Insight-driven marketing: How to not only hear but truly understand the consumer

16/ 07/ 2025

Listen to online Stop   On 10 July, the European Business Association’s Marketing and Communications Committee held an online session titled “Insight-Driven Marketing: How to Search for and Identify Consumer Insights?” The speaker, Maksym Ivanov, Customer Behaviour Manager at McDonald’s in Ukraine, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, shared practical approaches to identifying, validating, and applying consumer insights in daily team operations. During the session, Maksym spoke about the insights function, its role within an organisation, and its collaboration with other departments. He emphasised that the key goal of this function is to help the business grow by aligning consumer understanding with the company’s strategy. The speaker offered a clear explanation of what constitutes an insight and highlighted its core elements. According to Maksym, an insight is not simply what the consumer says, but what lies behind their words and actions. However, in order to become the voice of the consumer, one must first learn to truly listen. Maksym also shared several methods for uncovering insights, including: Monitoring brand mentions on social media; In-depth interviews and focus groups; “Field research” at customer touchpoints, for example, at McDonald’s, such research is conducted directly in the restaurants. In addition, he presented real-life case studies where insights served as the foundation for marketing campaigns. At the end of the presentation, participants received a checklist from Maksym to help assess and validate insights. The session concluded with an engaging Q&A segment, where attendees shared their impressions and posed questions to the speaker.

On 10 July, the European Business Association’s Marketing and Communications Committee held an online session titled “Insight-Driven Marketing: How to Search for and Identify Consumer Insights?”

The speaker, Maksym Ivanov, Customer Behaviour Manager at McDonald’s in Ukraine, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, shared practical approaches to identifying, validating, and applying consumer insights in daily team operations.

During the session, Maksym spoke about the insights function, its role within an organisation, and its collaboration with other departments. He emphasised that the key goal of this function is to help the business grow by aligning consumer understanding with the company’s strategy.

The speaker offered a clear explanation of what constitutes an insight and highlighted its core elements. According to Maksym, an insight is not simply what the consumer says, but what lies behind their words and actions. However, in order to become the voice of the consumer, one must first learn to truly listen.

Maksym also shared several methods for uncovering insights, including:

• Monitoring brand mentions on social media;
• In-depth interviews and focus groups;
• “Field research” at customer touchpoints, for example, at McDonald’s, such research is conducted directly in the restaurants.

In addition, he presented real-life case studies where insights served as the foundation for marketing campaigns.

At the end of the presentation, participants received a checklist from Maksym to help assess and validate insights.

The session concluded with an engaging Q&A segment, where attendees shared their impressions and posed questions to the speaker.