The Moment I Learned “General Data” Isn’t Real Insight

If you’ve ever worked on something that permanently upgraded your thinking, you’ll understand this story.

Every once in a while, I look back at some of the critical work that really shaped the Inclusion Marketing Framework our team at TerraNova360 uses.   I wanted to share one of the more challenging ones today.

One of the most formative was a massive data-modelling, quantitative insight, and dealer-level ethnographic study I led for the Toronto Area Ford Dealers Association. 

It wasn’t the biggest project I ever worked on… but it was one of the most transformational.

Probe: The Insight Phase

What made it so powerful was the scale of what we were trying to solve.

Ford needed to understand the real market opportunity in the GTA, not just generically, but down to each individual dealership, each neighbourhood, each linguistic community, and each ethnocultural mindset.

And at the time, no one was doing this level of granularity.

Working alongside an incredible analytical team, our “Probe” phase (though we didn’t call it that back then) looked like this:

• Data modelling.

• Market potential by culture.

• Dealer audits.

• Quantitative research for 5 ethnic groups.

• Transportation behaviour.

• Cultural Density mapping.

• Lifestyle patterns.

• Web behaviour.

• Media pathways.

All of it, at a scale that had not been attempted before in the Canadian auto sector.

What struck me back then, and still stays with me now, was what happened when we stitched all that insight together:

What Emerged?

Patterns emerged. Opportunities emerged.And entire groups of consumers who had been invisible in generic data sets became visible, valuable, and reachable.

We were able to identify:

• Which dealerships had the biggest untapped opportunity

• Language needs for the dealership to serve customers (staffing, signage, materials)

• Which models appealed to which cultural groups

• When to use the same creative across cultures, and when not to

• Which features mattered, and to whom

• Where digital needed to lead, and where in-store needed to improve

And suddenly, Ford didn’t have “one” consumer.They had many consumer segments, each with their own pathway into the brand.

The win?

We helped the Dealer Association optimize local media, tailor creative to culture when appropriate, choose the right vehicle story for the right audience, and build local marketing strategies grounded in data they had never had access to before.No guesswork.No stereotypes.Just evidence, math, and insight stitched together in a way that made sense.

Reflections

Looking back, that project changed how I work, forever.It taught me that markets aren’t monolithic,that local matters,and that brands win when they understand people at street-level, not just macro-level.

It was one of my favourite wins, and one that still shapes how I think today.

Question: What project or moment in your career changed the way you see your work today?