How would you classify the maturity of your insights function? Are you a strategic partner who influences business decisions, or do you feel like a project manager chasing short-term insights?
If your answer is the latter, you’re not alone! When PepsiCo partnered with Zappi in 2017, its insights team was disconnected. Teams couldn’t share what they learned, and people felt like order-takers in the global organization. Now, PepsiCo boasts one of the most consumer-centric brands on the planet – driven by technology and a consumer-first approach.
Revolutionizing Your Consumer Insights Program is a five-part course brought to you by Zappi and PepsiCo based on the book The Consumer Insights Revolution: Transforming Market Research for Competitive Advantage. The course details the skills and knowledge from PepsiCo’s multi-year transformation – and introduces the framework for brands to connect their insights.
Register now and join PepsiCo and Zappi for a live introduction to the course on August 27th at 10am CT.
Module 1: Driving Competitive Advantage
Join PepsiCo and Zappi for a live introduction to the “Revolutionizing Your Consumer Insights Program” course. This high-energy session, led by Ryan Barry of Zappi and Kate Schardt of PepsiCo, will kick off with an inspiring story about PepsiCo’s transformative journey from a disconnected insights team to a consumer-centric powerhouse.
Ryan and Kate will connect this transformation to the challenges and opportunities faced by today’s insights professionals. They will introduce the Connected Insights Framework, mapping the evolution of insights functions through three stages: disconnected, fragmented, and connected. This session will provide an overview of the course structure, setting the stage for a journey towards consumer-centricity and competitive advantage.
The live event will provide valuable insights into the competitive advantage that comes when businesses unlock true consumer centricity.
Key Learnings:
- Learn the importance of integrating consumer insights into business decisions.
- Discover how consumer-centricity can create a competitive advantage.
- Understand the business imperative of modernizing your insights function – and meet the Connected Insights Framework.
Kate Schardt
VP, Global Insights & Partnerships, PepsiCo
Ryan Barry
President, Zappi
Module 2: Your Process
Module 2 of “Revolutionizing your Consumer Insights Program” focuses on the “Process” component of the Connected Insights Framework. In this session, Babita Earle, Zappi’s International Managing Director with over 20 years of insights experience, will delve into the significance of developing a robust, consumer-centric process tailored to the unique needs of your brand.
She will guide learners through the essential steps to build and refine their insights processes, incorporating real-world examples and best practices. The session will ihelp learners self-assess their current processes and identify areas for improvement. By integrating business context and aligning processes with organizational goals, attendees will learn how to create a seamless and sustainable insights process that puts consumers at the center of creative work and drives meaningful business outcomes.
Key Learnings:
- How to map and evaluate your insights process to the needs of the business.
- Where to start and how to conduct a self-assessment to identify strengths and areas for improvement.
- Understand the best ways to build, pilot and scale a lasting insights process across your business.
Babita Earle
Managing Director, International, Zappi
Module 3: Your Platform
Module 3 of “Revolutionizing your Consumer Insights Program” focuses on the “Technology” component of the Connected Insights Framework. In this session, Julio, Zappi’s Chief Customer Officer, will highlight the critical role of having an agile, comprehensive market research platform that meets the diverse needs of global and local teams.
This session will help learners understand the benefits of and how to successfully implement a systematic, connected consumer insights platform that democratizes data and empowers marketers with the voice of consumers. Julio will demonstrate how to build a single source of truth that orients teams around the consumer and enhances the depth and breadth of insights, fostering a culture of data-driven decision-making within the organization
Key Learnings:
- Identify the challenges of relying on siloed, disparate data sets.
- Explore considerations when selecting and adopting a market research platform.
- Understand the concept of “freedom within a framework.”
- Learn how to create a digital town square of knowledge management.
Julio Franco
Chief Customer Officer, Zappi
Module 4: Your People
Module 4 of “Revolutionizing your Consumer Insights Program” focuses on the “People” component of the Connected Insights Framework. In this session, Nataly Kelly, Zappi’s CMO, and Stephan Gans, PepsiCo’s Chief Insights & Analytics Officer, will address the key challenge of change management in transforming the insights function.
Nataly and Stephan will share their experiences and strategies for successfully navigating organizational change, highlighting the importance of creating advocates for new technologies and processes. Participants will learn about piloting and scaling new initiatives, leading with value, and empowering teams with the right tools and technologies. This session will provide actionable insights and practical advice for fostering a culture of continuous improvement and innovation within the organization.
Key Learnings:
- How to pair bottom-up and top-down efforts to effectively drive change.
- The power of building advocates for your technology transformation
- How the roles of people and teams will change when introducing new technology and processes
Nataly Kelly
Chief Marketing Officer, Zappi
Stephan Gans
Chief Consumer Insights Officer, PepsiCo
Module 5: What's next? The AI Effect
Module 5 of “Revolutionizing your Consumer Insights Program” will discuss what happens after a successful insights evolution. In this session, Steve Phillips, Zappi’s CEO and founder, will discuss the transformative potential of data when combined with emerging technology like AI.
