What are the current and upcoming trends in the CPG data space? In this episode, Ian sits down with Sean Cline, Industry Principal for Retail and CPG at Seek, to discuss in depth with Peter V.S. Bond, Partnership Acceleration Lead at Flywheel. Peter is the founder and co-host of The CPG Guys podcast, where he regularly covers the latest trends, insights, and best practices in the CPG and retail space. This conversation covers the impact of generative AI, augmented and virtual reality, and the increased adoption of clean rooms. 

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Key Quotes:  

“A lot of people think that you need to own the data. We live in a world with clean rooms, with disparate data sets, and there is no need to own data en masse for every data component that you need.” - Peter

“That's the power of big data. I can create audiences that are meaningful to me, and I can treat each of those audiences fundamentally differently, and I can measure the performance of each.” - Peter

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Show Timestamps:  

(02:33) What is Grocery Shop? 

(05:55) AI takeaways from Grocery Shop

(07:50) Where is AI having the most impact? 

(10:48) Augmented and virtual reality in CPG

(15:57) Changes in data through Peter’s career

(21:29) Can everyone leverage data? 

(25:57) The gap between business and data experts

(30:34) The increasing adoption of clean rooms 

(33:38) Upcoming trends that will have impact 

(38:35) Why media retail networks are exciting

(44:55) What data is not collected that could improve CPG performance? 

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Sponsor:  

This podcast is proudly sponsored by Seek, the leader in cloud-based creation and delivery of industry-focused insights. 

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Links:  

Connect with Peter V.S. Bond on LinkedIn  

Connect with Sean Cline on LinkedIn 

Connect with Host, Ian Cook, on LinkedIn  

Follow Seek on LinkedIn   

https://seekinsights.com/   

How does PepsiCo support their retail partners through insights? In this episode of the podcast, host Ian Cook sits down with Kate Garner, the SVP of Demand Accelerator at PepsiCo. Kate outlines how they’ve worked with retailers to help them grow their category and attract consumers down the store aisle. Ian and Kate also discuss how PepsiCo’s “matrix” organization helps business and data stakeholders collaborate.

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Key Quotes:  

“Don't ever chase something unless you know somebody's lying awake at night waiting for that information.”

“I invest behind ideas that get stakeholders excited and waiting with bated breath for the information…That's when you know that you have it, when somebody's emailing you and asking you the status and seeking to understand where the product is at.”

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Show Timestamps:  

(00:47) Kate’s day as SVP for Demand Accelerator at Pepsico

(01:36) How Kate defines an insight

(03:03) What goes into making an insight?

(05:18) Data science and business stakeholder “matrix”

(06:32) Example of a valuable insight

(09:20) Using data to attract customers down the store aisle

(12:17) Bringing the data together in an efficient way 

(13:13) How is PepsiCo thinking about generative AI?

(16:06) Looking at data in four pillars 

(17:50) Working with retailers and sharing data 

(19:32) Example of sharing an insight with a retailer 

(23:45) Pepviz, PepsiCo’s data and analytics platform 

(27:04) What data does Kate wish she had?

(29:01) Final recommendations for companies navigating data challenges 

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Sponsor:  

This podcast is proudly sponsored by Seek, the leader in cloud-based creation and delivery of industry-focused insights. 

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Links:  

Connect with Kate Garner on LinkedIn   

Connect with Host, Ian Cook, on LinkedIn  

Follow Seek on LinkedIn   

https://seekinsights.com/   

Gathering data in the DTC world differs from those selling through traditional retailers. How do DTC companies benefit from their business model and how does it put them at a disadvantage? What information do they collect? In this episode of The Insights Factory, Ian sits down with Crystal Lee, Vice President of Data and Analytics at The Wild Alaskan company, to discuss in depth. They discuss the various methods employed by the Wild Alaskan Company to gather data and how they link this data to their overall business KPIs.
  

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Key Quotes:  

“We get involved and say, okay, do I think that what we're building and what we're saying we want to measure, number one, is that possible to measure? And secondly, will that give you an answer to say yes or no to your hypothesis?”

“The numbers are almost nothing without the story behind it.”

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Show Timestamps:  

(03:17) Understanding environmental impact 

(04:21) How do you know when data has made an impact? 

(06:26) Gaining an understanding of the business question

(07:56) Thinking about data presentation 

(09:24) Example of a successful data project 

(13:15) Collaborating across the company 

(14:38) Collecting and buying data in DTC 

(21:38) Using data to inform the overall company strategy  

(26:43) Presenting data to leadership daily 

(29:52) Cooking show data 

(35:48) Hiring for business understanding 

(37:38) Telling a story with the numbers 

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Sponsor:  

This podcast is proudly sponsored by Seek, the leader in cloud-based creation and delivery of industry-focused insights. 

