Lightning in the bottle: How to be an electrifying brand leader

Ryan Barry:

Hi, everybody, and welcome to this episode of Inside Insights, a podcast powered by Zappi. My name is Ryan, and I'm joined as always by my lovely co-host, Patricia Montesdeoca and our producer, Kelsey Sullivan. Good day ladies, and welcome to March.

Patricia Montesdeoca:

Welcome to March.

Ryan:

Hello, March.

Patricia:

March Madness. I learned that in the States. Woo-hoo!

Ryan:

I'm not a March Madness guy, I'm not going to lie to you. NBA guy, big NBA guy. Not a March Madness guy.

Patricia:

I just like the way March Madness sounds. I'm not into the sport that much and I don't know anything about it, but I think March Madness sounds fun, don't you think?

Ryan:

It is a little madness. We're nearing the end of Q1. It's a little cuckoo.

Patricia:

Yep. Ending winter, for those of you who are in winter.

Ryan:

Although for everybody listening, it doesn't feel like that. I live outside of Boston, Mass., and there is a lot of snow on the ground outside of my house and it is cold.

Patricia:

Ooh, I'm sorry.

Ryan:

But I'm going to South Africa next week, and in South Africa this time of year is the equivalent of July. So your boy's got some shorts, some sandals. It's going to be great.

Patricia:

Woo-hoo! Go for it.

Ryan:

This episode is... I believe the kids call it hot fire. We have the distinct pleasure of interviewing Jane Wakely, who is the global chief marketing and consumer officer at Pepsi, who also runs their global food business, which is the biggest food business on the planet. 

So to say Jane is busy would be an understatement. To say Jane is one of the smartest marketers I've ever had the opportunity to speak to is another understatement. So I would like to shut my lips and get you right into the episode, because you're in for a treat today, my friends. Shall we do it, ladies?

[Music transition to interview] 

Ryan Barry:

Very excited to have Jane Wakely, the Chief Consumer and Marketing Officer and Head of Global Foods. You have a busy job Jane, thank you for making the time for me today.

Jane Wakely:

My pleasure, Ryan. Looking forward to it.

Ryan:

Really a pleasure. We're going to talk today about a lot of things that involve consumer centric growth, but specifically about advertising. But I guess just to start, take us through your role at Pepsi and if you don't mind while you're commenting. I know you've been in some other really high profile roles, and one of the things I always like to learn from people is while the businesses have some similarities. What are the learnings they take from each role and what are the things they have to unlearn as they get into new roles? So I'll turn it over to you and then we could dive into talking about advertising.

Jane:

Oh my goodness, a three part question. Ryan, you're putting me on the spot.

Ryan:

I know we're diving right in.

Jane:

Pleasure to talk. So look, I think I joined PepsiCo a year ago and it's an incredible company. We reach over a billion consumers every day, around 200 markets in the world, fantastic iconic brands. So what's not to love? But some of the lessons, some of the principles that I would say are equally applicable to PepsiCo as to my last two companies, which are Mars Incorporated in Procter & Gamble. I call them the new four P's of marketing and the first is pulse. I'm a big believer that in this digital world, in the social world you need to have your finger on the pulse of the people you serve, and that's the consumer, the shopper, etc. It can't be a hindsight pulse, it's got to be real time and present and so that's the first thing because we're here to serve their needs and to delight them. Right? The second thing is performance and performance is not a new thing.

But I think what we all learnt through Covid and what we've reminded ourselves in the turbulent last few years, is that one of the ways you manage performance is you have to pivot your resource very rapidly to the tailwinds. The tailwinds of your category, the tailwinds of where your consumers are in their lives and actually, I've never had a CMO or a CEO say “Wow, we pivoted too fast.” It's normally we've done it too slowly, so pivot and performance and the next one. Purpose is a big thing that has certainly united my experiences and is at the center of what I'm here at work to do every day. Which is how do we create growth, which not just drives financial performance, which doesn't just drive category and shared growth. But also makes a positive impact on the planet we enjoy and the people and communities we serve. We see great traction in doing that for attracting the best talent to work on our business, but also in terms of our consumer response.

Finally, what's at the heart of each of my experiences is at the end of the day success is defined in the people and the partnerships you build. Those have to be mutual, they have to be enduring and have to... People can only achieve extraordinary things when there's high trust, and the ability therefore to take risks together. So those are to me the four P's or the principles almost that I've taken from one place to another and hold very, very dear. I think some of the things that are different, I'm a big believer that culture eats strategy for breakfast.

Ryan:

Me too. What a weird phrase, but it's so true.

Jane:

Yeah, it's a weird phrase isn't it? Where did I get that from? I'm not sure, but well-

Ryan:

Well Netflix coined, but they're right.

