How does Olly use consumer insights to craft products that stand out in the crowded wellness market?

In this episode of the Greenbook Podcast, host Karen Lynch interviews Liz Raukohl, Director of Insights at Olly—a vibrant vitamin and supplement brand celebrated for its consumer-friendly and innovative packaging. Liz shares her career journey from Pepperidge Farm to Unilever, leading up to her pivotal role at Olly. She delves into the establishment and evolution of the insights function within a dynamic startup environment, detailing her integration of cutting-edge research methodologies with fundamental consumer-centric practices. Emphasizing the critical role of insights in shaping strategic, data-driven decisions, Liz also explores how blending traditional and contemporary approaches in the insights field propels business growth and strategic innovation.

You can reach out to Liz on LinkedIn.

Many thanks to Liz for being our guest. Thanks also to our producer, Natalie Pusch; and our editor, Big Bad Audio.

Transcript

Karen: Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Greenbook Podcast. I’m Karen Lynch. I’m excited to be hosting this episode today. I’m also excited to be introducing this particular guest. I met Liz Raukohl from Contents Marketing World about six months ago, where we both kind of converged. She was speaking at a marketing and data event that was partnering with Contents Marketing World, and our paths just happened to cross. So I’m excited to be talking to her again. Liz also spoke at our IIEX Health Event earlier this year, so Liz, welcome to the Greenbook Podcast. It’s a pleasure to have you here.

Liz: Thank you so much for having me.

Karen: Absolutely. Absolutely. And friends, we’re going to be talking with Liz today about her current role at Olly, which is as the insight director there, and she really is building the insight function, you know, at this organization. You may have heard of Olly. They are hard to miss if you’re ever shopping the supplement section of your local stores, whether it’s Target or CVS or even the grocery store—really great packaging, really great branding, positioning, everything about them. So I’m excited to dig into that, Liz. But first, why don’t you tell our audience a little bit more about your background by way of introduction.

Liz: Right. So I’ve been at Olly about four years, and before Olly, I was at Unilever for a long time working in their office in New Jersey. I was there for 13 years working across a variety of brands and categories, including ice cream, which we have, I think, 7 brands at the time. I spent time on the Dove brand, which was really a highlight for me, and even some time on AXE in Germany. And then I actually started my career at Pepperidge Farm, and I’ve been in insights for the whole time. I knew from the beginning that this was my place.

Karen: That’s great. That’s great. And, you know, I smile. You all can’t see me, but I’m smiling because, first of all, Pepperidge Farm were headquartered not that far from me for a long time. So probably when Liz was there, she was working not that far from me. But also just at the mention of AXE, I was thinking, “Oh, that’d be some fun focus groups.” Right? [laugh] I can just imagine because I did have men, young men, in that target market, probably. Anyway, we’re not going to talk about that, right Liz? Let’s [laugh]...

Liz: We could.

Karen: We could. We could. But let’s focus on your current role. For people that aren’t familiar with the brand, what can you share a little bit about Olly. Now, we’ll dig into your role in building the function in a minute, but, yeah, kind of tell them what they set out to do because it’s a great mission—a great company mission.

Liz: Olly is a vitamin and supplements brand. It was founded to really disrupt the category. Because, years ago, vitamins—you know, it wasn’t colorful, and it certainly wasn’t fun, and some would say it wasn’t approachable either. It could be very confusing to shop. And so our founders really saw this gap in opportunity and brought these beautiful, bright-colored packaging, these bottles that are actually square shaped so they stand out a bit more on shelf. Also, an important thing for Olly I that we’re benefit led. That’s what we say. And what we mean by that is we put the benefit right on the front of the pack in large font, and so we’re trying to make it easy for people. You know, we found that you might not know if you’re low on energy, you need a B vitamin. And so, instead of calling it B vitamin, we call it energy—that kind of thing.

Karen: That’s really cool. And, yes, it’s the intrigue. Like I said, if you shop that section, the intrigue is real. So, you know, as I mentioned, we’re going to be talking a bit about building the insights function and how you’re doing that at that company. But first, let’s rewind just a little bit about what it was that even drew you to that opportunity, when the opportunity were, from where you were, you know, at an organization at Uniliever where it’s probably safe to say highly developed insights functions [laugh].

