The Art of Research: Using the power of images to increase the value of the DIESEL Pinterest page

“Something is happening. We are becoming a visually mediated society. For many, understanding of the
world is being accomplished not through words but by reading images.” - Paul Martin Lester, Syntactic
theory of visual communication
Images increasingly dominate our world. Visual
communication has always been the most impactful
human type of communication from the cavemen’s
drawings in ancient times until today’s LED billboards,
multi-media online games or 3D television spots.
Research indicates that people remember 30% of what
they read, but about 80% of what they do and see
(Lester, 1994). Images have the ability to connect
people across countries, cultures and beyond
languages. They possess the ability to express certain
ideas better than any spoken language can. Just think of
the power of iconography used in airports and
other public buildings or the visual traffic signs
recognized across the globe.

In the digitized world, people almost automatically use pictures to start
conversations and express themselves. There are several illustrations of
this within new emerging social media channels. Instagram, an online photo
sharing and social networking service, just recently hit 100 million active
monthly users (Techcrunch, 2013). Twitter, a primarily text-based media
format, just launched its video-sharing platform Vine. However, the fastest
growing visual social network at the moment is Pinterest.
Pinterest is a social image bookmarking system where users can post
(‘pin’), search, like, comment and repost (‘repin’) visual content into
collections (‘boards’) that can be viewed from their profile. Pinterest offers an
easy way to find and collect design and broad lifestyle ideas. It is comparable
with an online scrapbook.
Although the site was only launched in 2010, it quickly became one of
the most popular social media sites ever. Early 2012, the platform was
announced as the fastest site in history to break through the ‘10 million
unique visitors’ mark (Techcrunch, 2012). At this moment, it is the third
largest network in the US, right behind Facebook and Twitter (Mashable,
2013).

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To start with, it is one of the first truly visual platforms allowing brands to present their
products to consumers. It can be viewed as a personal online catalogue where consumers
pin their wish lists of products they would like to possess. The visual nature of the platform also
makes for a great platform for branding: through visuals, mood boards and look books the
brand personality can easily be expressed, e.g. by pinning both their own products and mood
pictures as well as other visuals which express the identity of the brand.
Second, Pinterest is unique because so far it has mainly attracted women (Van Belleghem &
Thijs, 2012).
And last but not least, Pinterest is one of the platforms with the highest conversion rates.
Recent statistics show that it drives more referral traffic to retailers and company websites than
any other social media platform (Smith, 2013). This fact alone cements the argument that the
immediacy of visuals is important for marketing and branding.
Next to the fast expansion of the platform, Pinterest also has some
other distinctive characteristics that have drawn the attention of marketers:

As a fashion company, DIESEL can use Pinterest as a brand-
building exercise where they can tell the brand story, showcase
DIESEL’s many facets, display individual collections and campaigns
and where anyone can learn what the brand stands for. DIESEL
launched its Pinterest page in the early days of the platform. Over
the last year, they maintained their boards merely as a mirror of their
Facebook content. The strategy was to showcase their collection
as a lifestyle brand.
Because of all the previously mentioned characteristics of the platform, Pinterest has also
drawn the attention of the digital marketing department at DIESEL
DIESEL recognizes the need for social currency among today's increasingly digitalized
generation Y and is focusing its efforts on Pinterest as the ideal location to inspire and connect
with females within their desired target demographic. DIESEL is known for tapping into subcultures
with self-aware marketing, which is also the case on Pinterest. The platform allows DIESEL to
build a unique look and feel by making it easy for them to bring the personality and
DNA of the brand in an accessible magazine-like online display.

Early 2013, the growing popularity of the platform brought Pinterest into strategic focus in its own right.
Additionally, considering DIESEL’s strategic decision to augment its focus on communicating with
women and the fact that Pinterest is more used by women, DIESEL wanted to focus its efforts on
Pinterest to use it as a valuable communication channel to connect with this female target group
online. In order to optimize the platform for brand activation, instead of a repository of Facebook content,
there was a strong need for insights on the best digital strategy for the DIESEL Pinterest page.
Figure 2 - The DIESEL Pinterest page

