In this episode of the Consumer Insights Podcast, Thor is joined by Shivani Shah, National Category and Shopper Insights Senior Manager at Church & Dwight Co., Inc.

You can access all episodes of the Consumer Insights Podcast on Apple, Spotify, or Spreaker. Below, you'll find a lightly edited transcript of this episode.

Thor:
Hello everyone and welcome to the Consumer Insights Podcast. Today, I'm excited to have an exceptional insights leader joining me for what I know will be an illuminating conversation. I'm thrilled to introduce today's guest, Shivani Shah, National Category and Shopper Insights Senior Manager at Church & Dwight, Inc. She's a seasoned insights and analytics leader with both CPG and retailer experience and her vision is to lead the insights function into a knowledge powerhouse that creates an industry edge. Thank you so much for joining me, Shivani.

Shivani Shah:
Thank you, Thor. First of all, I'm really excited to be here. I've seen that you've been doing great work. I think you just marked your first anniversary back in June. Congratulations. I am passionate about insights, and so I grab any opportunity I get to talk about insights. And I'm really stoked about being here today.

Meet Shivani

Thor:
Thank you so much for those kind words. And yes, we're super excited to have you on the podcast. So to kick things off, could you take a couple of minutes to tell us about yourself, your role and how you got to where you are today? How did it all start?

Shivani Shah:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So my background is a little different than what I've seen traditionally in the insights field.

My experience spans across brand management, category management, shopper marketing, and insights both in retail and CPG.

And while this is not conventional for me, this journey is what led me to discover my passion for insights because I'm a bit of a data and analytics nerd and even in my non-insights roles, I heavily leverage insights to inform my work. So I have really been an insights professional all along and I've been dedicated to the insights field for the last several years now. And as you mentioned, I've been an insights leader for church and wide for the last five years, influencing our health and wellbeing business through actionable insights. And in addition to my background being a little different, my role is also a little different in the organization compared to what I've seen in the industry. So I'm not solely responsible for just conducting market research.

I have a more comprehensive role, which includes shopper, category, and market insight, and consumer intelligence. So I leverage a wide variety of data sources, including primary research and influence research projects because we at Church and Dwight currently have a dedicated market research department and they conduct the research. So I lend my voice to inform some of those projects. I sometimes get directly involved in the research project depending on what it is, but all of the time I leverage all of that research that has been done. And just a word about Insights itself. I love the diversity of working on multiple market leading brands where I can use my insights for improving the shoppers experience and enriching the lives of consumers. I love being a thought leader and making a difference.

As an Insights expert for my organization, I'm scrappy, entrepreneurial and throughout my professional journey, I've been energized by bringing a different perspective versus maintaining business as usual. So I understand the demands and needs of a diverse family, you know, of diverse families and how it impacts consumption and shopper behavior. And then I look for ways to integrate that with my business recommendations to drive conversion and shopper loyalty. And I love to learn, build relationships and work on projects with people, with purpose, which insights allows me to do. And that's why I do what I do. And I love doing that.

What is an insight to you?

Thor:
Shivani, the fact that you've worked with brand category management and now insights is just such an interesting background. And, and with that background, I'm particularly interested in understanding how you would define an insight.

Shivani Shah:
Yeah, I love this question.

So the dictionary definition of insight is accurate and deep intuitive understanding of a subject of interest, which in our world, in the CPG or retail world is the consumer, the shopper, the category and market. It goes beyond mere analysis of data and is concerned with answering key business questions and informing action.

So it is not an insight if it merely states what happened. Effective analysis goes beyond the what to uncover the why and then recommend now what. So what do we do with this information? So it's the difference between data and information, I guess. And for me, the definition has become clearer and more meaningful through the course of my career.

Thor:
I love that. And could you double click on that and tell us a bit how that has changed over the course of your career?

Shivani Shah:
Yeah, so as I said, my journey has been through brand management, category management, different functions, which in isolation cannot make an impact to success, to corporate success. So leveraging insights has kind of been part of my DNA. But the meaning of what insight is, as we just discussed, became clearer and more meaningful to me as I went through those stages. Because like anything else, we gain mastery with practice. So in insights being an impactful insights professional is the same and with years of honing my craft, I have developed a much more deeper understanding of how to turn data into insights, how to bring those nuggets to the business and what to do with them. And that is the biggest change that I have experienced over the course of my career.

The case for democratized insights

Thor:
And so we've talked a lot about democratizing insights on this podcast and it's a common ambition among insights leaders. Do you think it should be a priority and if so, why?

Shivani Shah:
Yeah, so in a consumer obsessed culture, if you work for an organization that is consumer obsessed, democratizing insights is an absolute priority. This is because, as I mentioned, even throughout my journey, any of the business managers working in any of the different functions are ultimately working to drive success in the market and they cannot do that.