Liz: Absolutely. And I think “safe” is such an important word. So, for me, I tend to actually be pretty risk adverse. I like safety, and I like security. I was at Unilever for a long time. I felt very comfortable there. I, you know, ended up doing the same job on different brands because you get rotations, which gives you a new experience working with new people and new brands and categories—always provides some education and some learning opportunities. But it was safe and kind of expected. And Unilever, I will say, did a great job of bringing in innovative partners, new methodologies and tools, but we did have some limitations about using those. You could only use them in specific situations. So Unilever actually acquired Olly, and I saw that notice. And included in the notice was, “Hey... it looks like Olly is going to need an insights person. If you’re interested, raise your hand.” And I’m over here like, “Oh. Me. Me.”

Karen: Yeah [laugh].

Liz: “I’m interested. I’m raising my hand.” And the job was in San Franscisco, and I was based in New York, but I figured my family could make that work, and so I went for it. And we ended up making it a remote position, and it was an absolute dream to come over and essentially be able to lean on my base of knowledge from Unilever but also try anything new that I wanted to do.

Karen: I mean, just let that resonate with the people listening. Like, imagine, like, just being able to try anything new that you wanted to do. I love that so much. So what were the early days like there for you. Like, how did you find your footing? What did you kind of rely on to get you through that, you know, the first few—well, I don’t even know how—weeks, months, when you were, you know, there and didn’t have a roadmap to follow? 

Liz: Yeah. And the ways of working were completely different. You know, at Unilever you knew what researches you were allowed or even supposed to do at each stage gate, and at Olly it was just a completely blank slate. Right? So, you know, the first thing I did really, obviously, was, like, normal onboarding: really getting to know the business and the people and what kind of appetite they had for insights and what the role of insights was going to look like at Olly, at least in the beginning. And I worked on what we needed to measure and were we already measuring that. And usually the answer was no. You know, like, they were measuring sales data but had no panel data, which was mind-blowing to me coming from a company like Unilever where you had so much data available. So first things first, establishing some KPIs and making sure that I could measure them and then being really thoughtful about what required research and what didn’t.

Karen: How did you make that decision? Like, how did you go about that sort of strategically assessing what required research and what did not? Because I’m sure there are people in the industry that would be like, “Everything need a little research. Right?” So how were you discerning in that time?

Liz: Well, one of the things I was keeping in mind was that if I, as the only insights person, inserted myself in places that reduced efficiency, I knew I wouldn’t be well received. And so I was very mindful of that because I was trying to build a function that added value and didn’t slow things down. That was so important to me. I knew that part of what I was doing was teaching people at Olly what insights could do. So, you know, part of that is relationship building and knowing what questions people have versus what they really feel like they already know. And so I would choose to do research on areas that we all had the same question because I knew we were making a lot of assumptions, but a lot of them were right. You know? And so I didn’t spend my time questioning all of our assumptions, but I did think a lot about, like, the basics. Do we know how people use the category? Well, we know how we use the category, but that’s not telling the whole story. So I did a lot of work to help everyone understand that while we are consumers, we are not “the” consumer, and we really needed to think about how to get to know people outside of our four walls.

Karen: And let’s just level-set for everybody. Like, who are those, you know, internal stakeholders, for lack of better description, for the people that you started to collaborate pretty quickly? What areas of the business were you informing right from the get-go?

Liz: So my closest partners would be the, like, brand managers, you know, anyone kind of working on brand strategy. At Olly, we have a marketing team, and that’s really marketing communications, so different marketing channel owners and their agency partners. We have a creative team in-house, and so they’re developing the creative from scratch, which was, again, very different from my Unilever days. Of course, now I work with categories managers, but those were my main stakeholders at the time.

Karen: At the time, yeah. How has it—now, again, sort of fast forward. You know, how has the kind of internal structure grown over the last few years? And then we’ll get back into the insights function specifically. 

Liz: We have more levels. 

Karen: Yeah.

Liz: You know, we’re a different size organization. I came in. I was the 82nd person at Olly, and we’re now, I think, around 160.