1 How can we help marketers to deal with new and visual communication
platforms such as Pinterest? To create a strategy specific to Pinterest, we had to
understand both the current value of the DIESEL Pinterest page as well as the mechanisms
that would help DIESEL increase the activation value of their page.
2 In sharp contrast with the rapid evolution and proliferation of visual material,
in market research, we still mainly rely on the power of words and numbers.
Through the case study, we wanted to describe how market researchers can make an
effective use of the power of images throughout the entire research process.
In a final section, we will evaluate our success by looking
at the Return Of Images (or ROI), both for DIESEL and
for the researchers.
In the remaining part of this paper, we will describe our journey with DIESEL through this
brave new visual world. More specifically we will address two challenges

Challenge 1: How to assess and increase the
value of a Pinterest page

In the old world, marketers had control. Today we see
that consumers have moved into the driver’s seat, more so
than ever before. Gradually, we saw marketing moving towards
working together with consumers, collaborating with
them and achieving goals through them. The days are
gone where we send out messages and want people to go to
the store and buy our products or brands.
Today we need to engage consumers to
participate in our brand activation.
We are adapting strategies from
‘marketing to consumers’ to
‘marketing through
consumers’.

In sharp contrast with this changing world, many marketers are still using
advertising and digital communication in a predominant
unidirectional way. Even in assessing the success of their brand
activations, they tend to focus on large scale reach KPIs such as the number
of likes, followers or fans of a page. Generating reach might be easy and
often is a question of buying media space, but ultimately it only stays a
reflection of low-value consumer brand commitment. In addition, brands
often simply copy offline brand activation into the digital world. This
type of repeated content mostly lacks stimulation of consumers to activate
through their brand affection. The real value of digital media lies in
creating true engagement and brand intimacy with consumers -
which preferably grows organically. This is the difference between a product
that reaches you and a product that grabs you!

Changing the hearts and minds:
Although we often refer to a follower of a social media brand page as a ‘fan’, arguably a fan is
really somebody who loves and buys the brand. Real ‘fans’ are consumers who strongly
identify with a brand and who state a clear preference for this brand over others. For
DIESEL we had to find out how many of their Pinterest page follower really identified and
preferred the brand over competitor brands. In addition, fans have a considerable knowledge of
the brand, the products and the company. In DIESEL’s case, for example, this means that they
not only know the main brand DIESEL, but that they can articulate the differences between the
sub-labels such as DIESEL Black Gold, 55DSL and DIESEL kids, or they are well aware of the
new collections launched by the DIESEL brand.
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In order to assess the ‘real’ value of the current Pinterest DIESEL page and to understand the
drivers for engagement, we applied the activation model (Van Belleghem, 2010). This model is
extremely valuable because it reveals higher levels of consumer brand-commitment. The activation model
claims that value can be assessed on two main dimensions:

2 Changing the actions:
Academic research has shown that brand identification also reinforces purchase behavior
(Lam et al. 2012). So we should know to what extent the DIESEL content on Pinterest
drives online and offline store visits and buying behavior. Additionally, we should look
beyond conversion. If one really understands COBRAs (Consumers Online and Offline Brand-
Related Activities), brand activation efforts will lead to advocacy: you can influence what your
followers do for your brand and what impact their actions have on others. They will spread
your message by connecting with their networks.

Successful brand activation can only be achieved if you get insights on current
consumers’ online and offline brand-related actions (COBRAs) (Muntinga et al., 2011 and
Van Belleghem, 2010). For example in the case of DIESEL’s Pinterest efforts, COBRAs range from
passively browsing the DIESEL Pinterest page, pinning DIESEL content on their own board, or
even commenting or creating new DIESEL-related pins.
It is important to realize that we do not limit ourselves
to understanding only Pinterest-related actions. We
want to understand the COBRAs of the current
Pinterest user in all its facets, online and offline. We
are also interested in learning more on the actions
they undertook offline (e.g. word-of-mouth).

To build successful brand activations or, in the case of DIESEL, a valuable Pinterest page
The activation model states that you should get insights in two aspects:
Identification
Previous research on explaining brand success (Van den Bergh, 2012) states that brand
identification is a crucial condition for building engagement. Brands can only be
successful if there is a large overlap between the brand and consumer identity. We need
to understand what makes people tick - not only in the digital space but also in the real world. Who
are the people who are currently engaging with DIESEL content? What is their lifestyle? How do
they differ from consumers who do not engage with the brand? Why did consumers interact with the
DIESEL content or with brand-related content in general? These can be extrinsic motivators (such
as being paid or winning something), but they can also be intrinsic triggers (access to exclusive
information, content and entertainment).
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Content
In addition, we need to understand how can we translate self-identification into the online
world. Which types of DIESEL content and DIESEL-related content is the DIESEL target group
using, spreading or creating? How should the content be executed? What style of content is
contagious? Which format and execution works best for the true DIESEL fans in order to touch
their hearts and minds and trigger their actions?
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Challenge 2: Unlocking the power of images in
research

