PepsiCo intentionally hired a leader with a marketing and consulting background to head consumer insights. They rejected the 'promote the best surgeon' model, believing an outside perspective was essential to galvanize the team and connect its work directly to business needs.
As AI handles more tactical work, the distinction between marketing and insights will blur. The most valuable human skills—interpreting nuance, reading culture, understanding context—will become the core of a converged function focused on deep consumer-centric strategy.
To ensure introverts' ideas are heard, Zappi starts meetings silently, with participants writing and voting on ideas before discussion. This technique counteracts the tendency for the loudest voices to drive decisions, leading to more thoughtful and inclusive outcomes from the entire team.
Instead of using research as an expensive, end-stage 'go/no-go' test, PepsiCo made it a cheap, fast, and low-threshold tool for continuous learning. This shifted insights from a final gatekeeper to an integrated partner available at any point in the creative and innovation journey.
A former Spanish interpreter's early career revealed that understanding consumer motivation, culture, and context is more critical than literal translation. This principle applies universally, from B2B tech marketing to internal stakeholder communication, highlighting that intent trumps language.
During its insights transformation, PepsiCo learned that implementing new technology was a minor hurdle compared to changing employee behavior. The real challenge was shifting the team's mindset from simply 'doing research' to strategically 'maximizing the benefit' of the data.
After developing a biomechanically superior shoe, a Nike researcher observed a female athlete viewing it from the top down, not the side. This revealed a crucial, unarticulated consumer behavior—mimicking how they see shoes in a store—which prompted a change in the product's exterior design.
Zappi was founded not just to improve research but to fundamentally disrupt its business model through automation. The goal was to make insights radically faster and more affordable, changing the core value proposition from lengthy, expensive projects to near-instant, accessible data.
Working in Japan taught a former Nike executive the importance of observing nonverbal cues, a concept known as 'reading the room.' This skill helps uncover what consumers want but cannot articulate, providing a powerful advantage in qualitative research across any market or industry.
Kit Kat maintains global consistency with three strict rules (logo, shape, wafer mix) while encouraging local teams to innovate on flavors, leading to 400 varieties in Japan alone. This 'Freedom Within a Frame' model is a powerful strategy for balancing global brand identity with local relevance.