Karen: Yep. Almost doubled in size then, yeah.

Liz: Right. And I think, at the time, we did work more in silos because we were moving so quickly. We all had to really trust each other and say like, “Okay. You do your thing, and then let me know when we’re talking about it.” And now it functions more like other CPGs I’ve been at where people involved at various stages, and there is a bit more kind of partnership that happens throughout rather than just at these milestones.

Karen: Yeah. So this isn’t the first time you’ve mentioned kind of, you know, the need for speed. Right? So how did you navigate, you know, kind of operating in such a fast-paced—or in an environment that required you to work at a fast pace? Were there things that you did or practices you had, or just, you know, did you just have to trust your gut? Like, how did you function at that pace? 

Liz: I think a couple of things contributed to being able to move relatively quickly. One, I leaned on partners that I knew. Because if you’ve already onboarded someone or you already have a working relationship, you don’t have to spend so much time getting, you know. So that really helped. I knew I could tap certain partners for specific research, like ad pre-testing or something like that. I had some go-to partners that I’ve used for a very long time. So that helped. I also ask a lot of questions of my business partners, you know, because, of course, there’s a lot we can test, but I feel very strongly that we don’t need to test it all. And Olly had prided themselves on leading the consumer rather than getting input from the consumer for everything. Now, I think we’ve found a happier medium these days. But one thing I did want to mention is that I’m asking these questions of my business partners. Right? So I tend to ask questions like not just what do we need to learn, but what do you expect to learn. Because if I know what their ingoing assumption is, it really helps me assess whether they’re open to learning or if the decision has already been made. And those are the situations where I’d rather not do the testing. Because if we’re testing just to validate, that has a place sometimes, but that shouldn’t’ be the primary reason we’re testing.

Karen: Yeah. Well, and, you know, you mentioned that you really fell into a reliance on, you know, partners that you’ve worked with before or, you know, businesses that you’ve used before to success from your previous roles. Yet you also have this like “you can try anything you want and do things that are new.” So when it came to sort of selecting methodologies or tactics for answering those business questions, how did you navigate, like, staying with what you know versus trying something new? To me, that seems like it might be challenging.

Liz: Now that I think about it, I don’t know if there was a good rhyme or reason. Sometimes, it depending on how much time I had. If I had a little bit more wiggle room on the upfront in the planning phase, I would have time to go talk to someone new. And often, those were the ones that could turn your field work around in two or three days. So you spend a little bit more time upfront, but then you save time on the backend. Whereas, if I knew timing was tight between, say, when I would get the final creative for testing and when we needed results, then I would go with a trusted partner because I knew I could rely on them to deliver good, quality output within the timeline. 

Karen: Yeah. No, that makes perfect sense. And kind of similarly, what have been some of the things that you wanted to try? Do you recall, or am I kind of putting you on the spot here? Like, what were some methods that you were anxious to try or styles of research that you hadn’t really done that much of before that you were like, “You know what? In this role, I really want to try this”?

Liz: That’s such a fun question. I’m still thinking about that. So I know I need to do more with AI. Right now, the way I work with AI is with trusted partners because I’m not really techie. I’m definitely not on the forefront of trying new things related to tech, so that’s where I get uncomfortable, and I really lean on other people that I can trust. So I tend to be really comfortable using AI when it’s incorporated into a test I’m comfortable with or they’re adding something optional. But another thing that I was really excited to do more of was neuroscience testing. I find that fascinating. I think that it’s worth the money. You know, you really get an understanding that you can’t get from claimed surveys. And, of course, there’s value in surveys—you know, I think pros and cons to everything—but neuro really excites me. 

Karen: It’s a super exciting aspect of the business. And, you know, just today, of those of you know, Lenny Murphy and I do this weekly livestream called The Exchange. And just today we were reading a report that shared the trend towards sort of neuro-marketing being in this place of growth right now, where just—not just the methods but also AI integration into how to read those biometrics and how to kind of get into the data from wearables and so on and so forth. Like, it’s just this great space right now, so you’re right on [laugh]—you’re kind of right on trend with what we were just talking about a couple hours ago.