The core of the DIESEL project was to optimize one of the leading visual based social media.
In addition, the DIESEL case is also a showcase of how market research can make a better use
of powerful images.
Working with images also leads to new challenges for market research. Especially when it
comes to analyzing visual content, there is a lack of clear guidelines - what exactly is the
data? Moreover, truth is in the eye of the beholder. The same picture will be interpreted differently
depending on who is doing the analysis. The challenge for analysis becomes even greater when
looking at the social web where we see an explosion of visual content. We are left with the
question of how we can best tackle these vast numbers of images.
Visuals can increase the quality of the research. We all know that participating in research
is often considered as too boring. As a result, participants engage minimally and with the
intention of ‘getting through it’ as fast as possible, straight lining, speeding or simply dropping
out. It is evident that visuals and video play a big role in improving the participant experience.
Visuals draw more attention to surveys and reduce the cognitive effort it takes for participants to
take part in the research (Mahon Haft & Dillman, 2010).
Analyzing visual content
Increase the quality of research

Visual reporting styles enhance client comprehension, recognition and belief in research
results, memorization of conclusions and recommendations and client-side after-project
activation. To practice what we are preaching, we wanted to try a non-conformist way of disclosing
the research results to the DIESEL team as well as DIESEL’s agency. We therefore presented it in an
art exhibition format, using modern museum techniques such as quiz interactions, visual displays,
etc.
In response to the trend where people are using pictures and videos to express their ideas, feelings and
messages on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube, we should give research participants the option
to ‘answer’with a visual if this allows them to better express their opinion. By offering them an
alternative channel of voicing their ideas, we might get access to new types of information.
Visuals can help uncover new insights
Visual reporting styles

We applied a hybrid methodology where all opportunities were
embedded that images offer us. We started of by investigating some data
on the current usage of the Pinterest pages. We collaborated with a social
media monitoring tool, Octopin, specialized in collecting behavioral
data on Pinterest. One nice feature of Octopin is that it does not only give
insights in the number of followers, pins and comments of a page, but it can
also automatically detect similarities between pictures by using automated
pattern detection which is a first way to deal with the challenge of analyzing
visuals. Octopin allows you to quantify the pictures efficiently. This
way, we could easily identify current top content on the Pinterest
page.

We also used existing Pinterest content as
a base for netnography. Netnography is a
type of ethnography where the user-generated
content coming from individuals on social
media is analyzed with the goal of finding new
insights (Kozinetz, 1998; Verhaeghe at al.,
2009). Just like the activation model states,
we had to find out which online content
the DIESEL target group was engaged
in. Therefore, the goal of the netnography was
to identify online personae for Pinterest. For
each persona, we created a mood board
comprising typical content that this persona would find engaging. To do so, we collected a random
sample of boards from over 500 Pinterest users. Next, we created an online segmentation based only
on the visual information. Instead of applying automated analysis, we decided to apply the guidelines for
visual analysis put forward by Sara Pink (2001).

1 Similarities and absence:
Grouping pictures based on similarities or absence of certain themes. We started to
group the different Pinterest users according to similarities between their pictures.
This was done based both on shared common interests and on aesthetic themes. For
example, we noticed that certain boards shared color palettes. It is important to mention that
some boards were also clustered because they lacked the presence of certain themes. For
example, fashion is one of the biggest categories on Pinterest; however, for some of the
segments, this content was completely absent.