They cannot make those informed decisions without the insight or without visibility to what they are serving, which is the consumer, to who they are serving, that is the consumer.

So to be truly insights driven, every decision should be made taking into consideration the voice of the consumer and the shopper and the category and market trends. So all business managers and teams must develop a common understanding of what those are. And to gain that, they need to see the same insights and have visibility to the same information. So here I would like to give you an example. I have attempted to ensure that all teams that I work with on any specific business, whether they're responsible for new product development or digital activation, are selling into retail have a common understanding of the shopper and look for solutions with that understanding. So this has enabled us to inform our product development with relevant shopper trends, which are in alignment with the retail environment. We are able to then turn to inform our strategy and execute it at retail with the same insight to meet the needs of the shopper competitively while we're driving growth.

Thor:
Love that. And in your experience, what are some of the obstacles that get in the way of doing this? And how have you gone about overcoming these obstacles in your career?

Shivani Shah:
Yeah, that's a good question. I have experienced that there are inadvertent silos that invariably are part of large organizations. And they're perhaps the main obstacle in achieving perfect democratization of insights. Because within any organization structure, there are multiple teams that collaborate towards the same goal. But they often have their own mini subculture, their own workflow, their own pace. Now you multiply that across different SBUs and brand teams and it's a much larger scale. So usually the challenge for democratization of insights is scalability. How do we bring everyone across the breadth of all the teams involved on the same page all of the time? So in addition to that, our business environment is very dynamic and it changes every moment.

Teams are constantly in flux and the skill set of individuals vary and not everyone is equally adept at leveraging insights. And with such complexity, it is nearly impossible to achieve perfect execution. And like most other initiatives, establishing primacy of insights in all decision making is a daily enterprise for us. We have adopted several solutions like, for example, templating deep insights and automating them so business managers can self-serve them in real time. To take it a step further, we then socialize this throughout the corporation with organization-wide training calls to walk them through the tools we have, to walk them through the capabilities.

We're leveraging several tools. Some of them are deploying some AI capabilities to make it much more user friendly and fast. And so that is how we are trying to approach this. And we have benefited also from a top-down prioritization, which in our case, our senior-most leadership has emphasized an expectation to be insights-driven. The basic understanding is that all decision making is principled and insights based. And so that's kind of part of our culture. And that's how we have been approaching the challenge of democratizing insights.

Thor:
There's so many things there that I think a lot of us would love to learn more about, but for someone wanting to do what you're just suggesting, what is step one?

Shivani Shah:
Yeah, I think as an organization having, you know, aligning on first of all the need that, you know, why is it important to do as I just illustrated that decision making is meaningless unless it is tied to some form of an insight about what we are trying to serve or who we are trying to serve. So aligning on that, first of all, second of all, understanding then how to achieve it. Like what is the scale that we want to achieve? Who are the users who need to be on board? And what's the fastest, easiest, most cost-effective way of doing that? And coming to some of those, understanding about some of those elements is a starting point.

Thor:
Thank you so much. And I know that you have experience in forming CPG innovation with insights. Do you have any stories or experiences you can share?

Shivani Shah:
Yeah, I would love to. So innovation, product innovation, it has become somewhat of a passion of mine because in the CPG world, so much of our success depends on fast forward looking innovation. So I'll share a few examples of how I partnered with my innovation team that I now work closely with so initially when I started in my role, there wasn't much of a collaboration between insights and all the other functions like new product development. But I recognize that our success in a large part depends on successful innovation. We're very skew intensive category, trends driven category products that we have and most of our consumable categories, consumer categories, I'm sorry. So it became evident to me that the innovation teams have to be armed with relevant insights.

And so what I did in the beginning was I just started to proactively serve them insights. They didn't even know that I existed. And as I was working on different projects, I came across shopper insights, consumer insights, trends information, things that I was seeing developing out, you know, unmet needs and things like that. And I would package them for the innovation people, the innovation team, and put it in a context of our business, in the context of our target shopper and how it would relate and translate to business success. And that got their attention. So as a result of that, very early on in this relationship, one of my counterparts in innovation had the idea to run a brainstorm session to throw some product ideas on the board. And he invited me along with all the other stakeholders between sales and brand management and all the other teams. And I came to this meeting prepared with a list of possible new item concepts with supporting insights about trends, about how or why this could work for our brands. And this proved to be very valuable for them, and it solidified their relationship with me. And since then, I have been connecting with them regularly to share information and also look for opportunities to augment their visibility to emerging needs of the consumer. And I'll give you another example that I've done with innovation teams specifically, is by partnering with external experts. Sometimes getting outside of our environment and speaking to people in the industry is extremely valuable. And bringing in external experts to share their intelligence with us has done a lot of, delivered a lot of value for us. So such partnerships have enriched our understanding of what opportunities exist. And this year I have been able to arrange two such meetings where my product innovation teams had the opportunity to partner with an outside expert and build their knowledge regarding valuable trends and also capabilities like predictive analytics, using social conversations to identify viable trends to pursue and even competitive intelligence from some of the people who know our industry, our category brands really, really well. And so that has been really enriching.

