When you hear “research,” you might think “data.” But measurements and stats alone can leave out critical perspectives that could shape your work. Research also can uncover other information — like stories — that will help to breathe life into the data, painting a more complete picture of an audience or issue. Our work often includes qualitative research, which goes in-depth to understand people’s experiences.

For Our Lives is an overdose prevention campaign we created in partnership with Native people in Washington and the Washington State Health Care Authority. As we started qualitative research, we heard stories about people’s experiences with fentanyl in their families and communities. These audience insights directly informed our decision to share critical information and resources through personal stories told by those with lived experience. If we’d relied on data alone, we’d have missed out on an approach that became the heart of the campaign.

Sometimes the best stories are the ones nobody tells us. At least not out loud.

We take care to create spaces where qualitative-research participants feel respected and comfortable. But some information and sentiments can still be difficult for them to explicitly share. That might be the information we need the most.

We keep an ear out for what people express between the lines, or when they seem to go silent but may have more to say. Sometimes we provide ways for participants to share privately. Other times we take omissions as a signal to learn more through another research method.

Even with the best intentions, it can be difficult to start any research free from assumptions. But staying open to surprises — and sometimes following up with questions we didn’t expect to be asking — makes us more likely to uncover insights that will set our clients’ campaigns apart.

Take the Washington Traffic Safety Commission’s distracted driving campaign. Based on our early research, we suspected that men in our priority audience, in particular, would prefer one creative concept — a parody of a truck advertisement. As message testing with focus groups progressed, we found we were completely wrong. Our priority audience preferred an ad featuring kids reminding their drivers to “Buckle up, Grandma!” That’s the ad we developed — and the reason we do our research.

If research is the process of gathering and analyzing information, developing audience insights is all about interpreting it. It’s about using the information to create new ways to look at a problem — revealing underlying reasons behind a behavior, for example — or identifying new potential solutions.

The more collaborative this part of the work, the better. Bringing together members of your team with diverse perspectives and expertise leads to more nuanced, thoughtful and truth-tested insights. Better yet, invite members of your audience to help interpret the research. Researchers, communicators and strategists — and community members with lived experience your team might not have — interpret data in variable ways. We collaborate with audience and community members whenever possible. This leads us to insights with more depth and to creative deliverables that connect more meaningfully with audiences.