Written by Tom O'Kelly, Senior Research and Insight Manager, BFBS Creative
A familiar problem
In my experience working across UK Government communications, I've lost count of the strategies that champion 'audience-first thinking' then skip straight to tactics. Turns out this isn't just my experience. Recent research by GWI found 76% of marketing and communications professionals said consumer insights are important for campaign planning. But only 47% actually use them.
That's a 29% gap, between knowing something matters, and doing anything about it.
That same research showed that when insights are used satisfaction improves by 3.5x for audience targeting and 4.6x for market strategy.
Throughout my time leading insight functions within government this really was my experience. The constant battle to try and embed audience insight into communications, knowing that it would improve impact but always needing to justify its inclusion.
Why Audience Insight Gets Lost
Now I'm not saying it’s easy and I have seen the barriers across numerous teams: the data exists but it's fragmented, there's no time to analyse it properly, or the culture rewards output rather than impact. GWI's research backs this up by showing that 44% cite overload, 47% availability gaps, 36% lack of data-driven culture as reasons for not including insight in their decision-making process.
The result?
Audience understanding gets reduced to something manageable, but meaningless. A demographic breakdown.
A target audience labelled 'Gen-Z.' A box ticked before the real work begins.
The Difference Understanding Makes
A few months ago, I was reviewing results from a defence communications campaign where audience insight shaped the strategy from the start. The approach was to genuinely understand who we needed to reach, what matters to them, what messages would resonate, and where we'll actually connect.
For this campaign's stakeholders, that meant content built around why things mattered. Focusing on the capability outcomes, strategic implications, the 'so what.'
Professional audiences weren't interested in what happened, they wanted to know what it meant.
To align with this audience’s priorities, we also adapted content based on platforms to ensure messages were tailored to achieve maximum impact with our target audiences.
This approach worked and was highlighted by the success of messaging on LinkedIn: LinkedIn represented just 12% of total impressions across the campaign but generated 33% of all engagements. The platform repeatedly over performed when content led with significance rather than activity.
Why It Worked
What this meant was a 16.52% average engagement rate with the audience we knew mattered most (one post hit nearly 27%). And this wasn't sacrificing reach for engagement. Those posts generated over 60,000 impressions over two weeks while still achieving exceptional interaction rates.
That wasn’t luck.
That was what happens when you tailor your message to the right audience in the right place.
Beyond One Campaign
I've seen this pattern repeat in very different settings. Recent analysis I conducted on attitudes towards defence and security across Europe revealed not just variation between nations (support for the same policy can range from 87% in one country to 53% in another), but significant variation within each nation.
Political affiliation often matters more than age. Gender gaps vary dramatically by region. Paradoxes are everywhere, for instance French audiences support NATO membership but don't see it as particularly important, a contradiction that only makes sense when you understand their concerns about autonomy and European identity.
For anyone communicating across these audiences,
surface-level demographics simply aren't enough.
