You might think you know your audience. Understandably so. But what happens when the data shows something else? Being wrong about your own assumptions can feel like a setback. In fact, it’s a huge opportunity.
This was the case for the brands below – they used consumer intelligence to uncover something they didn’t expect and used those insights to lean in.
Here's what we discussed:
- Challenging assumptions about a “conservative” audience
- Turning hyperlocal complaints into a national sales strategy
- Reading “negative” sentiment the right way
- Turning from guesswork to real audience timing
- Discovering the overlap between two seemingly fan bases
- Reframing location-based marketing based on new findings
Let’s take a look at how these brands made the most of consumer intelligence to turn insight into action.
1. Automated Creative + Durex: The audience wasn't too conservative, just overlooked
Durex, part of Reckitt’s Global CARE portfolio, had a goal in mind: to reposition itself as a healthcare brand with purpose in Southeast Asia and drive CRM signups. The team turned to agency Automated Creative to help them better understand the region’s real attitudes toward sex, sexuality, and relationships – a very sensitive topic for traditional research methods.
The agency didn’t stop at social media insights. They used Brandwatch to dive into anonymous forums, where people spoke more freely. The findings upended the brief entirely.
"Our client was quite surprised with a lot of the findings. They definitely came into it with some preconceptions about what their markets were like. They had this overwhelming perception that their markets were very, very conservative. And they are culturally, however, there is a real need – particularly among a younger audience – for sex education." – Amy Wright, Director of Client Strategy, Automated Creative
Instead of treading carefully, the team ran 225 bold, educational ad variations addressing what audiences actually wanted to know.
“Automated Creative’s unique approach made us challenge our assumptions and biases about our audience. The results were well beyond our expectations.” – Sumati Nagrath, Senior Content and Consumer Experience Strategist, Reckitt Global CARE team
The result
Leaving assumptions behind and betting on honesty over caution paid off:
- 4x the expected CRM signups
- 286% cheaper cost per acquisition than target
- 3x higher click-through rates than previous campaigns
The lesson
Sometimes, assumptions can hold you back long before a campaign ever launches. Durex’s real opportunity wasn’t in playing it safe but trusting what the data showed instead.
Read the full Automated Creative + Durex case study.
2. Thinketers + BWT: The problem was hyperlocal, and so was the solution
Water filtration brand BWT had a problem: low visibility in Spain. They needed to know exactly where its message would land hardest. To solve this, BWT worked with Thinketers, using Brandwatch to geotag more than 16,000 mentions and pinpoint exactly where in Spain people were complaining about tap water taste.
“We needed to know what was being said about the brand, the competition, and the perception of tap water within the Spanish public, to see where their solution was most relevant." – Thales Oliver, Head of Strategy & Accounts, Thinketers
“Geotagging was the tool that helped us the most when it came to letting the client know where and how we talked about tap water,” explained Thales. The data pointed to three regions with the highest concentration of complaints: Catalonia, Levante, and Andalusia.
Instead of a nationwide push, BWT sent celebrity chef Alberto Chicote to cook with filtered water in those specific regions, using the tagline “The richest flavor.”
The result
Listening to what the data revealed and going hyperlocal instead of national brought the team these big wins:
- A 30% annual increase in filter sales
- 2.5 million branded content views
- A complete shift in brand conversation – from Formula 1 sponsorship to gastronomy and water quality
The lesson
A national problem doesn’t always need a national solution. BWT found more traction by speaking directly to those specific regions already primed to care.
Read the full Thinketers + BWT case study.
3. Potential Energy Coalition: The "negative" sentiment led to positive results
Imagine this: you launch a campaign and, when analyzing its performance, you notice a lot of negative sentiment. Does that automatically mean it wasn’t successful? Not necessarily.
This was the case for Potential Energy Coalition, which launched its Science Moms campaign, built around mothers who are also climate scientists. Sentiment analysis flagged a wave of negativity, with comments like “I don’t want my kids to grow up without seeing snow or forest or polar bears.”
“Climate change is basically the world's hardest marketing problem. From the commercial world, we know that through advertisement and education, we can change people’s perceptions and behaviors," says Zander Sebenius, Director, Strategy and Operations at Potential Energy Coalition.
“At first we saw a lot of negative sentiment, with people saying they don't want their children to have a bad future, and we have to act on climate change. For us, this is actually positive, and we were able to train Custom Classifiers to recognize such differences.” – Zander Sebenius, Director, Strategy and Operations, Potential Energy Coalition
Instead of reading that as backlash, the team recognized it as it actually was: the emotional response the campaign was built to create in the first place. They also discovered that standard climate messaging – polar bears, melting ice caps – wasn't landing with busy moms the same way a climate scientist who’s also a mother could.
Did they sweep the negative sentiment under the rug and let the campaign die out? No, they did quite the opposite: the team leaned further into the emotional approach and doubled down on optimizing their climate narrative in real time.
“Brandwatch has enabled PEC to understand – and react to – how Science Moms is perceived in the digital world.” – Zander Sebenius, Director, Strategy and Operations, Potential Energy Coalition
The result
Leaning into the emotion instead of pulling back was a good call as it achieved:
- More than 3,050 media hits
- 1,910 top-tier print and digital articles in outlets like the LA Times, Washington Post, People Magazine, and The New Yorker National broadcast coverage on NBC Nightly News, Good Morning America, CNN, and NPR
- Significant spike in conversation after Kris Jenner’s post on X
The lesson
What may seem like negative sentiment might actually be positive. Sometimes, it’s the exact emotional response a campaign was built to spark, and backing away from it could be a missed opportunity.
