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When I was an art student, I had a very wise and passionate art teacher. One of the most common instructions she gave me when I was creating my art, be it painting or drawing, was to go out and create that art while I was actually standing in front of my subject.

Now, to put that in context, I was a teenager. I loved art, but it was a bit embarrassing to go outside with all of my art gear and do color studies in the real world. I found it uncomfortable and never really felt confident when people came up to me and asked me what I was doing or wanted to see my work. So I took photos, developed them (yes, that was in front of digital cameras) and then painted from the photo.

Whenever my art teacher looked at my artwork, she would always ask me if I had done the painting with a direct view of the subject. See, she could tell I hadn’t. She regularly said that when you really study a subject, you notice the things that make it what it is.

You start to paint what is really there and not what you think is there.

It took me a while to get it, but when I got it it was a revelation. We have an idea in mind of what something should look like, but when we really openly question the actual topic, there are often surprising elements that make up the topic.

A good example of this is color. I had to paint a mailbox and in the UK these are all red. We all know they are red so paint it red. But try this exercise for yourself – go out and study something and you will often find that there are many other colors besides the main color. This could be due to other objects reflecting on the subject or the type of light hitting it at the time. I found that the mailbox I “knew” was all red, of course made up of many other subtle color accents – and these colors gave the mailbox its character and depth.

So why on earth am I talking about mailboxes and going outside and painting on a subject? The parallel to research literally crossed my mind yesterday. Too often people do research at their desks. Surveys, questionnaires, secondary research, online research, etc. etc. etc. The internet has made it all too easy for us to research from the comfort of our own studio or at home. Nobody asks us what we are doing, wants to look at our work or even asks annoying questions. It’s easy. It is comfortable.

But similar to the painting, we only see part of the picture. We are probably getting most of the important information we need, but we are not getting everything. There are subtle details and quirks that we don’t pick up on, and that means our work doesn’t have quite the depth it could be. The thing is, we only get that depth and detail when we go into the real world and do our research in person and in front of our subject.

Do you work in the FMCG / CPG department? Go to the grocery store and watch people buy a category. Stand in an aisle for 30 minutes and just analyze people. Watch out for their unexpected behavior that you would never have seen at your desk. Maybe talk to people, but mostly just watch and analyze what little things they do or don’t do.

Of course, in some industries it’s easier to see the audience in action, but if it’s an option, what’s stopping you? Are you embarrassed about what people might say? Do not be. Go outside and take a good look at your subject. Don’t base your research solely on what the numbers and data show you, add what people show you.

In-person research can add color and depth to your research that you could never have predicted.

Of course, she was right about this art teacher. My artwork improved and got a lot more depth when I stopped painting what I thought was there and just came out, looked more closely, and painted what was really there.

Contribution to Branding Strategy Insider by: Paul Bailey, Strategy Director at Halo

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