 Liz: It’s so interesting.

Karen: Yeah. Cool. Cool. So anything else? Anything else that, like, you know, really strikes you as a favorite research method or something that you fall back on a lot because it’s just tried and true?

Liz: I like—it’s a form of “qualie-quant”. The company is called Remesh. I don’t know if you know them.

Karen: Yeah. Yeah. 

Liz: But it’s essentially like this real-time online focus group-ish, where you can have probably 60 to 80 people. And in real-time, they are asking the questions but also giving you access to the dashboard where you can see how the data is netting out. And I think what’s so cool about is the respondents, in the moment, can vote on other responses. So that’s where that quant piece comes in because people put in their answer if it’s, like, an open end. And once they’re finished typing and hit “enter,” then they see other people’s answers and they kind of up or down vote. And so, by the end, you’ve really got a lot of data.

Karen: And a lot of confidence. Right? Like, a lot of confidence that what you’re seeing is accurate. You know, one of the things that we actually have in our brief to talk to you about because you’ve talked about this before is just, you know, the difference between kind of that say-do gap. Right? But a methodology like that must give you a lot of confidence. I’m not seen it or used it, but confidence in the results that you’re getting based on the way the method seems to play out. Is that accurate?

Liz: That is definitely accurate. However, I have mistakenly used it the wrong way. 

Karen: Oh [laugh]...

Liz: You know, because this is where I think we as researches end up in a trap where we think “Well, I’m going to ask the question, and people will answer it.” And of course people will answer it, but it might not be really representing how they’re making a decision. So the mistake I made was essentially giving people too much stimulus up front and then asking, “How would you play that idea.” And by that point, they’ve already read so much that they fully understand it, when in real life, they’re only going to see one piece of stim. So that was a learning where, in the pre-test before we went to launch, you know, we felt really confident in our results. And then, in market, people didn’t really understand. And, you know, unfortunately, that was because we didn’t do the research in the right way. 

Karen: You know what? That’s so interesting. So for years, I had done a lot of, you know, concept testing, ad testing, just in a qualitative space. Right? I think you and I talked about this. I had been a qualitative researcher for, you know, the better part of 30 years before joining Greenbook, which is terrifying, but anyway... The reality is, like, a lot of that, a lot of, you know, concepts, A-B-C-D-E, and we do what we can to kind of rotate the order of exposure and try to get that to make them the best that they can be. And then there would be quant testing to validate, you know, what came out of it and make sure that the concepts or ads moving forward are the ones that really did rise to the top. But it is interesting how artificial that environment is. And even though it served its purpose, it is not the way people respond to stimuli in the real world. Right? So... 

Liz: Right. 

Karen: Interesting. So let me ask you this: are there any other kind of key themes that you’ve seen in your work over the years, like other kind of nuances that come to mind as, you know what, this is just a big ah-ha about either how we do work or about how the consumers operate? Anything, you know, noteworthy to share?

Liz: One of the things I think about is how we should really be trying to make it simple for people as consumers and as respondents. At Unilever, I worked on several global businesses, and so we were doing research across the world. And we consistently found that Americans in particular really take information literally. Like, I’ve seen consumers have challenges when we try to insert sarcasm into our marketing, things like that. Or if you give consumers a certain amount of information and then expect them to link those things together, that’s more challenging. And so I really do tend to provide guidance internally that’s based on “let’s keep it simple for them. We shouldn’t be making people work hard.” We’re trying to get them to spend their hard-earned money, and this shouldn’t feel like work to them.

Karen: No, that’s a great point. And with my consumer hat on is—I’m like, “Yes, I appreciate that. Thank you.” [laugh]

Liz: Good.

Karen: Okay. So another question that I have for you is kind of thinking about the insights function in general, right, before we then get, again, back into specifics about what you have build there. But have you seen kind of changes in the insights function, generally, and where do you see maybe changes coming down the future? Have you thought about this?

Liz: I do feel like—I guess, like, any industry, our industry is constantly evolving, but then I think there are so many principles that are old and still really, really valid. You know? Even now, like, I’m four years into Olly. Technically, I’ve built the function, but now I’m taking the opportunity to go back to basics.

