Insight-driven brand strategies are creating more meaningful and lasting consumer relationships and experiences.

At a time when 68% of consumers will spend more money with a brand that understands them and 71% expect brands to understand them, investing in insight-led practices is bringing consumers’ needs to the forefront.

We caught up with Canvas8’s head of Toolkit, Rebecca Smith, on Canva8’s latest venture that expands the suite of solutions for members that are looking to understand their audience's needs better.

💡 Why is now the right time to launch Toolkit and what types of challenges does it aim to solve?

Rebecca Smith: Amid recessions, the cost of living crisis, and the lasting impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses are facing a lot of challenges, whether that's layoffs meaning that teams are smaller and people are short on time, or shrinking budgets meaning they have less money to play with. But they need an understanding of people's attitudes, how they behave and what they want to ensure they remain current, future-proofing their business.

The pressure is on for a lot of businesses to do more with less. Whether that's fewer team members, less time, or less money. But there's also this need to get answers fast without compromising on quality. This is why, in response, we created Toolkit that templates our most effective techniques, frameworks, and models.

These methods have been refined over a decade, through a lot of our consultancy work for different clients, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, MTV, and MindShare. And these templates have helped form our suite of off-the-shelf Toolkit products, allowing us to deliver bespoke, actionable human insights faster and at a lower price to our members.

❗️ How does Toolkit complement the rest of the Canvas8 membership offer and what's the most exciting part of Toolkit?

Rebecca Smith: Toolkit really builds on Canvas8 offerings by serving up research that is bespoke to the client, removing the need for them to spend time or resources researching and connecting the dots themselves to find much-needed insights.

We answer their brief with the bespoke insights that they need, but at a lower cost and at a greater speed than bespoke consultancy.

Another really exciting thing is that after delivery, Canvas8 members can continue to track how the behaviours uncovered in Toolkit research are evolving through all of the different Canvas8 membership offerings, such as the library, reading lists, and analyst calls.

💭 In terms of the end result, what type of deliverables can Canvas8 members expect to receive from Toolkit?

Rebecca Smith: From an overall viewpoint, the outputs of Toolkit products are decks designed to be super concise, cutting through the noise, to really highlight the most exciting and actionable behavioural insights that Canvas8 clients and members need to know. They're easy to digest, but they do not compromise on being inspiring, informative and actionable.

Essentially, the idea is that any of our clients and members can use Toolkit - whether they were involved in the research or not - and get up to speed on a particular topic fast.

TOOLKIT OVERVIEW

Launched on the 26th of June, Toolkit is Canva8’s latest offering to its members. It’s a menu of quick, affordable products to help members understand their audience and make better decisions. The current products are made up of:

01 Media Snapshot
An in-depth view of media behaviours to understand when, where, and how best to reach an audience.

02 Brand Resonance Snapshot
Identification of how a brand is resonating with its audience and its performance against competitors.

03 Pitch Portrait
Real stories straight from audiences via analysis of self-recorded video responses to the client’s questions.

04 Viewpoint Snapshot
An authoritative, PR-friendly report built around a unique point of view that brands or agencies can own.

05 Trend Snapshot
An inspirational and informative deep dive into an emerging trend that will help spark new ways of thinking.

Discover more about Toolkit here