Jane:

Okay, super far. Well, I'm saying it without knowing where we come from and we're going to come on to distinctiveness and storytelling in a minute, but it's stuck in my mind. I think in any organization, every organization I've been in has been united by great people trying to do the right thing, trying to win, trying to perform. But there are of course significant cultural differences, and I think for me whenever you enter a new organization. Really taking time to listen and learn and actually feel the pulse of the organization, understand the deep culture of the organization. That's always more important than the what.

Ryan:

Well, that's fantastic. I love these new P's, I feel like we got to get you in a marketing class. 'Cause the old P's are sort of like, yeah they're basic stuff. So I want to unpack some of this. So the purpose is where I want to start, if you don't mind.

Jane:

Okay, sure.

Ryan:

I love PepsiCo, I've said this publicly. I'm very biased, I have a multi-year strategic relationship but I love PepsiCo, its brands but I also love its purpose. So PepsiCo's been on this mission of customer centricity, faster, better, stronger. But I've also been equally impressed with the work Ramon and the rest of your team do around the planet and so it's something I'm proud of as a partner of yours. Talk to us a little bit about the mission that Pepsi's on and some of the things that you're working on to achieve the mission.

Jane:

Yeah. No, sure. Well, our sustainability and diversity, equity and inclusion strategies it's what we call Pep positive or PepsiCo positive and it's one of the reasons I joined the company honestly. I think PepsiCo's ambition has stated goals to do our fair share of getting to the planetary goals that we need to, which is maintaining climate change to a 1.5% rise maximum. Looking after the water driving inclusivity and diversity, all these things are critical to our planet and our people or communities future and PepsiCo has made some really bold goals on that. One of the reasons I was super excited to join is partly to be part of delivering those goals and I mean to become net neutral by 2040 across all three scopes. Incredible.

Ryan:

Yeah.

Jane:

It's bold, and for a company like PepsiCo that means... It's 93% of for example greenhouse gas is sitting in Scope 3 through things like agriculture, etc. So it's a really bold goal which we can't deliver on our own. So what attracted me to PepsiCo was the boldness of the goals, the commitment to drive action. But actually the opportunity to link the transversal company progress that we're making with our consumer offerings and to find those authentic magical links to bring the consumer with us, to create consumer movements of changed. Because ultimately I think that's going to accelerate our progress, and that was a mission that super excited me and energized me and we call it our positive brand strategy. So yeah, super excited to make progress on that.

Ryan:

Yeah, it's very motivating. As somebody who runs a software company, we are a B Corp but the boldness of what you're doing I'm really excited to help and learn from it. So I've seen many thoughts of this notion of faster, better, stronger underpinned and earning statements and other. What does that mean? I know the customers at the center of this, but talk to us a little bit about that.

Jane:

Well faster, better, stronger is a way to ensure that... Firstly, what does faster mean? It means accelerating our performance in terms of growth and value creation. So we've had our earnings call now for 2022, and I mean we're super proud of our performance over the last few years and particularly of 2022. So faster is about accelerating performance. Better, let me do that next. Better is all about how do we do it in the right way? So how do we equally value our sustainability and our diversity and inclusion goals and put those at the heart of what we do every day? Only yesterday I was part of a call which was involving the whole top management across the globe. About how each of us, every one of us cross-functionally puts our sustainability goals for example into this year's personal development reviews. That's what better is, and so for example we are transforming our portfolio. We have measures and metrics on how we're shifting for example our portfolio increasingly to non-sugar, increasingly to reduce sodium and fats.

But also to increase the diversity of our ingredients and you are going to see some really exciting innovations in that area. So I'm excited about that. Then on stronger, this is about where we really ensure we're building resilience for example into our end-to-end supply chains. Where we're strengthening our capabilities and at PepsiCo, again what attracted me is that we're not only performing and have the potential to perform. But we're also really boldly transforming in key areas and one of those areas that I work very closely with our chief digital officer is our digital journey. Right? So we're investing. We're investing in personalizing our data, our media, our creative, our propositions. We're investing in our first party data across the world to really build customer lifetime value, and we're investing in digital transformation as just one example of our stronger agenda. For me, that's what's exciting about joining PepsiCo. A business that performs, but also is transforming and really taking some very bold moves in that area to ensure we're future proofing our business and our brands.

Ryan:

Absolutely, thank you for elaborating. I want to unpack one more of your P's with you, and you sort of alluded to it. So yesterday you said you were on a call and the top management of one of the biggest companies in the world is talking about how their metrics can include some of the sustainability goals.

Jane:

Yeah.