Intimacy:
The focus and perspective of the images reveal something about the emotional
distance and importance of the different elements in the picture. On Pinterest, we
identified two typologies: on the one hand we had ‘portraits’ where the camera focuses on
one or several subjects set off in focus from the background. Usually these subject take up
to more than 50% of the picture plane. Portraits typically suggest intimacy and
aspiration with an object. They can be utilized to identify passion points and
may signal brand preference. On the other hand, we had images that we classified as
‘scenes’. Scenes focus the camera of a ‘mise en scène’ to describe the relationship
between objects or moods in a given view. They typically suggest certain mood or values
(such as sociability, wealth, tranquility, nature). The combination of portraits and scenes in
a user’s post helped establish what their primary subjects of interest are.
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Abstraction:
Different categories should be grouped in higher-level conceptual constructs; in
our analysis, we tried to apply several theoretical frameworks to the data. We
applied for example the identification model (Van den Bergh & Behrer, 2013) to the pins
by looking specifically at uploaded user-generated content. The rationale behind this was
that we hoped to get a glance of the offline lifestyle through the user-created
online content. The identification model specifies that some people like to express their
identity by showing their skills whereas other people will express themselves more
through their physical appearance and looks. We clearly found these theoretical
constructs back in the data. Some segments had a lot of pins referring to crafts, cooking,
DIY and household tips whereas other segments clearly pinned more fashion-, manicure-
and fitness-related content.
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The second group comprised active Pinterest
users who did not follow DIESEL. The third
group comprised people who were online but
not active on Pinterest. The two latter groups
were important because they represent potential
new followers of the DIESEL Pinterest page; as
such, their reaction to the current content is a
reasonable measure of how successful we were
with the existing Diesel Pinterest page. We
recruited people through both the Survey
Sampling International research panel and a
special research pin that was placed on the
DIESEL Pinterest page, which was intended to
attract a sufficient sample of current DIESEL
Pinterest followers. In total, we engaged 1,222
people: 205 followers of the DIESEL
Pinterest page, 608 Pinterest users and 407
people of the target groups with an online
presence.
One of the main challenges of using social media
(visual or textual) as the base for insight
generation is the lack of profile information. To
get a better understanding of what makes
the DIESEL target group tick, we also
conducted a digital survey to get a full
understanding of the COBRAs. We
connected with three distinct groups within
DIESEL’s target (25-34 year-old non-rejectors of
DIESEL) in the UK and the US. The first group
comprised the current followers of the
Pinterest DIESEL page. DIESEL had 5,657
followers at the start of the project and assessing
this group could give us an idea of the current
value of the Pinterest page. Moreover, we wanted
to find out to what extent they could help DIESEL
in further promoting the DIESEL content through
their own networks.

People were presented with a mood board of content
for each persona and were asked to indicate which
mood board they found most engaging. By doing this
exercise we identified content which was
appealing for the current followers, the
Pinterest users and also the online target group.
As mentioned before, visuals can help increase
participant experience. Since we were talking to the
DIESEL target group, we understood more than ever
that we had to make sure that this consumer touch
point was also in line with other communication
DIESEL was doing.
According to the activation model, we measured
brand identification, brand preference and
brand knowledge (hearts and minds), current
buying behavior of the Diesel brand,
intention to visit the (online) store
(conversion), online and offline word-of-
mouth and recommendation behavior
(advocacy). In addition, we assessed the lifestyle
and profile of the different groups in our study to
really identify what makes them tick. The survey
also helped us link the digital personae we had
found in the netnography to the DIESEL target
group.

Throughout the setup of the survey we collaborated with the digital agency of DIESEL
‘Superheroes’ to create the look and feel of the survey (see figure 3). By using the power of pictures
in this case, we also hoped to make the surveying process more pleasant for the participants.
Figure 3 - Visually appealing survey for activation mapping

Visuals can be a great way to get higher quality answers on topics that are
hard to express in words. To further understand the mechanisms and trends behind
why a certain person finds a certain mood board attractive, we gave participants the
opportunity to create a new DIESEL Pinterest board themselves in the
survey. Instead of asking them through an open question what content they find
engaging for the DIESEL Pinterest page, we involved them in an interactive, visual
game. Participants were asked to create a Pinterest board they thought would be
appealing for another participant in the study. Once they were done, their work
was sent to another participant in the study for evaluation. This way of working
revealed not only information on suitable content for the boards but also
helped us to reveal the reason behind the engagement.

The Return On Images
Images are the new currency. The Diesel project allowed us to test the real
power of visuals. But how successful did we cope with our challenges?