Group-think as an obstacle to growth

Thor:
So Shivani, let's switch gears for a second and talk about something different. My understanding is that you see group think as a big obstacle to growth. Can you tell us a bit more about this?

Shivani Shah:
Yeah, I have experienced group-think, you know, at some points in my career, I'm fortunate that it's not much of an issue in my current company. But group think can be an obstacle because it may cause teams to unknowingly lose edge or stop pushing the envelope by questioning the status quo. And worse, it may lead to a confirmation bias where too often teams are looking for insights that just confirm what they already believe. And it can cause some resistance to change and result in prohibitive risk aversion, preventing them from trying new ways of answering questions. It can prevent teams from giving their best, most creative solutions for business problems. So yeah, it can be a blind spot, yeah.

Thor:
And how, so tell me how have you gone about challenging or preventing group-think in your career?

Shivani Shah:
Yeah, it's great. So fortunately, like I said currently I work for Church & Dwiight and we're a very scrappy entrepreneurial company with a lot of premium on true inquisition about our shoppers. So I don't encounter that much. But what I have found in cases like that is to serve up insights with integrity, and it is hard to do sometimes. Because sometimes it means you have to deliver an unpopular opinion or a message that goes against popular belief. But it is really hard to disagree with facts. And also it helps teams to gain understanding and arms them with information that they can pursue, that they can use to pursue a better or a different solution. So a lot of times in case of group things, sometimes people unknowingly do not know there is relevant information that if they had that, that they would think differently.

So it also helps in building understanding. And our job is to inform organizations about the shopper. And that, you know, and it doing this establishes a lot of credibility for the insights function and solidifies our seat at the table. You know, it brings, it opens up the door for people to have those difficult conversations and be willing to inquire. I'll give you an example for this. I was in a position where I had to do exactly this, which is go against challenge group thing and group think and go against a popular belief. We had a leading brand that began declining consistently. And based on what I knew from insights, I had to advise my company that the brand had lost its edge, that it was no longer differentiated enough in the mind of the shopper and was simply being replaced by them at shelf. And that this trend cannot be reversed by simply activating differently or promoting more or doing some of those things, unless we retool the brand, if we revisited the brand itself and repositioned it. And we had to reconnect, reestablish the connection with the shopper. And this proved to be helpful because ultimately it allowed us to do some really foundational work on the, on the brand and revive it.

The trap of expectations

Thor:
I love that example. And when we were preparing for this episode, you mentioned having expectations about research outcomes is a trap. Can you share more about why you think this is the case and what led you to that belief?

Shivani Shah:
Right, so much like group think, when you see expectations going into research, it's just a watch out. Sometimes we may go into consumer research with an expectation of what we want to find instead of pursuing it agnostically and then reporting the true outcome. So it can become difficult to do because again it means challenging group think or going against popular belief and those type of things. But I have found sometimes when we do research to just reconfirm our own biases, we end up throwing good money after bad. And I'll give you an example.

Let's say there is, and I'm anonymizing the example because I don't, for confidentiality of my employers, previous employers, but when we talk about launching new items, for example, right, there's a lot that goes, a lot of time, effort, resources that goes into developing a new product, and pre-market testing has a place in determining success. So if we go into pre-market testing with the expectation that is going to validate the new item, even if the item is not really ready or if the consumer is not really looking for it, we will end up launching the item, which is going to prove to be an expensive mistake.

Because statistically, 80% failure rate of items that were considered to be not ready for launch, but were launched anyways. But if we were honest in pre-market testing and not just looking to validate our own belief, and we found that the time is not right, we could have prevented all of that cost associated with the failure. So this is what I mean by being careful of not doing that. And in order to ensure success in the long term, insights professionals should have an agnostic outlook and just look for what is rather than, you know, what we would like it to be. And I don't think a lot of people do this. And it is something that I certainly try to be aware of myself and I try to watch out for as I'm going into research or I'm looking for insights I try to watch out for what expectations I have and I try to be aware of that.

Thor:
And why doesn't everyone see that? Why is it so hard?

