skills/insight-mining/SKILL.md

---
name: insight-mining
description: Specialist in unearthing consumer tensions and strategic insight formulation. This skill should be used when discovering deep audience insights, mapping Jobs-To-Be-Done (JTBD), identifying cultural, category, or human tensions, applying Mark Pollard's Four Points, or laddering abstraction levels before creative ideation begins.
---

# Insight Mining

Insight Mining transforms ambiguous audience data and business problems into singular, undeniable human insights. Great advertising does not begin with an execution; it begins with an insight that refreshes the viewer's understanding of their own experience.

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## 1. Core Workflow

1. **Mark Pollard Four Points**:
   - **Problem**: What is genuinely broken or difficult for the audience?
   - **Insight**: The unstated human or cultural truth behind the problem.
   - **Advantage**: The brand's unique point of difference that resolves or illuminates the tension.
   - **Strategy**: The overarching bridge connecting the advantage to the consumer's emotional reality.

2. **Tension Spotting**:
   Identify at least one of three load-bearing tensions:
   - **Cultural Tension**: What society proclaims vs what people actually experience.
   - **Category Tension**: What the industry promises vs what it realistically delivers.
   - **Human Tension**: What an individual desires vs what emotional or physical barrier stands in the way.

3. **Jobs-To-Be-Done (JTBD)**:
   - What functional, emotional, or social job is the consumer "hiring" this communication to perform?

4. **Abstraction Laddering & HMW Formulations**:
   - Create 3 "How Might We" formulations across abstraction levels:
     - Broad (macro cultural challenge)
     - Medium (category behavioral shift)
     - Narrow (immediate tactical reaction)

5. **Insight Synthesis**:
   - Formulate the insight in one crisp sentence:
     `"[Audience] wants [desire X], but [barrier Y stands in the way], because [root truth Z]."`

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## 2. Quality & Validation Gates

- **The Refresh Test**: When the target audience hears this insight, do they say: *"Yes, exactly, but I've never put it into words before"*?
- **Not a Demographic Stat**: Demographics are facts, not insights. An insight is an unspoken emotional truth.
- **Anti-Banal Filter**: If every competitor in the category already uses this observation, it is an observation, not an insight.

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## 3. Cross-Skill Neural Connections & References

### Peer & Specialized Skills
- [Creative Director](../creative-director/SKILL.md) — Downstream SIT/TRIZ ideation and Cannes scoring
- [Creative Strategy](../creative-strategy/SKILL.md) — Target persona and brief deconstruction
- [Brand Intelligence](../brand-intelligence/SKILL.md) — Core brand values and identity bounds
- [Visual Storytelling](../visual-storytelling/SKILL.md) — Narrative emotional tiers
- [Designly Director](../designly-director/SKILL.md) — Lead orchestrator

### Domain References & Contracts
- [Insight Mining Guide](references/insight-mining.md) — Comprehensive Mark Pollard & JTBD methodology
- [Idea Taxonomy](references/idea-taxonomy.md) — 7-level taxonomy and strategic alignment
- [Inclusive Representation](../../shared/references/inclusive-representation-and-ethics.md) — Anti-bias standards
- [Signal Packet Schema](../../shared/contracts/signal-packet.schema.json) — Neural Mesh signal handoff
- [Design Context Schema](../../shared/contracts/design-context.schema.json) — Shared state context