It’s hard to come up with a strategy, or art direct, design, etc. without insight about the target audience. Insight is more than just knowing who your audience is — it's knowing and understanding who your audience really is: what are their habits; how do they interact with technology; what is important to them at various stages of the buying cycle; what interests them; how do they get their information; how they think, how they react, etc. If you do decide to try and move ahead with your strategy, or worse, the look and feel of something without this insight — it might end up looking good, but it will have no substance. So why, I must ask, are you forging ahead not knowing who your audience truly is? Remember, if you are trying to save money without understanding with whom you are trying to connect, you may actually just be throwing your money down the drain…something you really don’t want to be doing in this economy.

As an art director, I work with our Customer Insight team, partnering with them to understand the audience the whole way through the creative process. I can’t do what I do alone. And there is no one idea I truly can claim as my own. That’s right. I own no single idea, and I am not afraid to say it. An “idea” is just not good enough. It has to be a big idea. And a big idea is a big idea because of a team effort of knowledge, insight, strategy, user experience and creativity. I am proud of what I have accomplished, but I am even more proud of what, as a team we accomplish, because we would never have been able to do it without each other, and insight.