Ryan:

I long believe culture starts at the top, and I'm always impressed by your company's ability to move as fast as you do with being as big as you are.

Jane:

Yes.

Ryan:

Let's just talk about culture for a little bit. How do you believe strong cultures are formed and how do you foster that within the hundreds of people under your leadership following you? Probably thousands all across the world.

Jane:

Gosh, that's a really important question and a really difficult one. I mean, culture is a deep-rooted thing right? It's about values, it's the beliefs and it's the behaviors line up with those values and beliefs and what artifacts are in a business that demonstrate that culture. PepsiCo, I think one of the important cultural norms or values and beliefs is to act like an owner to just give one example. Acting like an owner and celebrating those people that act like an owner and really make a difference, whatever their sphere is. Whether they're a frontline worker merchandising our brands at store level, whether they're working in a plant. Whether they're a marketeer in an emerging market, it doesn't matter what someone's job is. What we're trying to do is empower them to act like an owner, give them a clear vision of what success looks like but empower them to make the decisions they need to make the difference. That's just one example of a value which runs through into behaviors and also is supported by very powerful cultural artifacts.

So I had the privilege of going to this incredible company-wide celebration called the Ring of Honor last year.

Ryan:

What a cool name.

Jane:

I know it's such a cool name and I so want to be a Ring of Honor winner. Unfortunately I won't be, this was a celebration of our frontline sales and merchandising, our commercial department. Honestly, seeing these amazing leaders who had each in their own way consistently outperformed, done something extraordinary to drive performance in a way that was in line with PepsiCo values and it was incredible. I don't know if you've ever been to the PepsiCo headquarters, but it's in Purchase and we have this wonderful big avenue and you come up the avenue and then you walk up a parade, and in that parade is a very beautiful piece of art and sculpture. But when the Ring of Honor associates arrive with their wives or their partners or an important person in their lives accompanying them. The international flags are up and down the avenue, we've got the Brazilian dancers and salsa band to greet them and the energy. The whole leadership team, the whole site comes out to welcome and celebrate these amazing heroes for what they've achieved.

That's a very powerful artifact just as one example of what acting like an owner is and that's how I think you create a strong culture. You set the values and beliefs, you share stories about it, you build it in your own teams but you then create very powerful artifacts that underpin it.

Ryan:

It's a great answer, and one of the things I'm personally passionate about is this notion of modern business. Where the employee and the customer are at the center and I think ownership is... I love the notion of saying it, but also enforcing it through artifacts. Because if a person is empowered with the context, empowered with the ownership and then celebrated for doing it. We can do great things without the traditional kind of linear hierarchies that I think slow us down, and it's a good glimpse into why your business is able to move so fast. So thank your for-

Jane:

Yeah. What I would say is also, I think sometimes people talk about culture as if it's something divorced from us, as if it's something out there. As leaders in an organization we are the culture, right? What we do, what we say, how we show up, how our teams show up creates the culture. So I think one of the really important discussions as a leader is how do you as a team want to... What's the culture you're going to create? How do you take personal ownership for creating the culture that you aspire to? Yeah, that's something very dear to my heart.

Ryan:

Yeah, me too. We could do a whole hour on this, but we'll do it another time and I think just to what you said. I mean, I view the leader's job to set the tone and create the space for culture to exist. But also when you do that the wonderful people you employ evolve it, grow it, it's like this notion of culture fit. I don't really subscribe to because I almost think of culture as this living organism, and it's almost like a quilt. Every person brings their own thing and makes it bigger and-

Jane:

I love that analogy. Yeah. 

Ryan:

So one more thing, if you haven't been to PepsiCo's world headquarters you should visit the botanical gardens there. They are just beautiful. It's one of my favorite places, I've been there for a few lunches and looking out the back garden it's a lovely place. Okay, let's talk about advertising.

Jane:

Okay, let's do it.

Ryan:

So full disclosure everybody, Jane and I were supposed to meet four months ago to talk about the podcast. But we ended up having an hour-long riff about advertising, which left me buzzing. So we're going to share some of that with you now. I'm going to ask you a loaded question, what makes great advertising Jane?

Jane:

Okay. Well, I think it's very simple and I would say firstly great advertising you've got to get noticed. You've got to grab attention and to grab attention or get noticed, the first thing about great advertising is how does it make you feel? Does it move you? Does it entertain you? If it doesn't, do not pass go as far I am concerned. So for me, we know so much about how the brain works, how we as human beings process and you have to grab attention because we're busy and there's a cluttered world out there. So that's the first thing. The second thing is when we start letting our logic come into it, is my brand linked? Is the brand or what I'm trying to say fundamental to the story? Do I remember it? So second get noticed, get remembered, and then only then get understood. I think I came from a world where I was trained very much in original advertising that actually being understood and having a logical argument, a side by side. That's one way of doing it.