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Links:  

Connect with Crystal Lee on LinkedIn   

Connect with Host, Ian Cook, on LinkedIn  

Follow Seek on LinkedIn   

https://seekinsights.com/   

How are large brands navigating the distance between business and data stakeholders? How can end-user data be used to generate demand for retail partners? What trends are emerging in the data industry? In this episode of The Insights Factory, host Ian Cook sits down with Ana Mourão, Global Customer Journey and CRM Manager at Stanley Black & Decker, to discuss in-depth. They dive into Ana’s work and her unique role as the bridge between many business functions. 
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Key Quotes: 

“It's about being able to generate demand on behalf of our distributors and retailers. The more we know the end user, the better we can generate that demand on behalf of our customers, the Home Depots of the world, the Amazons of the world.”

"I read our global privacy policy from end to end. I recommend all marketers or anyone involved in customer data to read that because that's pretty much a covenant of sorts that explains to the end user how is it that we are going to use the data. Why are we asking for the data we are asking for?”
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Show Timestamps: 

(00:59) Ana’s current role and what she does with data

(01:24) What kind of data does Stanley Black and Decker use?

(02:55) Collecting end-user data to generate demand 

(04:23) Demonstrating the value of insights within a large company 

(06:10) What does activating the database mean? 

(07:50) Working between technical and business stakeholders 

(09:47) Examples of translating business problems into data language 

(13:43) Talking data to the business stakeholders 

(18:04) Moving from data to insight

(18:46) How Ana thinks about data privacy 

(23:35) The trend toward increased data privacy regulations

(27:55) What lessons has she learned from working with data at this scale? 

(30:51) Experimenting and using incomplete datasets 

(36:11) How is Ana experimenting with AI?

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Sponsor: 

This podcast is proudly sponsored by Seek, the leader in cloud-based creation and delivery of industry-focused insights.

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Links: 

Connect with Ana Mourão on LinkedIn  

Connect with Host, Ian Cook, on LinkedIn

Follow Seek on LinkedIn  

https://seekinsights.com/  

Could you anticipate someone's musical preferences based on their taste in movies? Perhaps, but Qloo, an innovative predictive algorithm that maps consumer tastes, goes far beyond that. Their models can make relational taste predictions about your preferred snacks, favorite bars, book choices, dream travel destinations, and much more. In this episode of The Insights Factory, Ian sits down with Alex Elias, Founder and CEO of Qloo, to discuss their extensive consumer taste data set and their ability to map consumer preferences across categories. They also delve into Qloo’s geospatial precision and the anonymity embedded in their AI and ML models.
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Key Quotes: 

“With the geospatial model, we like to do these ridiculous data polls where it's like, 57th Street and 11th Avenue, plus Tolstoy, plus, Jill Sander, the fashion brand, and have it extrapolate where that person would want to grab a bagel or something like that.”

“One example recently was with another brand of product, where the cross category correlates to film preferences and TV preferences. It showed a penchant for horror and fear, and campy horror in particular. And that ultimately informed some sort of creative that was about the fear of running out of a product.”

“I would encourage people to approach this whole world of AI and data with a degree of optimism and hope and just excitement, because I think there's so much about it that could serve us. And a lot of the kind of doom and gloom narratives around it are likely leading to a degree of trepidation and sort of antagonism that ultimately is counterproductive, I think.”

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Show Timestamps: 

(01:06) Why Alex started Qloo

(03:29) Building a symmetrical panel 

(08:05) Impacting the bottom line through consumer taste data 

(10:45) Interacting with Qloo

(15:51) Anonymity and privacy 

(18:08) Entity instead of identity

(19:57) Thoughts on AI 

(25:39) What do customers use Qloo data for? 

(32:21) Navigating the gap between the business problem and the data owner

(37:16) What technology excites Alex moving forward? 

(42:49) Approaching AI with optimism 

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Sponsor: 

This podcast is proudly sponsored by Seek, the leader in cloud-based creation and delivery of industry-focused insights.

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Links: 

Connect with Alex Elias on LinkedIn  

Connect with Host, Ian Cook, on LinkedIn

Follow Seek on LinkedIn  

https://seekinsights.com/  

Multi-source data aggregation and extracting value from different data types has always had associated challenges. Cost, tedious legal processes, limited capacity and lack of technical expertise are significant barriers to organizations working to leverage vast amounts of data types on top of their point-of-sale data. In this episode of The Insights Factory, David Hannibal, CPO at Seek, and Sean Cline, Industry Principal for Retail and CPG at Seek, sit down with Ian to discuss the upcoming launch of Seek Enrich, an offering that works to address this. They dive into the boots-on-the-ground use cases that make this a game-changer in the CPG space. 