Learners will gain a better understanding of how creating a connected, harmonized data asset can exponentially improve quality, creativity and productivity among teams.
In this session, Nataly Kelly, Zappi’s CMO, and Stephan Gans, PepsiCo’s Chief Insights & Analytics Officer, will address the key challenge of change management in transforming the insights function. This session will provide a glimpse into the future of insights functions, equipping attendees with the knowledge and tools to stay ahead in a rapidly evolving landscape. The session will end with a demonstration from Steve on how Zappi is creating AI-powered marketing agents and early stages of using AI to develop new products for global CPG brands.
Key Learnings:
- The potential for technology-driven insights when brands have a connected insights function.
- How brands can access value in an AI world with data
- Explore the potential of AI in concept creation and other marketing activities.
Steve Phillips
Co-Founder and CEO, Zappi
Kate Schardt
VP, Global Insights & Partnerships, PepsiCoAs a global transformation leader with over 20 years of marketing, insights and analytics experience at PepsiCo and Nielsen, Kate’s focus is raising the bar for creative and brand excellence. She places a strong emphasis on delivering better returns on media investment and brand equity and on fueling consumer-centric growth from world-class innovation.
As VP, Global Insights & Partnerships at PepsiCo, Kate’s role is to lead the digitalization of brand advertising and innovation insights by implementing game-changing partnerships and technology.
Ryan Barry
President, ZappiHe is passionate about partnering with customers to empower them with smart, actionable data that inspires and validates their ideas. As President at Zappi, Ryan leads Zappi’s executive leadership team and oversees its global operations toward our vision to be the data platform brands rely on to inspire, optimize and validate ideas and executions before launch.
With more than 15 years in the consumer insights industry, Ryan is a dynamic leader with a proven track record of building high performing teams. Ryan is an advisory board member at Michigan State and on the Insights Association’s IDEATOR program, a fellowship program designed to encourage diversity, equity, and inclusion in market research.
Babita Earle
Managing Director, International, ZappiBabita Earle is Managing Director, International at Zappi, where she oversees its business and growth strategy in all markets outside the United States. Before this, Babita served as Executive Vice President of Global Enterprise Partnerships, ensuring that global customers drove value and growth on the platform.
With more than 20 years of experience in technology consumer insights, Babita is a leader and advocate for the future of insights. She is a highly active member of the Market Research Society (MRS), having served as a Main Board Member, chaired the ED&I Council, and set up their annual Equality Summit. She is also an advisor to the board of the Women in Research (WIRe) international insights community and a member of the U.K. WIRe executive group.
Julio Franco
Chief Customer Officer, ZappiJulio Franco is Chief Customer Officer at Zappi, where he leads a global team of research and customer success experts to ensure customers can hear the voice of the customer in every decision.
A consumer insights lifer, Julio brings over 20 years of experience in scaling digital transformation for leading global brands, helping them adopt new ways of working and understand the value of systematic and connected insights. Before joining Zappi, he was Americas Director of Consumer insight at AIG, where he led insight generation and identified key customer growth opportunities.
Nataly Kelly
Chief Marketing Officer, ZappiNataly Kelly is the Chief Marketing Officer at Zappi, where she sets the global marketing strategy to drive awareness and demand for its agile market research platform. Before joining Zappi, Kelly spent nearly a decade at HubSpot, serving in various leadership roles including Vice President of Marketing, International Operations and Strategy, and Localization. She also held leadership positions at Smartling and CSA Research.
A seasoned business leader and international business expert, Kelly is passionate about enabling connections across geographical, linguistic, and cultural borders, and empowering business leaders to expand strategically. Kelly is a frequent contributor to Harvard Business Review and best-selling author of “Take Your Company Global.”
Stephan Gans
Chief Consumer Insights Officer, PepsiCoBorn in the Netherlands, Stephan gained a master’s degree in econometrics and joined Unilever as a marketing trainee. After 15 years in the personal care and foods categories, he left to help build global marketing consultancy EffectiveBrands, which was eventually sold to the consulting division of Kantar.
Stephan then spent three years as the chief strategy officer at Interbrand in New York City before joining PepsiCo in New York as the Chief Consumer Insights Officer, where he’s spent the past six years modernizing and revolutionizing its insights function.
Steve Phillips
Co-Founder and CEO, ZappiSteve Phillips is the co-founder and CEO of Zappi, where he leads the company’s product and strategic vision. A serial entrepreneur, Steve founded Zappi in 2012 to digitize market research and empower creators with insights that inspire and validate their ideas.
Steve has lived in and worked across 4 continents to demystify consumer insights and enable brands with accessible data to inform their next move. He has been recognized by the European Society for Opinion and Marketing Research (ESOMAR), the UK Market Research Society (MRS) and the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) for his leadership and innovation in the market research industry. He regularly speaks on the evolving role of consumer insights at major industry events.
Steve is also Chair of the Market Research Society’s (MRS) Sustainability Council, where he brings a passion for helping to move the world of insights onto a fully sustainable future.
