In this episode of the Consumer Insights Podcast, Thor is joined by Lorin Drake, Consumer Insights Strategist at Publix Super Markets.

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 amazing insights leader joining me for what I know will be an exceptional conversation. I'm thrilled to introduce today's guest, Lorin Drake, Consumer Insights Strategist at Publix Supermarkets. Lorin has more than 20 years of experience as a marketing science professional on both the client and supplier sides in a wide variety of industry verticals. He's a relentlessly curious marketeer and researcher dedicated to driving strategic and tactical business decisions through the effective use of evidence-based insights. Thank you so much for joining me, Lorin.

Lorin Drake:
Thank you, Thor, for having me. It's been, it's an absolute pleasure and a privilege and an honor to be here. Appreciate the invitation. Happy to be here. Thank you.

Introducing Lorin

Thor:
Those are very kind words. Could we start off with taking a couple of minutes so we can learn about you? Tell us about yourself, your role, your company. How did you get to where you are today? How did it all begin?

Lorin Drake:
Sure, well, I guess, like all stories, I can start at the beginning. So I'll take a page out of my onboarding deck. So when we onboard new associates at public supermarkets, which is where I currently work. So I've been with Publix about 11 years. I tell them about my sort of the origin of my career. So I studied journalism in college and fully intended to become a journalist and writer. And after I graduated, I did go to work for a newspaper, but fell in love with the business side of the newspaper unexpectedly, much to my surprise. I got into advertising and marketing and really loved the business side, the advertising revenue side of the newspaper and media business-will is that I used to tell stories with words, and now I tell stories with numbers. But the practice of journalism, which is really storytelling and research, so conducting your research, getting all your ducks in a row, getting all the facts, getting all the information, talking to your sources, and then writing a journalistic article that hopefully is well balanced and brings perspectives from both sides of the conflict or story that you're trying to tell is very similar ironically to the process of creating a research study, picking the methodology, collecting the data, which is basically the facts and then analyzing that data and then telling a story that is compelling to business decision makers. So I started out as a journalist, then became a marketer, a researcher. I worked for a prominent advertising agency in Minneapolis, cut my teeth on retail and CPG. I worked, I had the privilege of working on the Target account for eight years, did a lot of their research, traveled across the country, talking to people about apparel and consumer electronics and household appliances and toaster of all things for Target. But I also worked for the Sleep Number Bed. I'm a proud owner of one. They were a former client of mine, so did a lot of their marketing and research efforts. I also worked on AMC, the cable network, Stonyfield Farm Yogurt, Johnsonville Bratwurst out of Wisconsin. Since I was in the Midwest, there's a lot of bratwurst that gets consumed in the to move to Florida back in 2009, went to work for a boutique consulting firm in Tampa that handled work mostly for retail and CPG clients and ultimately ended up at Publix where my job now consists of marketing, advertising, and research. Really my three favorite disciplines within business. So I get to do what I love like and love the most for a fantastic brand and a great summary of my career to date.

Defining an insight

Thor:
That's quite a journey. And since you've helped us understand how you made the journey from a journalistic background into insights, I'm very curious on your definition of an insight, tell us, could you tell us what the definition you would use and also tell us if that definitions has changed over the course of your career?

Lorin Drake:
Sure. Thanks for watching! Yeah, it's a fantastic question. And I'm sure you won't be totally surprised to hear that I've spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about what an insight is. And when I onboard new associates at Publix in the marketing department here, I have a deck that goes into great detail about what an insight is. So I scoured the internet for hours and hours and ultimately came up with a definition. It's not mine. I didn't write it. So full disclosure, but it's the definition that I found out of hundreds,

if not thousands of definitions that resonates with me personally the most and that is an insight is a key discovery that could yield tangible marketable and meaningful opportunity if applied So that's how I define an insight and it's those two words at the end if applied right so things can be interesting and things can be meaningful, but if you don't apply them in a business context, it's not really insightful, right?

So we need, at the end of the day, we are providing our decision makers here at Publix with data that they can act on to provide a superior customer experience to all of our customers in the eight operating states in which we run our business. But to give that a little bit of perspective or context, I talk a lot about the difference between data and insights or facts and observations and insights. The example that I like to use with my onboarding classes is that if you did a study of American pet owners; so dog owners tend to feed their dogs twice a day.

