Decoding the Why: How PepsiCo Uses Cultural Nuance to Build Brand Love | Kevin Moeller
Kevin Moeller, Head of Consumer Insights for Sparkling Brands at PepsiCo, discusses the essential role of cultural intelligence in a world of demographic shifts and data revolution. Moeller explains how connecting with diverse consumer groups requires a deep understanding of cultural nuance to build "brand love" and drive strategy. He delves into the importance of empathy, cutting through the noise of fads to find lasting trends, and leveraging a full spectrum of data, from qualitative to AI, to understand what truly motivates consumers. Using Mountain Dew's recent brand transformation as a case study, Moeller provides a masterclass in how uncovering surprising consumer insights can lead to a tangible and successful new marketing strategy.
Takeaways:
- Embrace Empathy to Understand Your Consumer: Go beyond the data and put yourself in your consumer's shoes. Experience shopping and media consumption from their perspective to build the empathy needed to develop truly resonant insights.
- Find Your Brand's "True North": Use insights to identify "nuggets of tension" or barriers in your consumers' lives that your brand can authentically solve. Establishing this clear strategic direction makes product development, communications, and commercial planning much easier.
- Distinguish Lasting Trends from Fleeting Fads: In a world saturated with noise, it's critical to analyze what is a sticky trend versus something that is "popping up today and gone tomorrow." Focus on the "why" behind a trend to determine its longevity and potential for brand innovation.
- Use Cultural Nuance to Have a Conversation: Don't paint all consumers with the same brush; what resonates with one person or group may not resonate with another. Understanding nuance allows your brand to have a relevant conversation with consumers rather than just "screaming at them."
- Leverage AI for Efficiency in Insights: Utilize AI to accelerate the analysis of qualitative data, such as summarizing video ethnographies to find common threads and trends in consumer feedback. This allows your team to put results into action more quickly and effectively.
- Democratize Your Data: Powerful data sets are useless if they are not accessible to your key stakeholders. Ensure your data is connected and available through user-friendly interfaces so it can live up to its full potential and inform business decisions.
- Embrace and Lean Into Change: The marketing and data landscape is in a constant state of transformation. To stay relevant, you must be curious, question the status quo, and proactively learn how to leverage new technologies and capabilities for your company's benefit.
Quote of the Show:
- “Experiencing life through someone else’s eyes, by stepping into their shoes, is a powerful way to build the empathy needed to develop meaningful insights — and ultimately, empathy is what this game is all about.”
Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-moeller-1ab78318/
- Website: https://www.pepsico.com/
Creators and Guests