But actually the only way to really create great advertising is to grab attention and to grab attention you're going to move somebody.

Ryan:

Yeah, I love you got to move somebody. I love that. So we've collaborated a lot over the years on one part of creative development. But talk to us about how the teams are approaching creative development holistically and then I'd love to drill into specifically the platform we've created together and how that's helping or hurting. What we need to do to really drive creative effectiveness to grab attention, to make people feel something and then to make them remember who it is so that they can-

Jane:

And then to be distinctive, right?

Ryan:

Yeah.

Jane:

I mean, you've got to be distinctive as a brand and it was interesting. I mean, it's interesting at the Super Bowl how many ads you can watch and they might grab you but you actually don't remember who it was for. So it's those two things together that's really important. Look, I think the first rule in creating great creative is you've got to have a strong big brand idea. A distinctive brand idea, and be really clear what's the story you're trying to tell? What are the distinctive assets or the distinctive elements of your story that actually make you, you. Right? So some of the great campaigns, for me a great campaign is never just one execution. Great big brand ideas spread, they last across generations, they spread across many markets. They have a universal human truth at the heart of them. So what's your big brand idea? What's your universal truth, and then how are you distinctly going to tell that story?

How is it going to be uniquely you so that I hear it and it can only be you? There's too many adverts which use borrowed interest, as I say it may grab your attention if you do. But may grab your attention, but then you really can't remember who it could be because it could be hundreds of brands, many different categories. So for me, that's at the heart of creativity. I think the second thing is how do you set up an organization to deliver great creative? I think firstly to be world-class at anything, Malcolm Gladwell said you need 10,000 hours. Right? So I love that because what it means is no one can expect to be brilliant at anything, including developing great creative without practice. Without experience, without it becoming a craft and I'm a big believer that experience counts. I was lucky enough to grow up in a company where the most senior leaders involved in advertising used to spend hours every week training us.

Looking at advertising ideas together, giving us frameworks of how to think about what it took to create great creative but also opening our minds to be curious about it. I mean, my kids always tease me that I'll fall asleep in the movie but my goodness I wake up in the ad breaks. I love, and I really want to learn. I want to learn what's working, why it worked. Am I right? Did it work? Did it not? That I think anyone that loves advertising is like that, and part of creating great advertising is that I always say there's no statues of committees. I don't believe in committee decision making. I don't believe you can have 10 stakeholders who have an equal say. I think to create great creative partnerships with the creative team, the brand team, you need to be really clear who is the ad leader. It can only be one person, that person can absolutely invite input from many, many people and take some of that input. But you have to have who is the decision maker?

The decision maker needs to be in the room as the creative is developed, and there's many other aspects. But for me when you get a great campaign, it's because you've built massive trust between the creators and the brand leaders and you really understood that universal truth, and you get to a breakthrough creative idea. Quite often the first couple of executions may not be brilliant, but actually if you've got a brilliant idea you need to keep honing till you crack also the brilliant execution. Because unfortunately the consumer we serve never sees the strategy, they see the execution. But I think recognizing the difference between what is a creative idea and an execution is also a real skillset in the creative development process. So there's just three key elements, but of course there's a lot more to it than that. But I think those three things are key.

Ryan:

Well, you've clearly had the 10,000 hours to distill it so succinctly so thank you.

Jane:

I'm very old. No I'm still working on 10,000 hours, I've got lots still to learn.

Ryan:

We're always learning folks, it's a beautiful thing. There's a lot you said there that really resonates with me. So often brands rush to the execution, but the underpinning idea is wrong and it goes into a market research stage. It's like that's not the right approach, it's the foundational idea and that really resonates with me. I had a friend who I helped last year, and I'll keep his name out of this. But came to me in a rush, "Can you help me with my Super Bowl spot?" I had to call him and say, "Mate, your territory's wrong." And he's like, "What do I do?" I'm like, "Make sure the idea's good next time before you develop the execution." And it's the delineation of those two things. But there's another thing you say that I wanted to just comment on. You talked about acting like an owner when we were speaking about culture. In my business ownership is also a value and we have this concept of directly responsible individual. So who's the person?

Jane:

Okay.

Ryan:

I've never heard it reflected so articulately in advertising. But oh my God, you name an advertisement that isn't good and there's a committee of people to change this, add this, do this and you can see it. I love that notion of who is the ad owner because it gives that person the power to listen to advice from consumers, stakeholders, but ultimately to say now we're doing this. So that's a really cool reflection and I think it's something that we don't see nearly enough. We've all seen a lot of ads, you could tell when that happens. I'm now going to be spotting where it was done by a committee. I don't know about you but I believe consensus is regression to the means. So I'm very happy-

Jane:

No, absolutely. It's very hard to drive something very distinctive with a consensual process. But it's not to say you don't take lots of input, you can. But you have to take bold calls, you have to have that single decision maker and then you have to have performance management. Right? Decision makers who continually take a bad call and don't deliver.