Knowledge leverage
With our approach, we wanted to detect new insights to build the DIESEL Pinterest
strategy. One of the characteristics of a good insight is that it has an element of freshness. We had
to get to DIESEL with new information, information they did not know yet. We managed
to discover new insights in the following areas:
First of all, we were able to estimate the value of the current DIESEL Pinterest pages and
the potential to attract and engage new people. We discovered that although the current group of
followers was limited to 5,657 people, which is a relatively small reach, the value of this group was
excellent: 57% of the group have a very strong identification with the brand; 53% considered DIESEL
as their favorite clothing brand and the average knowledge of DIESEL, including its sub-brands, was
very high. When looking at their buying behavior, almost half of them indicated buying DIESEL
frequently and [respectively 58% and 67%] were planning for sure to visit the online and offline stores
in the next two months. It was clear that the followers of the page were true-type Diesel fans.
However, despite this brand identification, the current followers were no advocates. To start with, the
current followers of the DIESEL page did not engage sufficiently with the content. There
were only a few pins, repins and comments regarding DIESEL’s original content.
Estimate to value of the current DIESEL Pinterest pages

Estimate the value of the current DIESEL Pinterest pages
In addition, we were able to detect how we could improve consumers’ engagement
with the DIESEL Pinterest page by investigating self-identification within the target
group. We applied the CRUSH identification model which states that consumers express
their identity according to four dimensions (see both axes in figure 4). (Van den Bergh, Behrer,
2013)
Figure 4 - Digital strategy for the DIESEL Pinterest Page

When looking at the group of Pinterest users among
the target that were not following the DIESEL brand
(indicated in figure 4 by the ‘P’ logo), we found that a
substantial subset of them did not connect with
this ‘change’ motivation. It was clear that attracting
them would be a hard fit with the current brand
positioning. However, among this same group, there
was also a substantial number who were oriented
toward ‘change in life’, but were much more we-
oriented. Finally, we also looked at the target
group with online presence (indicated in figure 4
by the WWW) who appeared to be definitely situated
on the skills axis but were less extravert and less
stimulation junkies.
We detected that the majority of the DIESEL target
(across the three subgroups - indicated in Fig 6 by
DIESEL label - size of the label indicates group
size) scored very high on the dimension ‘change’ (y
axis). They appeared to be people who do not like
status-quo in life and are mainly looking to
maximize fun and excitement in life. This
motivation was also present among the current
group of Pinterest DIESEL followers, but in addition
this group also scored high on the dimension ‘me’
(right side of the x axis): they wanted to impress
people, buy trendy products and luxury
brands, show their style and were generally a
very good personification of DIESEL’s
current slogan ‘for successful living’.

Considering the value of the current Pinterest DIESEL page followers, we wanted to
provide content that would keep this group of people happy, as that could also
encourage them to engage more with the current DIESEL content.
Our analysis helped us to shape a strategic focus for the Pinterest page:
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2 In order to broaden the scope of the page, DIESEL also wanted to attract more
Pinterest users situated on the we-side of the scheme. Although both groups
are quite far apart, they have in common that they score high on the ‘change‘
dimension. As such, DIESEL wanted to explore this axis with its content.
3 Finally, they decided to also add some boards that focused more on the skill
axis. This way, they could again reach out to the Pinterest target group on the we-
side but also additionally stimulate some people in the online target group.

Determine the right type of content
We were able to determine the right type of content by linking our digital personas to the
lifestyle segments that we based our strategy on (see figure 5).
Figure 5 – Matching digital persona’s with strategic focus

The designer persona collects and disseminates
visual content they find commendable and
artistically inspiring. Good design is seen as cool
and elevates users above mainstream popular culture
which is ‘banal’, not ‘sophisticated’ or not ‘intellectual’.
The hipster persona stands for the alternative
counterculture consumer, inspired more by group art,
design and independent music interests than by the
mainstream consumptive society. They value creation
and not simply consumption, or creative reuse of
products. Finally, a substantial part of the online
target of DIESEL that was not active on
Pinterest and also situated on the skill axis were
motivated by the ‘geek’ persona. Geeks use
Pinterest to advertise outside affiliations, they are logo-
centric, love computer games and cars and stress that
they are part of an insider group.
Our netnography revealed that there are at least
8 distinct online personae on Pinterest. The
current followers of the page, situated at the
change & me side of the model, were most
engaged by the ‘high street’ persona. This persona
mainly emphasized product consumption and
aspiration as defined by consumer fashion
magazine and celebrity styles in their boards. In
addition, there was a substantial group of ‘model
mainstream’, who are appearance-motivated
consumers aspiring an exclusive educated, affluent
young urban lifestyle, among the current fan base.
In order to keep the current fan base on board, it
was clear that the new DIESEL content had to
be in line with both personae. In order to attract
more people situated on the we-side, DIESEL
could get inspiration from the designers and
hipsters boards.