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Key Quotes:

“We saw this problem and yet everyone fundamentally came back to this same commonality, which is, man, if only we could answer basic questions with other data than the data we have today and do it at scale. And so that is what Seek Enrich is.” - David Hannibal

“Being able to look at just the full view of what was happening with not only weather, but additional datasets, as well and being able to use that at the boots-on-the-ground level, it's amazing.” - Sean Cine

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Timestamps: 

(01:06) What is Seek Enrich?

(03:45) Using Seek Enrich at the “boots-on-the-ground” level

(05:00) What will people be interacting with directly?

(09:09) Why hasn’t anyone done this before?

(15:56) Seek at Grocery Shop

(18:26) The importance of customer feedback 

(22:23) What is in the private previews available the beta stage

(24:59) Using Seek Enrich insights to support conversations with retailers 

(26:52) Where to find Seek at Grocery Shop 

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Sponsor:

This podcast is proudly sponsored by Seek, the leader in cloud-based creation and delivery of industry-focused insights.

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Links:

Take a Tour on Seek’s Website

Connect with David Hannibal on LinkedIn

Connect with Sean Cline on LinkedIn

Connect with Host, Ian Cook, on LinkedIn

Follow Seek on LinkedIn

https://seekinsights.com/

Why should you take a “business-problem-first" approach instead of a “data-first” approach? How do you break down silos within large organizations? In this episode, host Ian Cook sits down with Deepak Jose, a data and analytics industry leader who has spent time at major brands like Coca-Cola, Asurion, and Mars. Deepak is a thought leader in data analytics and the CPG space. He shares his thoughts on successful operating models and the responsible use of AI.    

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Key Quotes: 

“Data and analytics should be in the DNA of everybody in the organization.”

“We decided we have to start with the business-problem-first kind of mindset. So what is a business-problem-first mindset? You need to have a very clear understanding of what you are going to solve, how it is going to get embedded, and how this is going to make a decision better for your organization.”

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Show Timestamps: 

(01:39) What does One Demand mean for Deepak?

(02:30) Creating a single source of truth

(06:21) How do you break down silos within a large company? 

(08:30) How do you get each team what they need to tackle their problems?
(10:30) What is better than a data-first strategy

(13:35) The DVF framework 

(16:12) Does Mars want their business teams to have data skills, and vice versa? 

(17:54) How are they thinking about generative AI at Mars? 

(23:59) Responsible usage of AI 

(26:03) A cost-centered mindset to a profit-centered mindset 

(30:15) Should data teams be separated from IT?

(32:45) Importance of data-backed decisions when navigating changing data trends

(37:15) Closing comments from Deepak  

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Sponsor: 

This podcast is proudly sponsored by Seek, the leader in cloud-based creation and delivery of industry-focused insights. 

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Links: 

Connect with Deepak Jose on LinkedIn  

Connect with Host, Ian Cook on LinkedIn 

Follow Seek on LinkedIn  

https://seekinsights.com/  
 

How can CPG startups tackle challenges related to leveraging data and finding insights? In this episode, host Ian Cook sits down with Jessi Freitag, an expert in CPG productivity and operations and the host of the Startup CPG Podcast. They discuss simple ways that CPG founders can start to glean insights from data to support their immediate priorities. Jessi shares examples of how CPG companies can access useful data for free and leverage data when building relationships with retailers. 

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Key Quotes:

“I have seen where you pay for the data, but then you don't have bandwidth to dig into it and to use it. So, then you're just paying thousands of dollars per month for data, but you don't actually have anyone who has time to look at it or who knows how to manipulate it in Excel. That's a consideration as well, are you going to use it if you buy it? Just having it there might not be worth the investment.”

“Instacart has partnered with ChatGPT and artificial intelligence. And so they have an add on now on Ask Instacart where you can ask Instacart questions like, what do people buy with this? Or you can use ChatGPT to say make me a recipe for this and you can see what brands the AI recommends. I think that's really interesting data too, that you can now tap into for free and understand how other people are shopping in a category that may be similar to yours.”

“Can you plan ahead for where you think you might get chargebacks and those pieces? I think that's another critical piece that's really important to watch because it's easy to overbuy inventory or over plan and then all your cash is tied up and nobody's paying you back because it hasn't been sold in and it hasn't been invoiced.”

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Show Timestamps:

(01:50) Jessi’s background 

(02:55) How did Jessi learn about the CPG space?

(04:20) Jessi’s approach to data in her early days in CPG  

(06:00) What does the initial data strategy look like for CPG founders? 