Read the full Potential Energy Coalition case study.
4. Museums Victoria: Good content (also) needs good timing
The social media manager at Museums Victoria had a lot on their plate: 23+ channels with personal phone alarms, email reminders, and manual reporting. Naturally, there was no way to see when audiences across every platform were actually paying attention.
The data said otherwise. Unified audience insight across every channel revealed that Museums Victoria's followers were actually active at very specific, predictable times. Those times rarely lined up with when the team was actually posting.
This is where Brandwatch came in: “Everything is centralized in one place – content planning, scheduling, management, reporting, and listening all in one. It meant we could save time, plan strategically, and move at a faster pace,” says Olivia Gumienny, former social media manager at Museums Victoria.
Instead of producing more content, the team used our social media management solution to post on their audience’s schedule instead of their own.
The result
Posting on the audience’s schedule instead of their own brought:
- A 78% increase in Instagram reach
- Over 200,000 link clicks – a 27% increase from the year before
- More time freed up for strategy and creative work
“Now, we can put more of our energy into producing content and finding creative ways to engage our audience.” – Olivia Gumienny, Former Social Media Manager, Museums Victoria
The lesson
Don’t fix what isn’t broken. In this case, the content wasn’t the problem. Museums Victoria found more engagement not by crafting more content but by showing up at the right time.
Read the full Museums Victoria case study.
5. Spinnin' Records: Two audiences were apparently separate. Apparently.
Spinnin’ Records didn’t want to rely on gut instinct anymore in how it developed artists and shaped campaigns. Using Brandwatch’s Affinities, they uncovered two seemingly distinct fan clusters for one artist: one drawn to empowerment and body positivity, the other to high-energy nightlife. The obvious move would’ve been to treat them as two separate audiences, each of them with its own strategy. Instead, they build messaging around the overlap.
“That overlap was really important for us because it was where we could speak to the whole audience in an authentic way while still adapting our strategies, tone of voice, and visuals for each group separately on different platforms.” – Adineh Hosseinpanah, Audience Research and Insights Manager, Spinnin' Records
Rather than focusing on one audience, the team built messaging around the overlap (confidence, self-expression, fashion, and community) and adapted delivery by platform.
The results
Speaking to the overlap instead of picking one audience meant:
- A shift from reactive, post-release marketing to proactive strategy grounded in real audience behavior
- The confidence to invest marketing budgets with precision, once the team is sure of a specific audience segment
- A model the label now uses to guide artist development and campaign planning across its roster
“We started from intuitive decisions to using audience signals to reacting in real time and actively shaping outcomes. This has allowed us to make fast but confident and data-driven decisions.” – Adineh Hosseinpanah, Audience Research and Insights Manager, Spinnin' Records
The lesson
Two audiences that look separate on the surface might actually be one audience simply showing up in different contexts. Spinnin’ Records found more impact in the overlap than in choosing a side: two birds, one stone.
Read the full Spinnin’ Records case study.
6. hug digital: Expectations – cafes; reality – border crossings
Dubai-based agency hug digital wanted a new way to understand regional consumer behavior. Something beyond the usual approach of tracking brand mentions for volume and sentiment. Using Brandwatch's check-in data from apps like Swarmapp and Path, they set out to find the most-visited locations across the Middle East and Gulf region.
“We thought, what if we can attribute what we see on social to locations, brands or other specific entities? How could that inform our client's marketing decisions?” – Youssef Shalaby, Head of Research & Analytics, hug digital
Cafes and restaurants topped the list. That was the expectation anyway. But one finding stood out: the most checked-in location in Bahrain wasn't a business at all. It was the King Fahd Causeway, the border crossing between Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, where nearly half the check-ins came from people announcing their arrival from Saudi Arabia.
“We've never been happier to be wrong. The data was plentiful and we were able to identify bulks of hundreds of locations in each country and region.” – Youssef Shalaby, Head of Research & Analytics, hug digital
For hug, this wasn’t just a fun fact. It pushed them to reframe how they thought about location-based marketing entirely. Not just where people already spend time, but where they mark transitions and arrivals, opening up new opportunities for geo-fenced offers and cross-promotion with nearby businesses.
The result
Chasing the unexpected pattern instead of the obvious one delivered real value:
- A 50% reduction in analysis time
- More bandwidth for hug's research team to keep uncovering insights like this one for clients across the region
The lesson
The most valuable insight isn't always the one you're looking for. hug found more value in the unexpected pattern than in the goal they set out to prove.
Read the full hug digital case study.
The brands that get the most value from consumer intelligence are willing to be wrong
They all had some assumptions. What set these six teams apart was their willingness to let the data prove those assumptions wrong and then adjust their strategies accordingly.
Different industries, different challenges, but they all had shared this:
- They found the specific, not just the general. A hyperlocal complaint, an emotional trigger, an exact posting window, a precise audience overlap, an unexpected location. Success was driven by specificity, not broad strokes.
- They let the insights change the original plans. In every case, the response wasn’t a minor amendment. It was a real pivot – bolder creative, a new schedule, a reshaped strategy.
- The data encouraged them to take action. They were able to make more confident and targeted decisions.
That's a wrap!
Six brands used Brandwatch to challenge what they thought they knew. Are you ready to take the leap too?