We also derived guidelines on how (style, format and tone of voice) the pins should
be executed. For example: the top content of the current DIESEL page made it very clear that
their current audience on Pinterest was very responsive toward quotes. Hence, as a general
guideline, it was advisable to add several quotes to the different Pinterest boards to
maintain current interest.
Our recommendations were not limited to suitable themes

The successful leverage of knowledge was also
confirmed in a small quiz and survey upfront, where
both the DIESEL team and DIESEL’s digital agency
had to predict the study’s results. The quiz
revealed that our research clearly filled a
knowledge gap for the team: the scores
indicated that the team had few insights
upfront on the value of the current Pinterest
page regarding its effectiveness and
relationship to their existing content strategy.
During the quiz, we also gave the team a creative
exercise during which they were asked to compose
a board that would be engaging for their current
Pinterest followers. When analyzing their selected
images, we found that the digital strategy team
mainly selected images from the Hipsters and
Model Mainstream personae, while neglecting
to include any images belonging to the most
dominant online persona, the High Street.
In addition, the fact that the DIESEL team consistently
selected images from two personae demonstrated the
validity of our digital personae. The results of the quiz
where confirmed by a small satisfaction survey among
the digital communication team: on a 5-point scale, the
entire digital marketing team indicated completely
agreeing that this study resulted in new insights. In
addition, we obtained high scores on all items
referring to clarity, ease of interpretation,
simplicity, uniqueness and trustworthiness of the
results (see Table 1).
Table 1 – Results satisfaction research

Internal leverage
Today, we see the rise of infographics together
with a growing attention for new ways of data
visualization. As we believe that images can be a
good way to communicate effectively, we decided to
make optimal use of them when presenting the insights
to the digital communication team at DIESEL. Instead of
just presenting the results in a standard presentation,
we set up a research art exhibition, allowing the
team to interact with the different results as
image boards and discover the results in an
image-based less mediated format. It is a well-
known fact that art can be a very strong vehicle to
channel emotions and trigger reactions.
The mix of methodologies led to a wide
range of new insights. With all of this rich
data, the remaining challenge was to
communicate our results in a way that the
DIESEL digital communication team would
know how to act upon the results. Visuals
help to take down communication
barriers between brands and
consumers. They can help to better convey
research results to our clients. We often
make reports that are too lengthy to be
processed by the average consumer,
whereas we have the ability to explain our
message through visuals in a (couple of)
powerful images.

The first section was dedicated to presenting the online personae: for each
persona, we created a mood board representing the type of content
this persona finds engaging. To go beyond pure observation of these mood
boards, we provided the team with several probing cards containing questions
that went back to the principle of visual analysis outlined by Pink (2011). The
visitors of the exhibition were challenged to look for similarities
between different elements of the mood boards (similarities), to come
up with evidence for an assumption they had about a certain persona
(absence, abstraction, etc.). In addition they could also play the same game
the participants had played in the survey: they were confronted with a collage
made by one of the participants in the study and had to estimate if this content
was engaging for a given persona.
Our art exhibition was divided in three sections:
1
Fig 6 – scan this QR code to get an impression
of the art exhibition

2 In the second section of the exhibition, we featured the competitive online
space. A first ‘piece of art’ contained top content from DIESEL’s competitors.
Again, we stimulated the crowd to reflect upon the content by using
probing cards. This time, the visitors were asked to put themselves into
the shoes of their online target and estimate the reaction of this
consumer based on the competitive online content. The consumer
perspective was reflected in three Mondrian-like infographics showing the
connectivity of the target group in the online space.
3 The final section was created to stimulate thinking on the current content of
the DIESEL page. It contained a wall with top content and an
infographic with the conclusion of the exit forum, describing the
actions consumers would take if they were driving DIESEL’s
strategy. In addition, the team could play a game during which they were
asked to rank a selection of the existing pins on consumer appeal. Once
finished, they could turn around the visuals to detect the research results and
then reflect about their mistakes.
Once all the team members had visited the exhibition, we brought the group back
together to connect the digital strategy with the insights gained from the
exhibition. For each of the spearheads within our new strategy, we used our
inspiration and newly acquired knowledge to determine the content of new boards on
DIESEL’s Pinterest page.

