Inside Insights

Marketing plans around what consumers say; insights knows it's not enough.

Mariline Alsuar-Dean, Global Consumer Insights Director for Sexual Wellbeing and Female Hair Removal at Reckitt, turns cultural shifts into products, packaging and messaging, and has identified £450M in growth opportunities along the way. She shares how to segment by values and mindset, not just demographics, so product teams and comms teams build for the same person. She also shows how a simple highlighter test exposed one word, "desensitizing," that quietly sank a product pitch, and why humans must teach AI the emotional side of consumers before it guides your strategy.

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Dashboards update in real time, but most brand insights still never change a single decision. Alexander Shmelkov, Digital Product Leader for Brand Pulse at Inter IKEA Systems, rebuilt a 20-year-old brand tracker from the ground up and knows exactly where that gap lives inside a real organization. He walks through aligning 64 markets around one shared definition of what the brand is for, replacing bloated legacy metrics with category entry points tied to actual growth drivers, and building change management muscle so country teams trust a new number instead of defending the old one. The result is a model for turning tracking data into something marketing and insights teams can act on together, not just report on separately.

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Marketing and insights teams still read the same data and reach opposite conclusions about when consumers actually enter the room. Nataly Kelly, CMO of Zappi, and Steve Phillips, Zappi's co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer, sit on opposite sides of that gap—one building brand strategy, the other building the systems that feed it—which is exactly why they unpacked Zappi's third annual Connected Insights Imperative report together. They dig into why rising "connectedness" hasn't translated into satisfaction, how to separate real AI acceleration from AI that just speeds up old workflows, and where synthetic data earns trust versus where it quietly misleads. The throughline for both audiences: insight has to stop living in reports and start living inside the tools where decisions actually get made.

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The traditional shopper funnel is dead, yet most brands still chase it. Nico Laruina, General Manager of Nestlé's Food Business Unit, bridges both worlds daily, running a global food portfolio while proving that consumer truth beats commercial pressure every time. He breaks down why the funnel became circular instead of linear, how elasticity testing reveals what shoppers will actually pay for, and why the right AI prompt only works if you already know your consumer's real need. A must-listen for anyone building strategy and anyone building the research behind it.

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Marketing and Insights teams still speak past each other, burying consumer truth in translation gaps. James Mackenzie, Head of Growth at PZ Cussons, and Paul Yocum, Chief Growth & Marketing Officer, dismantle that gap firsthand by treating Insights as neutral ground, or what Paul calls "Switzerland", inside a company spanning Indonesia to Nigeria to the UK. They unpack Qualiquant, the fusion of qualitative depth with quantitative scale, AI-led interviews that capture consumers in real moments instead of stiff focus groups, and a path-to-purchase framework that finally separates the shopper from the consumer. The through-line is that getting to the human faster doesn't replace judgment, it sharpens it for marketers and researchers alike.

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AI can generate creative fast, but soul gets lost. Matt Harris (Research & Insight Lead) and Oli Bussell (Creative Lead) at Canva sit on opposite sides of the table—data and instinct—and prove the two only work together. They break down how to test storyboards early instead of waiting for the final cut, why bringing a single consumer's voice into the room beats any statistic when defending or reshaping an idea, and how to use insight as a creative challenge to solve rather than a verdict that kills bold ideas. You'll hear why the best partnerships treat research as a steer, not an answer—and where the human touch still beats the algorithm every time.

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Performance marketing gets you noticed, but it can't scale you forever. Marcelo Kertész, CMO of MANSCAPED, turned a brand built on awkward jokes into the number three electric grooming brand in the US. All this while outmaneuvering competitors decades older by knowing exactly when to shift gears. He breaks down "The Great Rebalance" from D2C conversion campaigns to full-funnel brand building, why zooming out from seven-day attribution windows to six-month brand performance changes everything, and the difference between consumer insights and human insights. These are the emotional truths data alone can't capture. You'll also learn why listening to consumers with intention beats letting the "popular vote" make your decisions for you.

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The biggest brands have the most data and act on it slowest. Patrick O'Toole, CMO of Unleashed Brands, has led billion-dollar brands at PepsiCo and Burger King. Now, he's rebuilding an entire marketing function from scratch with AI at the center, giving him a rare view from both worlds. Pat breaks down the 70-20-10 model for balancing proven tactics with true experimentation, shows how feeding NPS and Google reviews through a behavioral-economics-trained LLM uncovered hidden consumer motivators competitors miss, and explains why every AI insight still gets validated through traditional methods before it ships. You'll hear how to move fast without losing the human expertise (and consumer truth) that makes the work actually land. Pat also hints at Unleashed Brands' newly-launched KidHub, a new family app designed to help parents manage their children's activities while giving them greater visibility into the confidence, resilience and life skills being built along the way.

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Most legacy brands fail when they're too scared to be brave. Boris Dolkhani, CMO at Robert Bosch GmbH, transformed a 139-year-old engineering company into a modern storytelling powerhouse with campaigns like "Like a Bosch" and their first-ever Super Bowl appearance. He reveals the "gut feeling" framework that guides creative decisions beyond data, the cultural conversation strategy that generated 10 billion media impressions on a limited budget, and why shifting too much spend toward performance marketing kills the brand storytelling that drives long-term growth.