Ryan:

That's a different issue.

Jane:

You have to have that group in there as well. That's a different issue.

Ryan:

Linked to that, it's like it's the lenses of advice. Whether it's from the consumer or your peers, it's just that it's a lens and then your intuition is ultimately a key lens as well. So I want to talk a little bit about agility in creative development, we've obviously created a platform together to embed that.

Jane:

Yes.

Ryan:

But talk to me a little bit about the consumer insights part of creative development and how agility has step changed some of what Pepsi's been doing with ads. I've seen some great results personally, but I'd love to hear from your perspective.

Jane:

Yeah. Well look, I mean our ADA platform is an incredible gift. Because it gives us a standard way to assess what is effective advertising, okay? And it's fast, it's agile, but it's not a black box. It gives us full visibility because we own all of the data that comes from it, all of the inside. It's not a black box output that this ad is good or bad, it tells us what is working about it and what needs optimizing, how the idea is working. It gives us a lot of insight and what we found and what I've been excited to learn and to develop since I've been part of PepsiCo where we've built up a very significant database of first party data about how our advertising works, how our competition's advertising works. Actually of course we can connect the dots and draw meta learnings and really raise the bar. So in a way, being able to measure the effectiveness of your creative if you do it at a single project level. That gives you one level of insight.

The real value in raising the creative bar is when you begin to get to that meta insight, when you connect the dots, when you see a body of work and you can really ladder up and see what is the lightning in the bottle. What's the difference between being in the top five to 10% performing ads versus being in the mushy middle? Look, with brands like we have at PepsiCo we deserve to be in the top five to 10% and that's where we really want to aim for. Creative excellence is a key driver of performance and ROI, we know that ROI is driven by brand scale first and foremost. Second is creative effectiveness, third is media and so planning our creative, measuring it, optimizing it, and then really investing behind the creative. That makes the best return for us in terms of delivering short-term sales, but importantly also long-term brand meaning and distinctiveness. That's the legacy that we will leave as marketeers to the next generation to build on, and that's what we're very passionate to continue improving on.

Ryan:

Yeah. I love the balancing of the long and the short of it that you talk about and I think for those listening, I think there's a journey here. Right? So there is a difference in creative effectiveness if you're learning as you develop. Most brands copy test when film is done, which is not learning that's testing and that's a big step change in and of itself. But Jane, the thing that you said there answers the question: imagine if PepsiCo knows what PepsiCo knows. So all of a sudden you're able to do that and say, what do we know? What works? And thematically drive that. To me, that's the next era of insights and your company is paving the way for it. So the rest of us just need to catch up now, we all sat.

Jane:

No look, and I think empowering people. I think this idea... What you say is great. If PepsiCo knew what PepsiCo knew is a fantastic one. What's the advantage of being a big scale company? It has to be learning. It has to be that we use our scale, we use the breadth and depths of our experience to upskill ourselves. Right? Otherwise, there's not that much advantage of being big anymore. So to me that is at the heart of what we are really trying to do and when I say, I saw a fantastic piece around Gatorade. That takes our Gatorade campaigns from several years, from several markets, but also looks at the territory broadly from a competitive perspective. The insight gained from that, the human insight, the advertising insight, the universal truths, the decoding of what makes Gatorade distinctive and stand out. I mean that is what I call lightning in the bottle and it is that experience that I think empowers our creative teams, our brand teams, our designers.

Because the more we have that in our souls, not just on a PowerPoint. Putting that in our heart and souls, that is what makes great brand leaders for the future.

Ryan:

I love this, you got me fired up now. I'll tell you why I'm fired up. When we started this business, I was like if we make insights easy, people will be strategic, marketers will be creative, data becomes a commodity. For many years I was finding myself frustrated that all we were doing was perpetuating the it goes Live Monday problem.

Jane:

Okay.

Ryan:

You think of the rise of generative AI, the leveraging of technology, agility, whatever you want to call it and there's two schools of thought. This is a problem and it's scary or it's a wonderful opportunity and the reason you got me all motivated is you obviously have the lightning in the bottle of the opportunity that leveraging data and technology and all these things provide us.

Jane:

Yeah.

Ryan:

They are not the answer, they are the enabler. So I want to talk to you a little bit about this, and I know we're short on time.

Jane:

Yeah.