Karen: Tell me what that means. Yeah. Tell me what that means.

Liz: Yeah. So, when I first came to Olly, you know, we started from zero in terms of the function, having, you know, much insight at all. And also, the guidance at that point was do it fast; be scrapy, you know, limited budgets. We’re kind of still in the start-up mindset. It’s okay if we fail. We’re going to fail fast, and we’re going to get better as we go. And so that was a really refreshing change coming from Unilever, you know, that was much more kind of pick off this menu and do only this, and, like, you must do this to pass go. But now, Olly—honestly, Olly is in a different stage of growth. It’s a much bigger company. We’re not growing as quickly. We have to be more thoughtful about the innovation and the choices that we’re making.

Karen: So here’s another question kind of along those lines. You say you’ve been there for four years, and you now have an established function. Do you have more people on your team? Like, what’s your definition of established? 

Liz: Yes. We’re a little, mighty team of three. So I was a one-woman show for a long time and... And the first role I brought in was a marketing analytics manager, and that has proved—like, I can’t imagine life without her. We really needed a better way to manage our data, especially because—this is where I feel Ike the industry has evolved but not enough, where we still have this massive data set for brick and mortar, and then your e-com data is totally separate.

Karen: Hm...

Liz: So we found, at least, that we’ve had to do the work internally to bring those data sources together, and it’s much more complicated than it sounds because the weeks might start on Monday here but on Sunday here. And, you know, there is a lot of work involved, but being able to look at our more wholistic sales numbers and trends has been, obviously, essential. This person all manages our MMMs, and we really needed to be able to measure our marketing investment so that we could continue to make really smart choices and make sure our marketing was efficient and keep, you know, supporting the brand and driving equity.

Karen: Yeah. Let me—before you tell me about the third person on your team, now, let me just stay with this individual for a minute. Is she a data scientist? Like, what’s her background? Because in the world of insights, data analysts are, you know, kind of unique [laugh].

Liz: Yeah.

Karen: So just wondering what skills came to the team when you brought her on.

Liz: Yes. I thought about a data scientist, but that wasn’t really in scope at the time, and so we went more with a manager level, and so she has experience from the partner-side, like syndicated data, and she had also worked in CPG. I think the whole area of data science is fascinating, but I’ve also been really conscious at Olly not to do too much all at once. And so, you know, I was trying to take manageable steps forward.

Karen: Yeah. Yeah. No. And that’s---thank you, because that’s exactly why I asked that question, again thinking about people. And you’d be surprised how many organizations haven’t done this yet. Right? They’re still relying on just management to do the thinking that needs to be done, and anyways... So I’m being mindful to ask these questions so that people who may find themselves in shoes that you have been wearing for the last four years could think about how they may want to scale their insights function as well. So what’s the third person you added to your team, Liz?

Liz: We have an insights manager, and she does a lot of the custom work, you know, because we have really high ambitions. We have these BHAGs, you know, the big, hairy, audacious goals. And we want to be category experts and can’t do that unless you really know the consumer, you know the shopper, you know the category, you know what’s going on with people. And so it’s really important for us to be leading-edge there.

Karen: So how do you see your role then fitting with the two of them? I mean, obviously, they report to you. But if they’re both handling those kind of very tactical aspects of the job, is your role not just to manage them but—but what else? I imagine it has to do with reporting up. You tell me.

Liz: For sure. Yes. So we talked about some stakeholders earlier. I have strong relationships with the brand and marketing and creative teams. We work really closely with them. I still think that there’s work to be done on showing them what insights is for and how we can help. You know, I think about—like, I want to make their lives easier. I want to make their jobs easier. And the way I think about the insights function is two-fold. I view myself and my team as strategic partners. Right? So we’re almost like internal consultants. We have a really good gut built. We know the consumer. We know the category. When there’s a business question, we’re great people to bounce ideas off of, you know, because we might have perspective that someone else is lacking. So strategic partner is one piece, and then the other piece that I think about fulfilling is helping people make decisions. And that is done with data and with insight, and so that could be more general or it could be very specific: like I need to do A or B, which one should I do? And so part of my job is continuing to figure out what insights looks like at Olly, partnering with their cross-functional team, and then also laying out the plan kind of within the year but also beyond. You know, what are we trying to do? What do we want to do differently? What do we want to do more of? That kind of thing.