Shivani Shah:
There may be different reasons. Sometimes people have been in the same role or in the same environment too long and they have, you know, it just sometimes helps to break the monotony and mix up the team a little bit. Also, it depends on, um, how much emphasis the organization is putting on challenging the status quo and bringing, you know, asking those difficult questions and bringing better and new solutions to the forefront. So the reasons might be different. Sometimes the reasons are just blind spots that people just didn't realize that they didn't know. And that is why, again, democratizing insights is important because they may have a blind spot because information was available. They just didn't know it was available to them. And once they get that, they gain the understanding they need to eliminate that blind spot. So I think that is one of the big, big challenges and also probably easier to fix is just removing those blind spots just from making the insights available.

The role of tech in the insights space

Thor:
If we switch topics for a second, I know that you're really passionate about the role of tech in the insight space. What are some of the trends that you're paying attention to right now?

Shivani Shah:
Yeah, this is very interesting. It's a very interesting time. Like everyone else, we are exploring the next frontier of capabilities that are emerging from the intersection of CPG and retail with big data and trying to understand how to leverage the power of artificial intelligence, deploy social listening, and some of these new capabilities for a variety of users throughout the organization in different functions. Does that answer your question?

Thor:
I think it does. But how do you think insights leaders should be responding to this? I mean, it is an interesting time, but what role do you think that tools and tech should play in insights work?

Shivani Shah:
Yeah, yeah, great. So I look at it as the opportunity to continue to learn and question the status quo and be curious. Tools and technology at the end of the day enable us to be sharper, faster, better, so that we have the responsibility to understand how we can deploy them and answer the call. The tech revolution is here and it is disrupting every aspect of the business. And in my opinion, the insights function is probably most profoundly impacted. And also one of the areas that stands to benefit the most from it. So, um, companies, uh, and, and insights professionals need to, um, take the ownership to look into it, to try to understand what the tools are, what are the, what are they capable of doing for us and, uh, you know, try to upscale, try to build those capabilities for ourselves.

Thor:
That's great and if we build on that, what skills do you think insights leaders and their teams need to be developing in response to this disruption in the industry?

Shivani Shah:
Yeah, it's a good question. It's really relevant. So I think first we need to acquire a basic common understanding of what these capabilities mean and represent for the company. What do they enable us to do and achieve, for example, Become predictive or save costs or improve accuracy versus what concerns are they raising regarding privacy, ethics, costs return on investment considerations, sustainability, workforce impact, skill gaps, et cetera. The specific skills I think may differ based on your function. For example, market research professionals need to know what it means to substitute a human panel with artificial intelligence. Whereas a marketing professional can do that with AI in developing content or creative copywriting. So we have to find the avenues to learn what is relevant to our function and build on that. That's how I envision, at least in the immediate time, that we need to, this is what we need to take on.

Thor:
Shivani, I think you've shared some really powerful wisdom with us today. If you had to summarize, what's the one big takeaway you want listeners to get from this episode?

Shivani Shah:
Yeah, I would say it is that the insights function needs to be elevated as a key business influencer to create a competitive edge in the market. Data by themselves are meaningless without insights and emerging capabilities are disrupting the way insights can impact success. So for insights professionals like me, the opportunity is to be curious, continue to upscale. So we can elevate our role and continue to deliver value to our businesses.

The insightful lunch

Thor:
I absolutely love that. Unfortunately, Shivani, we've come to the end of this recording and we get to the question that I have to ask, which is who in the world of insights would you love to have lunch with?

Shivani Shah:
Oh, wow. I have more than one name on my list.

But since you asked, let's start with Dr. Elaine Rodrigo. She's the Chief Insights and Analytics officer at Reckitt. I think she's amazing.

I saw her at an insights conference. I actually attended one of her sessions recently and found the work that she's done at Reckitt fascinating. So I would love to spend some time chatting with her.

Thor:
Fascinating. Elaine is an amazing person. Wow. This has been such an amazing conversation, Shivani. Your perspective is truly unique and I think we can all learn from it. I'd love to play back some of the moments of our conversation that have really stuck with me. So initially when defining insights, you told us that it involves accurate and deep understanding. It's not an insight if it's merely stating what happens. It needs to tell you what to do with it, what to, how to use this information. You reminded us that in a consumer obsessed environment, democratizing insights is an absolute priority. If you want to do this, step one is starting with having organizational alignment on the importance of what you're trying to do. And step two is getting the same level of alignment on how to go about achieving it in the fastest, easiest, most cost effective way.

Lastly, looking at the future, you told us that the tech revolution is here. The insights function is one of the most profoundly impacted and also one of the areas that could benefit the most from it, but it will not happen by itself. Insights professionals need to take ownership of this. Now I know that I've learned a lot from talking to you today. And I'm sure our audience has as well. Thank you so much for joining me, Shivani.

Shivani Shah:
Thank you so much, Thor. I really appreciate what you're doing for the insights industry and through your podcast, building this knowledge base that all of us insights professionals can learn from. Really appreciate that and wish you the best. Thank you for having me.