Ryan:

But with connected system like ADA, with all that we're learning about what we know. What does the insights manager and the brand manager of tomorrow spend their time doing? What are the skills that they need to be developing? I know learning and development is a huge focus for you and your team.

Jane:

Yeah.

Ryan:

But just talk to us a little bit about some of the attributes that people need to evolve to thrive in this new paradigm.

Jane:

Yeah, that's a great one. Look, I'm a fundamental believer that there's the science of growth, the science of branding, category building. Which is fueled by data, is fueled by experience, combined with the art of brand building. The creative leaps, the human empathy that actually takes data that is available to many people but propels it to a new level. So it's like the art and science of brand building and of growth to me is at the heart of what we as leaders need to upskill ourselves on, and I think if we start with the science of growth. 

The reality is data access to digital, we have so much available to us now as marketeers at such a granular level that we certainly did not have when I was an ABM on skincare way back when. It makes the environment complex, but on the other hand oh my goodness what a gift. It gives us the ability to understand what are the repeatable, sustainable patterns of behavior that we see. It also gives us the tools to get more into foresight rather than hindsight. Right?

So the science of growth and how we build brands and categories, I think every marketeer needs to be a growth architect. Someone who can envisage what... Firstly, the ability to create light of sight is where we start from. But can envisage a bold, bright future and really be scientific about what are the levers of growth that are going to take us from where we are now to where we want to go. Which are the levers that are most important, and therefore where do we focus that time? So that's the science of growth. The art of brand building is the art of the possible. It's about using the data as a start point, but then using empathy, foresight, and rejecting into the future again. Understanding fundamentally how human beings work, being human-centric in our approach. How do we better serve the people we're there to serve? Which is the billions of people we reach every day and I think those are the fundamental skills and at the heart of both is human centricity. It's about people, and despite all the data, all the tech, all the new wizzy words, all the new things we have-

Ryan:

Wizzy words.

Jane:

The reality is some things never change, which is we are serving people and people, how people behave, how people think and dream. That's what marketers and designers and innovators need to obsess about and need to really care about, and actually Mauro Porcini who works for PepsiCo, he's our head of design. He talks about the unicorns in the world and they are the people that love people. It's not just about recognizing insight, it's about really pairing, it's about really striving to delight the people we serve. I think that's never changed, but actually our scope to make a difference now is just as marketeers is exponential versus when I started learning the tools of the trade. I won't say how many years ago, but let's say it's a few decades.

Ryan:

When Jane was five she started being a brand manager.

Jane:

Yeah, exactly. I probably did actually.

Ryan:

Just comment on something you said. So people are still people, whether it was 1920 or 2023 and I love that reflection. Because we still like to be referred to by our names and we want to be heard and we want to be understood and we want to be looked in the face, and those human truths are constants. These tools should be a superpower.

Jane:

When we talk about universal human truth, I mean as marketers you need to understand psychology. You need to understand whether it's Maslow's hierarchy of needs, whether it's Jung's theory of archetypal storytelling. That there are only 12 fundamental stories in the world that actually humans repeat in very different ways but that we connect to, derive meaning from. Utilizing that amazing set of knowledge into what we do is important and the ADA platform is testimony to that, right? 

The ADA platform uses a deep understanding of system one thinking and behavior, which is that people think a lot less than we think they do. We decide with the motion not logic is the reality. It's really neuroscience and system one thinking has really reframed what marketers need to care about to be effective in our storytelling. To be effective in building distinctive brands for the future, and that is built into tools like ADA and the old system too, logic thinking, persuasion models. They're gone and marketers that are still using them need to move on.

Ryan:

I love it. All right, so let's talk to... I would say over half my audience listening is head of insights, insights manager. They're being asked to do a lot.

Jane:

Yeah.

Ryan:

They're being asked to elevate their game, there's still like a bit of a paradigm shift in different companies. How does an insights person future-proof themselves given that's the remit of the marketer of tomorrow?

Jane:

Well, this is great. I'm literally imagining Stephan Gans, who's our Head of Insight and some of our great insight leaders at PepsiCo as I give this answer. Because I think the first thing is that insights are not a detached function, right?

Ryan:

Yes.

Jane:

They need to be at the service of whatever the business priority is, and I love it when insights people talk in outcomes not in tools or in processes. Those are important enablers. But the reality is, I think where insights departments thrive or where they bring the outside in, the future back and actually they really derive ways to bring human centricity into the organization in a way that drives whatever the business outcome that we need to drive. So at the moment we're working a lot for example on positive brands. How do we bring our Pep positive strategy and actions to life in a meaningful and authentic way for our brands? Our insights function are business partners in that and they're opening up new ways of thinking, new ways of learning about the journey. But projecting the future, projecting future scenarios that the business can really utilize to make sure that our first steps are not only good ones. But actually that we can really envisage the future and drive towards it, and so for me that's what a powerful insights function does whilst also leveraging the science of growth.