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Marketing and insights teams speak different languages when building cultural relevance. Radhika Duggal, CMO of Major League Soccer, and Bettina Garibaldi, Chief Marketing Officer for FIFA World Cup 26™ New York New Jersey, reveal how soccer earned its place in American culture through three decades of patient community building. They share the "attention and spectacle" framework that transformed MLS marketing, the "participation is the new reach" strategy driving World Cup engagement, and how both organizations convert global moments into lasting local fandom through authentic cultural integration.

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Marketing and insights teams waste millions speaking different languages. Nataly Kelly and Steven Phillips, Zappi's CMO and Chief Innovation Officer, reveal the five breakthrough patterns that emerged from interviewing leaders at NFL, PepsiCo, Unilever, and Visa. They share Unilever's "100-hour consumer passport" rule, the CMO-CFO partnership framework that drives real business growth, and why AI's biggest win isn't productivity. It's freeing up time for human relationships that turn consumer truth into market advantage.

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Most brands treat AI like a data processor, but Christian Niederauer uses it to ask deeper human questions. As Vice President of Global Insights at Colgate-Palmolive, Christian leads consumer research across 200+ countries and transforms how AI reveals what people actually need, not just what they buy. He shares his "people-centric AI" framework that moves beyond traditional consumer segmentation to understand humans holistically, his "machine insights" methodology for optimizing content in an agentic commerce world, and practical strategies for democratizing insights while maintaining quality control across global markets.

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Most brands lose relevance one price-led campaign at a time. Carolyn Pollock, former CMO of Tailored Brands and advisor to CEOs, transformed iconic menswear brands by reconnecting with consumer truth rather than chasing discounts. She reveals her "Love the way you look" strategy that rebuilt emotional brand equity, her framework for turning finance leaders into marketing allies through shared assumptions and documented models, and why the future belongs to AI-augmented generalists who provide strategic context across the entire marketing mix.

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Frozen food faces a massive perception problem that's costing brands billions. Alex Hardy, Consumer Insight & Analytics Director at Nomad Foods, bridges this gap by transforming misconceptions into market opportunities across 25 European markets. He reveals how demand space frameworks uncover universal meal occasions that transcend cultural boundaries, why AI experimentation requires a "problem-first" mindset rather than technology-led solutions, and how building genuine partnerships with marketing teams creates the foundation for turning consumer truth into business growth.

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Most meal kit companies struggle with turning trial customers into loyal subscribers. Patrick Roney, Customer Insights & Analytics Lead at HelloFresh, bridges marketing strategy with behavioral data to solve this exact challenge, having previously applied similar approaches at McDonald's and Burger King. He reveals HelloFresh's "bigger, healthier, tastier" framework that doubled recipe variety from 50 to 100 options weekly, explains why emotional connection beats functional benefits for lasting loyalty, and shares the three-part formula for creating customer experiences competitors can't replicate.

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Marketing teams measure campaigns but miss the bigger picture of systematic effectiveness. Sorin Patilinet, Global Marketing Effectiveness Executive at PepsiCo, bridges engineering precision with marketing creativity to build scalable measurement systems that actually drive business growth. He reveals the Kaizen principle for iterative testing that changes one variable at a time, explains why ad wear-out is a marketer myth that wastes budgets, and shares how to align entire organizations around a single effectiveness metric that connects every decision to measurable outcomes.

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Most insights teams still operate like order-takers, not strategic partners.

Sinead Jefferies, SVP of Professional Services at Zappi and former Chair of the Market Research Society, bridges C-suite strategy with operational research excellence, transforming how organizations embed consumer truth into decision-making.

You'll discover her "know your audience" framework for speaking the language of business leaders, the cultural shift from project-based to connected insights that changes how marketing perceives research, and why reading the room matters more than statistical significance when influencing senior stakeholders.

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Most global brands fail at cultural relevance despite massive research investments. Katherine Melchior Ray, former CMO at Shiseido and marketing leader across Nike, Louis Vuitton, and Hyatt, bridges strategic vision with cultural intelligence gained from 12 years working abroad. She reveals the "freedom within a framework" approach that lets KitKat succeed in 14 countries, the cultural intelligence model that prevents costly missteps like Airbnb's China exit, and how trust-building requires shared values, honest communication, and consistent promise delivery across every market.

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Most brands treat Super Bowl advertising like a single moment instead of a strategic system. Mark Kirkham, CMO of PepsiCo Beverages US, and Greg Guidotti, CMO of Ferrara Candy Company, reveal how winning Super Bowl campaigns actually work. The process starts months before kickoff with clear business objectives, not just creative buzz.

They share the "make simple special" framework that drives real growth, the consumer insights that give teams confidence to be bold, and why the best Super Bowl advertising connects to year-round brand strategy rather than chasing viral moments.

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Marketing teams struggle with AI-powered shopping while insights teams chase transaction patterns. Michael Nevski, Director of Global Insights at Visa, bridges both worlds by transforming payment data into consumer behavior intelligence that drives creative strategy and product innovation. He reveals the "specific task framework" that doubles consumer willingness to share data with AI agents, the shift from search optimization to "information optimization" that's reshaping brand discovery, and why the rise of single-person households is forcing cruise lines to waive cabin fees and create entirely new service models.

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