Karen: Yeah. So, you know, I was talking to Liquid Death, so another kind of start-up, and he was excited—you know, the gentleman running insights there—to have people on his team. And, you know, one was taking shopper insights, and one was more consumer insights. And, you know, I’m thinking not that long ago we had Bill Shufelt from Athletic Brewing on our podcast, and he hasn’t—I mean, this an amazingly huge brand right now, and he hasn’t built an insights function yet. So...

Liz: Yeah.

Karen: So that’s what I say. Like, you know, people don’t necessarily—they haven’t done this yet. A lot of great start-ups—you know, there’s a little bit of market research that’s done before they start doing the work that they’re doing. And they’re scrappy. And they’re getting things out there. And they’re checking their guts. And they’re doing the best that they can. But, at some point, they’re going to build a function. So, Liz, having done it, right, and you’ll continue to build and grow, what’s your advice for others who might be looking to either build or just improve the insights function at their company?

Liz: Can I go back just for one second?

Karen: Of course.

Liz: I have—I want to give people so much credit for building these amazing businesses without the insights function. Because I know, you know, that insights is really helpful and valuable, but the fact that they have tapped into something unique, something meaningful, without doing, you know, formal research I think is really impressive and just a testament to these founders and the people that they have brought on board. Actually, Liquid Death is one of my favorite brands right now. I love their iced tea, and I love their marketing. Of course, I just think it’s brilliant.

Karen: Yeah it is. It really is.

Liz: Yeah. And so building an insights function, of course, is one of my favorite things to talk about, but it’s so unique. You know, it really depends where the organization is, how much appetite there is for this kind of help. As I tell my nine-year-old, if someone doesn’t want help and you help, it’s not helpful.

Karen: Hm...

Liz: So I think it’s more like start by understanding where the business is and what you think is holding you back. I feel like you can turn to insights when you’re locked, kind of when you’re at some kind a speed bump or something that you can’t figure out how to get through. And it could be a gap in your consumer understanding. It could be that you need help developing, like, your social media plan or your distribution channels. Really, insights can run the gamut. But I think the way to make the function successful is to bring it in at the right time for that organization, and that’s really going to depend.

Karen: I think that’s such a great sort of little nugget is about help. Right? And I’m sensing that, since you’ve been able to grow and your company has grown, that there’s been that receptivity to what insights can do to help at your organization. Am I right there?

Liz: Yeah. And I didn’t know how it would go. Right? One of the first custom project I did, the team came to me and said, “Hey... we have this new platform. We’re so excited. And we just want to understand how much potential does it really have. Because we’re excited, but maybe we haven’t really understood where the consumer is at.” And I said, “Okay. Honestly, for this kind of question, I would do a Basis test.” And, Karen, I was afraid to make that recommendation because I thought, “Oh, now I’m at this scrappy, cool company. They’re not going to want to do a Basis.

Karen: Right [laugh]?

Liz: But we did the test, and it was so helpful. Also, Basis, I think, is an example of an organization that has evolved to the changing needs of the industry.

Karen: Yeah.

Liz: There is so much that they’re changing about what they’re doing and continuing to be really relevant. Of course, you don’t use them for everything, but for our need at that time, it was perfect.

Karen: Yeah.

Liz: But, you know, it was interesting because I had Basis come in and do the presentation, and the first feedback I got from my boss was, “That was great. They don’t need to come next time. Just tell us what it says.” 

Karen: Nice. Nice. That’s a good confidence-booster right there. Right?

Liz: Yeah.

Karen: That’s cool. Very cool. Yeah. And I imagine not everybody gets that, you know, that warm welcome, right, to do the work of insights. I think there’s probably going to be organizations that have some cynicism or some skepticism and really just want to look at the numbers and the data and not necessarily, you know, what the more robust insights function can provide. So I think having both, right, is actually key. But, you know, I‘m also a little biased [laugh].

