewise, if we take the effects of Covid – it provides our clients with an unrivalled view of what their attitudes, behaviour, and consumption were before Covid-19, how they have evolved during the pandemic and lockdowns and ultimately what they will become after.

As far as I am aware, we are the only company in the world to have this information. We know from our industry report that only six per cent of organisations that operate in the kids, parents, and family space believe that they have a sufficient understanding of them.

Our Trend Alert™ Reports and real-time data also saw us spot the rising popularity of trends such as Fortnite and TikTok months before they exploded in popularity in the kid’s ecosystem.

However, one of the most important trends we have tracked is this generation of kids have more influence than ever before. For example, our data in the UK shows a 15 per cent increase in influence that tweens have from Q1 2020 to Q1 2021 in terms of grocery items purchases, as kids are increasingly concerned with our effect on the environment and becoming healthier.

It is therefore more important than ever to reach and engage these young stakeholders and every brand must now become a family brand.

What do you think are some of the biggest challenges to have swept the children’s and family space in recent years? What sort of picture of the future does this all paint, and how are you helping businesses ready themselves for that future landscape?

There are so many challenges. I look back to my days at Mattel – and cannot believe how much the landscape has transformed. If we are all honest, it has probably taken the best part of a decade for the industry to recognise this, and the scale of the change.

I would like to think that we have helped the industry and individuals to not only recognise the changes, but also understand the implications and be best positioned to transform their approach across their business.

As for the biggest challenge – my view would be the impact of digital, this impacts all aspects of an organisation and business. It has transformed everything, from advertising and media to the need to be a content curator and syndicator. Plus, the arrival of new digital centric IP.

It has been challenging, but it is also extremely exciting as there are significant opportunities that come from this – and that is why we do what we do, to mitigate the risks and accelerate the opportunities.

For you, what is the most exciting part of working in the children’s and family space? To what extent is this a market that leads change across the consumer landscape, and how does it shape future trends?

As Nelson Mandela once said “children are our greatest treasure. They are our future”. Being a proud father of my daughter, I am so proud that we as a business provide children, parents, and families with a voice to shape their worlds. And of course, with the speed of technology evolution it is incredible to witness the impact of this on their and their parents’ attitudes, behaviour, and consumption – and how brands need to evolve their thinking to remain relevant.

To get freemium access to our award-winning real-time portal, please visit:

https://try.theinsightsfamily.com/toynews

The Insights People rebrands as The Insights Family and launches Portal 4.0

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The kids’, parents, and family market intelligence outfit, The Insights People has officially rebranded as The Insights Family, with a renewed purpose of ‘being the voice of children. parents, and families,’ as well as a ‘business-critical partner for the world’s top brands.’

 The company, which provides real-time data on their attitudes, behaviour, and consumption patterns, surveys more than 362,100 kids and more than 176,800 parents across 17 countries each year.

Amid the latest development for the company, The Insights Family has also launched its latest version of the award-winning insights platform, Portal 4.0. The newest iteration includes 11 new features, enabling brands to view, filter, interrogate, and analyse all of its data.

The new tool also includes Persona Perspectives, which has been developed by the in-house team of data scientists and developers in collaboration with academics, utilising Machine Learning. It’s hoped that the tool will unlock previously unseen insights into a brand’s audience and fanbase.

Portal 4.0 also launches with Trend Tracker, Country Context Tool, new data dashboards, and the ability to track API data from third party sources such as YouTube and TikTok.

As well as this, the platform includes the On-Track reports written by the team of researchers at The Insights Family, plus the recently launched media planning Media Mix Compass that aims to give a 360-degree view of kids’ media consumption.

Nick Richardson, Founder & CEO, said: “It is my belief that research, and data is now a critical part of all of our jobs. If you work in advertising, content, licensing, marketing, product development, or sales it is an essential tool to provide understanding, test our convictions, and ultimately measure our results.

“However, there are still large amounts of market research and data which are not accessible, and worse than that – quite intimidating. And whilst we can call default to doing a bit of desk research or talking to our own kids, if we are honest with ourselves – that doesn’t really stack up. That is why we have set it to be our mission to become the world’s top brands business-critical partner.”

Simon White, the new chairman at The Insights Family, added: “As the world moves on from the challenges of living through a pandemic, the right insights will enable businesses to act faster, with greater certainty and a reduced cost. There has never been a better time to be in this sector, with The Insights Family.

“Further, leading the way in which insight is filtered, presented, and disseminated through organisations will prove to be a unique and long-term competitive advantage. What the team has created at The Insights Family is peerless, and where it can be taken over the medium and long-term is an exciting plan to be a part of.”