Insights and analytics, I don't like the two being separate. Analytics of a business has to be integrally hardwired into a strong insights function. So an insights function needs to leverage the data and the science of growth. But also use human centricity and future backed thinking to really harness foresight and that human centricity for the power of the business objectives.

Ryan:

Which is precisely why it's a great time to be an insights professional, none of the people who joined it-

Jane:

It is.

Ryan:

It really is. I mean, I don't think it's ever been a better time. There's all this ability to connect culture and data and strategy and not be project managing procurement projects. It's what it used to be like, right? I mean it used to be go do a test, tell me the results.

Jane:

Absolutely.

Ryan:

It's such a waste of time.

Jane:

I love it when an insights person says they challenge the brief. They're perhaps given a brief, a great insights person never just takes the brief they're given. They often reframe the question, really rethink and get to the root cause of well what are you really trying to solve for here? That's what also business partnership is, it's co-piloting. So I think the most powerful and the most impactful insights people are deeply curious. They really get to the root cause of the job to be done and they're real sort of game change thinkers about how we should think about the future.

Ryan:

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm going to steal wizzy words from you if you don't mind.

Jane:

Yeah.

Ryan:

I think it's fantastic, I usually call them buzzwords. But wizzy words, just I'm never going to forget that so thank you. Jane, I can't thank you enough for investing the time for the community with me today. I've had such a great time, and I'll leave you be. But thank you very much and everybody we'll talk to you soon.

Jane:

Okay, thank you so much. Bye, bye.

[Music transition to takeaways] 

Ryan Barry:

So, ladies, what a fun interview with Jane.

Patricia Montesdeoca:

Oh my god.

Ryan:

I was very inspired when I left, and I still am. 

Patricia:

You were hyper!

Ryan:

Well, it's fun when you get to interview somebody who's passionate and energetic. I'm obviously both of those things, and so I appreciate it. I appreciated Jane a lot and all of her perspectives. So Patricia, what were your takeaways from our lovely conversation with Jane that I wish could have gone on for another hour?

Patricia:

Every single topic you guys talked about was enough for about an hour. I mean, it was hard for me. You know how I like to only bring bubble things to the top. I'm going to talk about three things: the new four Ps, what makes great advertising, and how to future-proof ourselves as insights people. Those three are the ones that I finally had to settle on as being like all of this gold goodness. What is it? Hot stuff, you said? I'm not that young, so hot stuff? So that's where I'm going to start.

The new four Ps of marketing. I love being on the cutting edge. Pulse, pivot and performance, purpose, and people in partnerships. There's a lot of Ps in there, but there's four major topics. The pulse is all about having your finger on the pulse of the people you serve, right?

Ryan:

Yep.

Patricia:

And I know there's an alliteration in there, but it's all about being real-time, being present, so you can serve their needs today, not realize what you didn't give them yesterday. So I loved that.

Pivot and performance. It's all about doing your thing and doing it fast. Pivoting as fast as you need to give them what they need. Use the tailwinds when they're there. Don't go against the tailwinds. Why? I mean, why would you do that? So you are where your consumers are today. That seems logical. 

The third one is purpose. This one is such a small word with such a big meaning. It's how do you create growth, not just financial growth or share market growth, but growth as in true, human, planet, positive impact, wonderful things and all goodness growth. And how are you going to make your business objectives and your human objectives all match in there? That's a huge one. We could talk for three hours on that one.

And then people in partnerships, which is culture, just in case you were wondering, but culture's not a P, it's a C, right? And it's all about mutual, enduring, trusting. You're still saying the same thing that you talked about. Culture eats strategy for breakfast, but it's all about... And you guys didn't say it this way, but this is how I saw it. Walk the talk. Be the talk. Culture is everybody. Everybody contributes to culture. I loved your quilt analogy. But it's all about the pulse of the organization. Taking the time to listen to your people and making sure that they hear you, you hear them, you understand each other, and being one entity together. So those four Ps, I love how she evolved them. I love how she talked about the previous Ps being still important, but more basic. This is P'S next generation. 

So going from that one to what makes great advertising, which is at the end of the day why she came. She just has so much knowledge and so much experience, that it's good to talk to her about everything. But she is so great. She took such a difficult question: What makes great advertising, Jane? And she says three things: get noticed, get remembered, get understood. I just wanted to drop the mic. I wasn't even holding the mic and I wanted to drop it. It was amazing. Those three things, if we actually think about what they mean, are the essence of what makes great advertising. It makes great business in general.