(07:40) When do brands start purchasing data? 

(09:45) How important is access to customizable, specific data? 

(11:30) Transparency with competitors 

(13:27) Watching the cash cycle 

(15:30) Starting simply in Excel 

(18:30) Challenges understanding the impact of market spend

(20:46) Gaining an understanding of performance within a store 

(27:40) Using data to get into retailers 

(29:55) Leveraging community to learn about data

(33:40) Example of increasing sales through data 

(35:35) Proactively using data to determine your level of success in a store 

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Sponsor:

This podcast is proudly sponsored by Seek, the leader in cloud-based creation and delivery of industry-focused insights.

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Links:

Connect with Jessi Freitag on LinkedIn

Startup CPG Podcast

Connect with Host, Ian Cook, on LinkedIn

Follow Seek on LinkedIn

https://seekinsights.com/

Mo Villagran is a seasoned business analytics expert and the author of Data Insights Delivered: 7 Proven Steps to Understand Stakeholders, Manage Expectations, and Deliver Actual Value. In this episode, she joins host Ian Cook to discuss the role of the data concierge and the issues she sees in communications between business and technical stakeholders. They discuss how to achieve equal ownership among stakeholders, how to know you are providing value and moving your mindset away from that of an “order-taker”.

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Key Quotes:

“What I have experienced is that the business [stakeholders] are willing to listen. IT, I think they're also willing to listen, but they're so used to give me the requirements and I'll disappear, three months later, I’ll come back. So, it's this working tradition that was never being challenged.”

“The only thing that will make or break a data project is whether you engage with the stakeholder or not.”

“I want people to change their mindset. You are not an order-taker. When people tell you something that doesn't make any sense, or you don't understand it, it's within your rights and good for everyone that you ask them. Take an active approach to say, I would like you to explain your own words; I'm trying to understand.”

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Show Timestamps:

(01:19) Why Mo decided to write a book

(03:39) Who is a data concierge?

(05:31) Achieving equal ownership between business and technical stakeholders

(08:31) The challenges in communication throughout a project

(10:43) The importance of paraphrasing and translating communications 

(12:08) Finding the real problem

(15:08) The minimum viable product in a data project

(19:08) Choosing the most efficient solution 

(22:02) The importance of quarterly goals, versus activity driven KPIs

(23:21) How to know you’re providing value 

(31:23) Mo’s hopes for the impact of the book 

(33:23) Changing your mindset from an “order-taker”

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Sponsor:

This podcast is proudly sponsored by Seek, the leader in cloud-based creation and delivery of industry-focused insights.

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Links:

Connect with Mo Villagran on LinkedIn

Data Insights Delivered, book by Mo Villagran

Connect with Host, Ian Cook, on LinkedIn

Follow Seek on LinkedIn

https://seekinsights.com/

We’ve discussed what an insight is and the technical side of delivering insights. But who uses insights, anyway? How can insights best be shared across enterprises? 

In this episode, Host Ian Cook, CTO of Seek, discusses this in-depth with his Seek colleagues, Andrew Kim, JP Gressman, and Sean Cline. They dive into the different people who use insights and how best to share those insights with them, providing examples from the CPG space. 

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Key Quotes:

“If we can surface those insights faster and they're actionable, that means you get to enjoy simple things, like a cup of coffee in the morning. Or it could even just be, hey, I have the weekend with my family and my kids, knowing that the work is taken care of.” - Andrew Kim

“Don't be a button pusher, be an analyst. Analysts don't get paid to push buttons and quote unquote run reports. They get paid to dig probe, ask a million questions, lots of whys, right? Five whys before you get to the end of the question period, ask a bunch of questions, uncover, probe, dig, create an insight, not a report.” - Sean Cline

“Tying it into a company objective or solving an urgent and expensive problem, that is ideally how you cut through the noise.” - JP Gressman

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Show Timestamps:

(01:56) Who uses insights? 

(03:07) Are insights used at a certain level within a company? 

(05:08) The spectrum of technical skills of end-users

(05:46) What makes an insight usable across a company

(06:31) Working with BI tools

(10:40) Examples of digging to find impactful insights 

(19:20) Examples of actions taken from insights 

(25:50) Obstacles analysts face when trying to act on insights 

(35:50) Last pieces of advice
 

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Sponsor:

This podcast is proudly sponsored by Seek, the leader in cloud-based creation and delivery of industry-focused insights.

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Links:

Connect with Host, Ian Cook, on LinkedIn

Connect with Andrew Kim on LinkedIn

Connect with JP Gressman on LinkedIn

Connect with Sean Cline on LinkedIn

Follow Seek on LinkedIn

https://seekinsights.com/