7 Things We Learned from the Insight Disconnect (and why they matter)

Event: Blackbox Brand Leaders Brunch — The Insight Disconnect: Why Research Needs Rewiring in the Attention Economy
When was it? Thu 4 Sep 2025 • 9:30–11:30am • Blackbox HQ (by-invite-only)
Who was there? ~50 Brand, strategy, and insight decision-makers

Rewiring Research for the Attention Economy: Why This Conversation?

In today’s attention economy, understanding your audience is a strategic imperative. People are moving faster, trusting less, and engaging across more fragmented, emotionally charged channels than ever. Traditional methods — surveys, focus groups, recall metrics — still play a role, but on their own they miss the why: the motivations, emotions and context that shape real-world behaviour.

The Brand Leaders Brunch gathered senior decision-makers from brands, agencies and the public sector to explore what a smarter, more human approach to insight looks like. Anchored around the launch of a new Blackbox insights paper, the session showcased hybrid, responsive, and emotionally intelligent modes of engagement — and demonstrated what becomes possible when feedback turns into a genuine conversation.

Our speakers

Mansi Trivedi — Senior Strategy & Insights Director, APJ, Transmission
Leads insights and strategy across Asia Pacific & Japan at Transmission, a global B2B marketing agency. Her remit places “human decisioning” at the core of modern B2B/B2C programmes, blending strategy with practical activation.

Jessalynn Chen — Managing Director (Singapore) & Brand Heart Director, Labbrand
Heads Labbrand’s Singapore office, driving the global brand consultancy’s growth across Southeast Asia. With deep experience in brand innovation, experience creation and placemaking — and 13 international awards — she brings sharp perspective on timing, tone and cultural fit.

David Black — Founder & CEO, Blackbox Research
Founded Blackbox Research in 2001 and turned it into Southeast Asia’s leading market research firm. Leads a 60-person team across the region, translating sentiment and behaviour into strategy for brands, agency partners and governments — so leaders can actually make decisions that matter.

1) Attention isn’t always short — it’s selective

The “eight-second attention span” may be true but it can miss a bigger truth: people spend plenty of time with content that earns it. When ideas are interesting and clearly valuable, audiences lean in: “It’s not about attention, it is about being interesting. It is about being surprising.” (Mansi)

Short-form averages are real in some contexts, but audiences routinely linger when content is interactive, emotionally resonant and narratively rewarding. The core design question is: what keeps someone one beat longer? Curiosity hooks, frictionless flow, specific payoffs. Get those right and depth returns — whether that’s a 12-minute video, a 20-question dialog, or a 2,000-word explainer.

2) Decisions are emotional — so research must capture context, not just answers

Much legacy research is engineered to harvest responses, not understanding. The result: comprehensive decks that don’t explain behaviour. If we accept that choices are often made emotionally and rationalised later, our instruments have to tune into feeling, meaning and situation. That means better question design, projective and narrative techniques, and methods that surface lived context — so we move beyond recall and into reasons.

3) ‘Trust’ is too vague to action — break it into drivers

“Do people trust us?” is the wrong question. “You can’t action on something as intangible as brand trust” (David)

Trust means different things by category: data security in finance, reliability in appliances, safety in healthcare, fairness in telco pricing. Leaders need to decompose “trust” into tangible levers (e.g., protection, reliability, transparency, value) and measure those. Vague totals don’t travel into strategy; specific drivers do. The moment you can name it, you can move it.

4) In B2B, speed and reframing win (and senior people won’t fill your survey)

Executives are time-poor and sceptical of “research” as a label. Reframing matters: partner insights, customer voice, commercial questions answered fast. “Speed is extremely crucial in B2B so we don’t even use the word ‘research’ sometimes… we’re positioning more towards partner insights or customers voice.” (Mansi)

Use conversational capture (voice notes, interactive, guided dialogues), tight stimulus, and executive-friendly flows. Design for the calendar you’re actually in — short cycles, rolling decisions, immediate payoffs — and you’ll unlock better access and richer material.

5) Design the experience of research

If you want better answers, make participation feel native to how people live and talk. “Surveys feel saturated; scepticism is high because of cultural complacency. Too many brands think, ‘What do I not already know?’” (Jessalynn)

That includes digital ethnography (listening where people already speak), observational work, and lighter-lift tasks that reduce cognitive load. Warm participants up, use visuals and examples, and let probes respond to what’s said rather than marching through a fixed script. When the experience respects the human, signal rises and the theatre falls away.

6) More data ≠ more insight — pilot, then scale

Modern stacks produce torrents of sentiment, but loudness isn’t consensus. Treat sources by their utility and limits; triangulate rather than chase volume. Then prove value with sharply defined pilots — narrow question, crisp method, clear success criteria — before rolling out. Pilots de-risk budgets, build confidence, and create internal champions faster than big-bang programmes.

7) China’s brand playbook is shifting expectations (IP, culture cycles, speed)

Brands steeped in fast culture cycles are teaching the region new rules: move quicker, build IP (mascots, characters, visual codes) that travel across touchpoints, and engineer retail moments that double as fandom. “The Chinese brands are moving ahead way faster.” (Jessalynn)

The implications for established players are twofold: codes need to be clearer and livelier, and the cadence of learning — and iterating — has to accelerate.

Monday-morning moves

• Design for meaning, not minutes. If your content or instrument is generic, expect generic engagement. Earn attention with a point of view and craft.

• Operationalise the abstractions. Break “trust,” “value,” and “quality” into measurable, category-specific drivers you can act on.

• Reframe, then retool. Especially in B2B, change the ask and change the medium — conversational capture and tight cycles beat long forms every time.

• Pilot before you roll. Start small, prove lift, then scale with confidence.

Want the full Insight Disconnect paper or a quick walkthrough tailored to your category? We’re happy to share more content and talk through practical next steps.

Be in touch: connect@blackbox.com.sg