the results were inspirational, recognizable, concrete and
illustrative for the consumer’s daily life and made the
team feel closer to the consumer (see Table 2). It also
increased internal leverage through conversational powers as
the art exhibition participants of the DIESEL and Superheroes
team indicated that they were going to talk about this study and
share the insights with colleagues. People indicated they were
going to use the results of this study in their daily job while
making plans for the future and endorsing more consumer-
oriented decisions. Overall, they valued the study as more
valuable on average than other consumer research
studies they had participated in in the past.
Again, we also assessed to what extent the
research led to an internal impact within the
team. First, the qualitative feedback after the workshop
illustrated the value of our visual approach. The art
exhibition enabled a very tangible way to teach the team
how to execute the new digital strategy. They felt that
we had really brought the consumer alive beyond just
reading a profile of a target group. They felt very
involved during the workshop and as a result they had
the feeling they had a better understanding of the
conclusions of the research and were more capable of
remembering and incorporating them. Our findings were
again confirmed by the evaluation survey:
Table 2 – Results satisfaction survey

The ultimate value of the study of course lays it
the final usage of the results. Only a couple of
weeks after the workshop, DIESEL started to
use the insights and new approach to
reshape their Pinterest page. As mentioned
before, the majority of the current Pinterest
followers appeared to be attracted by a mix of the
‘model mainstream’ and ‘High street’ personae,
both profiles who really value fashion content.
However, our analysis had demonstrated that Figure 7 - Beached out: moving from catwalk models to achievable fashion
especially the model mainstreams were looking for more achievable fashion closer to their own lifestyle.
The current looks displayed on the boards where often too hard to put into practice for this DIESEL fan base. They
could not relate to it in their personal lives. There was also a call to feature the fashion industry more naturally, e.g. by
featuring more behind-the-scene images or natural poses. Therefore, DIESEL decided to feature its swimwear
collection in a natural environment in the ‘Beached out’ board (figure 7).

Our goal was to keep DIESEL’s current Pinterest
followers engaged on the one hand, while broadening
the scope on the other hand. To do so, we learned that
a large part of the DIESEL target is constantly looking
for stimulation. We discovered that we could express
this need for ‘change’ through images that depict a
challenge for people to get the most out of life. For
example, we found that the most popular content often
showed people partying or having fun with
friends. Many pictures were referring to social
drinking. DIESEL used this insight to create a new
board called ‘Sunday rocks’ where style tips were
shown for summer festivals such as Coachella. In
addition, they created a board called ‘Before You’re
Boring’ containing a “bucket list” of things one
should definitely do in life (see figure 8).
Figure 8: ’Before You’re Boring’: a board unifying ‘we’ versus ‘me’ segments

We also went deeper into the most appropriate content
for people who express themselves mainly along the ‘skills
axis’ of the identification model (Van den Bergh & Behrer,
2013). The results showed that there were three
interesting distinct personae ho could bring inspiration
here: designers, hipsters and geeks. Designers and
hipsters really seem to be sensitive to both the content of
the images and the overall color palettes (e.g. coherent
boards featuring trending colors such as bright yellow,
mono-chrome or sepia) and style (e.g. boards
communicating a focus on details/close-ups of objects).
Geeks on the other hand value technologies such as
DIESEL watches and even the link to DIESEL’s
cooperation with Ducati motorbikes. We brought this type
of content to life in a board called ‘For Him Indoors’,
which demonstrated a mix of design elements and
technology in a neutral or mono-chromatic color palette
(figure 11).
Figure 9: For him indoors

External leverage
In a final step we also assessed the external
leverage of this DIESEL study. Did we succeed in
increasing the value of their DIESEL Pinterest
page? To assess this question, we asked the initial
participants who took part in the activation mapping
to follow the DIESEL Pinterest page (even if initially
this was not the case) and asked their opinion on
our new research-informed strategic content.
We also monitored the behavior on the revived page
through Octopin. Of the 296 people who took part in
our final evaluation, 73% indicated finding the new
content to be an improvement. The ‘Sunday rocks’
board, where DIESEL depicted fashion more
naturally, was appealing (top 2) to 67% of the
sample. Especially among the Model Mainstreams,
one of the groups who expressed a desire for more
achievable images of fashion, we saw a positive
evaluation of this board.
‘Before You’re Boring’, created to appeal to
everybody residing within the ‘change’ dimension,
was rated as appealing by Designers (77% top 2)
and Hipsters (70% top 2) as well as by High Street
(85% top 2) and Geeks (82% top 2), four
segments which reside on different edges of our
framework. This result demonstrates that
content reflecting ‘stimulation’and ‘change’
really unifies the DIESEL consumers. ‘For
Him Indoors’ appealed to both the Designers
(77%) and Geeks (71%). ‘Beached out’ got the
best rating overall (82% top 2 overall) but was
characterized by a very high top 1 score for
Hipsters along the we-side of the scheme, as was
intended (52% top 1).