But let me get a little deeper on two things. Holistic creative development. That's a big title, big thing. Basically, it's all about having a strong big brand idea, and having a distinctive brand idea, making sure you're clear on the story you're going to tell them. There's assets and everything. And then setting up an organization to get that going. You'd think that that would be easy and a given, but no. I mean, you guys talked about Malcolm Gladwell and his 10,000 hours, but we have to make sure that having strong brand ideas becomes a craft. I love how she calls it a craft. She brings the art into it. So you have to make sure that you have the strong idea and people and organization to bring it together.

And then the third one is recognizing the difference between that creative idea and the execution of that idea. Because consumers, people out there only see the execution. We can have the idea here, but if we don't show them what we're thinking... And that's where the organization comes in.

Now, the science of growth. When she first said that, I have to admit, I went and I looked it up. I googled it. I wanted to see it, because it sounded a little bit scary for me at first. But it was all about the science of growth combined with the art of brand building. And science of growth is what I've been doing for a gazillion years. It's all about making sure that you're growing intentionally. It's really simple steps. It's a really nice title, but it's all about starting where you are, knowing where you are, and knowing where you want to go. That's a good place to start.

And then being scientific... Science of growth... about the levers that are going to take you from here to there. Being scientific about the measurement of them, the definition of the priorities of them. You can't have, as all insights people know, you can't have 40 action standards. You have to have two or three KPIs, and that's what you're going to drive growth, because we can't focus everywhere. So looking for that. And then adding to the data, the human empathy to take that data and make it into human truth. Because you can't just have data. You have to have data with meaning and with feeling. So that's the only thing that's going to get us foresight and not hindsight. And all that joined with the art of brand building, which is all about the same method, but it's all about the art of the possible. It's building your brand and taking those two things, about the strategy of growth and the art of brand building, and that's what's going to help you. What is it she said? Get noticed, get remembered, and get understood. I love that.

The last one is, as you usually ask our guests, how does an insight person go to the future? And I loved her answer. Be at the service of whatever the business priority is. We've talked a lot about being business partners, about talking the same language as the marketing and the sales teams and everything. But she brought it into the simplest form. Be at the service of whatever the business priority is. What's the business priority? That's what you do. You're not the research person. You're there at the service of the brand or whatever. And talking outcomes on tools or processes. Bring the outside in. And that's your role in the business partnership, bringing the outside in. Projecting the future to them, and challenging them when they need to be challenged, whoever "them" is inside the company, so that you can leverage the data and the signs of growth that we just talked about to make magic happen. And that's where I stop. 

Ryan:

There's a common theme here from all these interviews. So I think we can now call this quantitative data.

Patricia:

Yes, we can.

Ryan:

We have to take the time to connect the data, to be intentional about the systems we use, to have real discussions and contracts with marketing, to give them the tools they need, to sit above it and to spend the time upskilling ourselves on business acumen, storytelling, synthesizing information, because that's what the opportunity is, my friends.

And so it's just interesting, because we've been doing this now six seasons, and I'm only interviewing marketers and insights people who are making moves, getting promoted, getting more budget, and their companies are growing. There's a constant theme here, and it's great. It's such a great opportunity for all of you at Insights. And also for those of you in marketing, to grab tools you need to bring the customer into your process, and also elevate the role of your insights team.

Patricia:

Exactly.

Ryan:

What a treat we had with Jane.

Patricia:

We did.

Ryan:

What a wise woman. I wrote this to her afterwards. I'm just privileged at the opportunity to know her and have the opportunity to work with her, and let alone to share her perspective with all of you. We'll have to get her back some other time in the future. But what a wonderful perspective.

So our next episode is going to be with a very close personal friend, a partner of mine, your former boss, Zappi's Chief Customer Officer, Julio Franco. What's that?

Patricia:

Still my friend. Still my friend.

Ryan:

And still your friend. And we are going to go deep on future of insights. We're going to try to give you some specifics together. The truth is we talk a lot about other people's stories on this podcast and that's obviously great. I'm not going to lie to you. We consult a lot of these companies on how to drive this change, and so we've learned a thing or two ourselves. And so we're going to have a really good discussion together about that and hopefully codify some of that for you.

We've got a lot of really good interviews coming up this season, but as ever, if you or you know somebody who you think is making moves, we want to talk to them, so get at us. But thank you so much for listening. Those of you who take the time to send us emails, it means a lot. As I always say, we would do this anyway 'cause it's fun. But seriously, we're having a ton of fun doing this. So thank you very much, Jane. Thank you very much, Patricia. Thank you. And Kelsey, thank you. Have a good day, everybody.

Patricia:

Bye.