Liz: Yeah. Yeah. Well, me too, admittedly. But another area that I pushed a little was with the creative team and the development of our assets. As an internal function, it’s not a service function. You know, it’s really fully part of the team. They own their part of the strategy and the vision, and I thought there was a lot of things that were working really well about the assets. This was years ago, right, when I came in. But I didn’t think that they were driving a lot of branding. I thought they were really speaking to people who already knew Olly, and we were a tiny brand then, like three points of penetration. So most people had never even heard of us, and I feel really proud of the fact that we were able to work together to do a pre-testing program that everyone was comfortable with. And now, hopefully, you’ll see that our assets are much better branded.

Karen: Well, and I can disclose that I had done some work. Again, I was a qualitative researcher. I’ve done some work in the supplement space, I know the challenges of getting shelf space in that category [laugh]. And I have found it fascinating to think about how you were able to kind of change the playing field there about what packaging should like and how much shelf space you can actually get. And that is no small task, right, to get the shelf space that you need to grow the brand. Anyway, so kudos to the other people at your organization making decisions along those lines.

Liz: Yes.

Karen: Because, you know, correct me if I’m wrong, but that was not easy. 

Liz: No, this is another place where I’m just astounded at people’s just raw talent and intuition, that the packaging was never tested. You know, this was based on brilliant people creating these designs, and they continue to work extremely hard for us.

Karen: Well, and it just goes to show—again, and this is a podcast that goes out primarily to people in the, you know, data insights and analytics industry—but there a place for data-driven decisions, and there is a place for, you know, consumer-insight-driven decision making, and then there’s a place for, you know, raw, just, strategic thinking and intuition as well and just conviction that a decision is the right thing to do. And I think the real smart business people in our world know when to tap each of those things to move ahead. So kudos to your entire organization. And kudos to you, Liz, really. What’s next for you? What’s on the horizon?

Liz: Well, I’m very excited this year because we’re not so scrappy. That’s no longer the guidance that I get. So, like I said before, I’m going back to basics on some things. But the way I view it is I’m updating and elevating some of those basics, like how the category is used, so a bit of a longer study, a bit of a more in-depth view of the category and the different segments. So it’s very exciting to be doing that work. Also, I feel excited to be talking to people who don’t know the brand and understanding, you know, maybe what their barriers are or what we could do different, because that would kind of be new territory for us. One thing that’s on my mind, too, Karen, speaking in broader terms, is men as shoppers. I continuously find that, based on quant data, women are doing 70 to 75 percent of the shopping. And I have a hypothesis that that is out of date, especially with so many, you know, households with two working adults. And I know a lot of the mental load and a lot of the household tasks do tend to fall on the women. I think that men as shoppers should be studied more, and I think that they are different fundamentally from women, so I would love to dig in there.

Karen: Oh, I would love that for you too. And the research in me just got really excited. I mean, I could tell you, even in the supplement space, my husband recently, you know, came home totally buying into—he turned 50, right—totally buying into, like, you know, like, “I am now a man over 50. I have to change my vitamins today because I, you know, had a birthday.”

Liz: Yeah.

Karen: I mean, it was like [laugh] he bought in. And I was like, “You have been like”—you know, I don’t want say making fun of me because that’s not accurate—“but you have been pointing out that I buy into female marketing all the time, and here you are coming home with the dark blue canister of gummies for men over 50.” Like, it just cracked me up—

Liz: Yes.

Karen: —the decision making that he did. And I was like—it was almost as if he was so happy to kind of put on that hat. Right? And same thing with—oh, my gosh. I’m totally on this tangent with you, Liz. I told you I could chase squirrels like this.

Liz: Let’s do it.

Karen: You know, like, male personal products in my bathroom this year all of a sudden. I’m like, “Huh... what’s happening here?” Because he does so much of the grocery shopping or just shopping in general because I have a different lifestyle right now. Right? So...

 Liz: Yeah.

Karen: Anyway, so interesting. I’d love to do that kind of work with you, but I don’t do research anymore [laugh].

Liz: Bummer [laugh]. 

