What the Heck Are Outsights? The New Rules of Marketing From Charlie Grinnell

Charlie Grinnell, CEO of RightMetric, a Canadian research firm that provides outsights and strategy research for clients like North Face, Red Bull, Interac, Toyota, Saje, and MEC, closed out Day One of SocialEast 2025 with his keynote The New Rules of Marketing. The session walked through new ways of thinking about client and customer analytics.

Charlie Grinnell, Co-CEO, RightMetric

“What are outsights? I’ll put it this way: we don’t ask people what they think, we measure what they do,” Charlie explained.

While brands often focus on patterns within their existing customers, outsights are about learning from external data. RightMetric defines them through three key components:

• Audience – Not your current customers, but your target audience. They share characteristics with existing buyers but aren’t with you yet. Finding these “new data paths” can unlock market potential.
• Competitors – RightMetric looks beyond direct competitors to indirect ones as well. Where does the profile overlap? How are others reaching your potential customers?
• Content – What’s working, what’s missing, and what’s changed? “What used to work for you might not be working anymore,” Charlie noted. Assumptions need to be challenged.

Marketing today is unfolding in the busiest, noisiest marketplace yet. Whether you’re a global brand or a hobby creator, the challenges are the same. Outsights bring new data into view to push your strategy forward.

The new rules of marketing? There are no rules. Bring the outsights in.

This piece is part of our ongoing coverage of SocialEast 2025, one of five national conferences produced by SocialNext, with live coverage of this event sponsored by Cyberimpact.

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