In comparison with the start of our study and the
measurement after one month of the new strategy, the
number of followers increased by 25% (from 5,657
to 7,062). 28% of the DIESEL Pinterest page at the
last assessment contained new content showing
that DIESEL clearly incorporated the results of
the study. This new content helped DIESEL to increase
the number of likes and re-pins, 41% and 44%
respectively, in only one month’s time. Although at the
moment of writing this paper, the new strategy has only
been implemented for a couple of weeks and therefore, it
is hard to predict the future success of the page, we
have already seen the first results on the quality of the
page.
Overall, 55% claim that the new content
stimulates them to talk (online) about DIESEL;
59% say that the new content stimulates them to
recommend the brand; 71% find they now have
better knowledge of the Diesel collection and
65% state they identify more with the brand
thanks to the new content. It seems that our
strategy should also result in sales: 67% and 69%
respectively claim they will visit the offline or online
stores in the near future, whereas 59% say that the
new content will lead them to buying DIESEL in the
future.

This is where the real power of images is hidden:
pictures appeal to all people, independent of
background, profession or role because they are
interpretable. While the DIESEL team was open to the
vulnerability of this interpretation, they have reaped the
benefits of courageously engaging with the COBRAs.
Images will increasingly take a dominant role in
our profession. They truly are worth ‘thousands of
words’. We have reached the age of the image. It’s now
up to the research industry and to marketers in general
to adapt their offerings to the consumer trend that has
already been illustrated by the successes of Instagram
and Pinterest.
Our study demonstrated a clear return of
images in digital marketing. Pictures have
never been so powerful! It comes as no surprise
that brands are looking for new ways to best use
these new visual platforms for brand activation
and communication. In market research, we still
mainly rely on the power of words and numbers;
even when we use visuals, we do so with
supplemental and static visual media, which are
rapidly becoming outmoded. Although all types of
data have their value, this case clearly shows that
we should increase the usage of images in
the future both in (digital) marketing
strategies and in the research industry. We
have shown in this paper that visual channels and
communication methods improve connections
between marketers/researchers and consumers
as well as between research agencies and their
clients.

This paper is the result of the efforts of from a larger team. The authors would therefore like to thank
the following contributors: Filip De Boeck and Sam Omans for their work on creating the digital
personae for Pinterest. Joost Van Eyck and Isabel Vandenbergh for their assistance in collecting
the Pinterest pictures. Veerle Van Hoecke, Georgiana Murg, Kevin Gabbard, Constantin
Ivanov, Sabinus Neculae, Alexandra Filipas, Alina Stanci and Diana Balotescu for the
implementation and analysis of the Activation mapping. Survey Sampling International for their
partnership on the data collection. Wouter Nuytten from Octopin (www.octopin.com) for partnering
up with us in the social media monitoring of Pinterest with his fantastic tool. We are also very grateful
to Grace Cowlard of the digital agency hellosuperheroes (www.hellosuperheroes.com) for her
openness and enthusiasm to cooperate with the execution of the Pinterest strategy and the copy and
look and feel of the survey. Finally, we are extremely thankful to the entire digital marketing team
at DIESEL for their collaboration in the art exhibition, satisfaction survey and quiz. Thank you!

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Annelies Verhaeghe
Head of Research Innovation
InSites Consulting
Stefano Tabogo
Global Head of Digital Marketing
Diesel
Joeri Van den Bergh
Managing Patner & Co-founder
InSites Consulting
Alice Merlo
Global Digital Marketing Junior Manager
Diesel

Thank you!
@InSites
marketing@insites-consulting.com
www.facebook.com/insitesconsulting
www.slideshare.net/InSitesConsulting

The Art of Research: Using the power of images to increase the value of the DIESEL Pinterest page

The Art of Research: Using the power of images to increase the value of the DIESEL Pinterest page

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The Art of Research: Using the power of images to increase the value of the DIESEL Pinterest page