Karen: It’s true. It is a bummer. Sometimes, I miss it. Other times, I just say, you know, “Gosh, just keep on—keep on telling us what you learn.” And you know what, Liz? I know you can’t join us at IIEX North America anymore, but, heck, maybe next year at this time, we’ll be talking about the male shopper, and we’ll get you on our main stage. How about that? 

Liz: I would love that.

Karen: Yeah. I’d love that too. Let’s talk offline about that. We don’t have the date and location lined up yes, so I can’t officially offer you too much data. But we’ll talk once we know and maybe line that up and give you motivation to get that work done. Right?

Liz: Yes.

Karen: Yeah. Super cool. Liz, what did I not ask you about during our time together that you wish I had?

 Liz: MMMs. You know, Karen, I could talk about MMMs all day, every day. I managed to sneak them in at one point during the conversation, but I just think measurement is so important, and MMMs are more than they appear on the surface.

Karen: Yeah. So just—let’s just take a minute there then. Tell me what is it you think that makes them that important.

Liz: What I love about an MMM is that—and this is a marketing mixed model, right, so this measures all of your marketing spend. And I’ve found a partner that can be very granular, and so we don’t even just look at social. We look at the different partners within social. You know, we look at video and display and all of our e-com by search and display. There’s so many levels to it, and this is another area where I’ve seen industry evolve. I feel that we’re so much smarter about our decision making because we have this knowledge, and it’s quantitative, and it is tied to actual sales, and it’s holistic. Right? So a lot of what we look at is real-time conversation, so we can see if we place an ad somewhere, X number of people click on the ad, and then a smaller number convert. And that’s important. But the MMM captures that but also the people who maybe saw that ad and then converted in a retail store. Right? So I think that if you’re really trying to manage your marketing spend, and you haven’t looked at an MMM, I would absolutely recommend that because it does paint a different picture because it’s a different data set.

Karen: In my head, as you’re talking, I’m thinking, “Wait a minute. You have the woman who is analyzing your—you know, both your shopper, your brick and mortar shopper data and your e-commerce data also doing this?” And I’m sensing what’s coming next. I hope it means more staff [laugh].

 Liz: [laugh] I hope so too.

Karen: Anyway. Cool. Thank you. I’m glad you brought that up, and it has an important place in the growing insights function; that’s for sure. So thank you for sharing all that. Gosh, anything else? Like if I were to say to you, you know, what other random thoughts do you have about either the future of the insights function or just the future of insights, which we talk about all the time, what would your final thoughts be on that?

Liz: That’s such a big question, and I think it’s changing in the moment. But would say, as excited as we all are about the new technology, the AI, and whatever is going to be next, I also really hope that we stay grounded in the basics and talk to real consumers. I will say, in my career, I’ve gone through phases where I’ve done a lot less qualitative, and I—you know, I had confirmation bias, and I said, “That’s okay because I don’t have a lot of money, and the quant data is telling me so much more.” But getting in front of consumers, hearing them speak in their own words, not putting words in their mouth, is so valuable. I find it energizing. I find it almost, like, empowering, I guess, because we’re taking what they’re saying and able to internalize that and act on it. And so that’s my hope for the industry: that as we evolve and learn how to be smarter, faster, better, that we don’t lose sight of the importance of hearing from real people.

Karen: I love that. And as, you know, as I said, as a former qualitative researcher, I just want to say, “Here. Here.” [laugh] Because that’s the work of that, you know, segment of the industry. So thank you for sharing that. Really, Liz, thank you so much for joining me on this podcast. It was such a pleasure to talk to you.

Liz: Thank you, Karen. I really enjoyed it, and I appreciate the opportunity.

Karen: For sure. For sure. And we will get you on our main stage one of these days, so we’ll stay in touch there. So that’s our show for today, friends. Thank you so much to all of you for tuning in. We sincerely appreciate that here at Greenbook. To you, Natalie, thank you for all you do to produce this show. And to our editor, Big Bad Audio, thank you for cleaning up some of the bumps and bruises that me and our guests happen upon with each episode, so thank you for what you do. And, of course, once again, to our listeners, thank you for tuning in. We’ll see you next time. Bye-bye, everyone.