And you could do ethnographies, you can go in-home, you can do surveys, you can do focus groups, and you'll learn through that research that pet owners feed their dogs twice a day, but they also feed them in the morning during when they consume breakfast and in the evening when they're consuming dinner. So, so far we have facts, we have data, we can do observational research, but we have zero insight. And so the insight, emotional driver that's the reason why we feed our dogs and cats twice a day is that people feel guilty eating in front of their pets. And that's the true insight. And it's the same in my house. When my wife and I sit down for dinner, we have two cats and a dog. And while my wife is kind of finalizing, plating our food. She always asks me to feed our dog because she eats at the same time as we do. And the last thing you want is when you're having, you're sitting down and you're eating a wonderful dinner to look at Fido down on the floor, looking up at you with these puppy eyes, like, where's mine?

So the idea that we care for our pets, our pets are an extended part of our family, they're part of our household, and this idea that we feed them at the same time as us speaks to a deep, deep-seated psychological emotional need. And so that has marketing implications, right? Everything from copywriting to packaging. And it's no wonder that dog food and cat food companies put lots of romance copy on their packaging. You sometimes can read and read and read forever. And it talks about the health benefits, the healthier skin, healthier fur, all the health benefits because pet companies innately understand that we have an incredibly strong emotional connection with our are four-legged animals and that they are in many ways our children.

And so that's the insight, that's the difference between data and insight. And I use that example in my onboarding class to let people know that you can get a 75-page PowerPoint report with lots of graphs and charts, and we call that a data dump. And it could be, we also talk about reports being data-rich but insights-poor internal customers true insight when it comes to the data that we collect about our customers. I hope that answers your question.

Exploring generative AI in practice

Thor:
I think it was a brilliant answer and also one that a lot of us can relate to. If we continue on in our discussion, the first topic I'd like to touch on is generative AI. Now, I know you've been leveraging generative AI a lot in your work. Could you tell us more about that process and what you've learned? And go ahead and, you know, tell us what experiences you've had.

Lorin Drake:
Sure. Yeah, so just a quick disclaimer. So generative AI, so it was exactly a year ago that I started reading about ChatGPT. Kind of took us all by storm. It kind of took us all by surprise. AI itself is not new, but the idea of a.. you know, nearly fully sentient chatbot like ChatGPT that you can have a conversation with, that you can give tasks to and it comes back with, you know, it can pass the bar exam, it can pass medical boards, it can take tests, it can understand science, you know, all those things really caught us by surprise.

I hate answering a question with a disclaimer, but I'm going to have to in this case. This first disclaimer is we are no longer permitted, like most Fortune 1000 companies, to use generative AI on work equipment. So right now I'm speaking to you from my company issued laptop. I am not permitted because of things that happened like with Samsung where the coders tried to fix a bug in their code, and they uploaded their entire code to ChatGPT, which now is technically owned by them. And so that created a lot of problems for Samsung. So most companies have shut this down. So the work that I did in generative AI came before our company issued a policy against using it. Today, my disclaimer is: we are not using it at work because we're not permitted to. I use it a lot in my personal life.

Now, prior to it being a policy where we were not allowed to use generative AI of any kind on company-issued equipments, we ran several experiments in which we, in short, tried to duplicate our everyday menial tasks, things like writing questions, survey design, writing a discussion guide conducting a correlation, running a multiple regression, some of the tasks that a researcher does on a daily basis, we ran through ChatGPT.

I actually presented at a conference in Austin, Texas in May in which we took seven tasks, a screening question, a Likert scale question, calculating statistical significance, performing multivariate analysis, writing skip logic, writing questions for a typical focus group, and then a typing tool. And we've read all those seven tasks through ChatGPT and then compared them to an actual human on my team who also conducted the tasks and then graded ChatGPT on an A through F academic scale in terms of how well ChatGPT completed that task. And we got grades anywhere from A minus to F, In some cases, ChatGPT miserably failed the task. In other cases, it was quite good at duplicating some of the more mechanical everyday tasks that a researcher does. So I've since shared that presentation with FMI, Food Marketing Institute, also with the Category Management Association, and also internally here at Publix. It generated a lot of interest and attention. But at this point for good reasons. There's a lot of as much as exciting as generative AI is, there's an enormous amount of legal, financial, and even ethical and moral risks that are associated with using this very new, very nascent, a very powerful technology, if I might add. So we're a bit on hold in terms of using it. There's some internal committees that are working on how we as an organization can leverage and capitalize on generative AI, much traction yet because it's more of a long-term proposition than something that can be solved overnight.

Thor:
And if we look ahead slightly, how do you see the role of insights professionals evolving in the generative AI era? How do you think insights professionals can use it to their advantage?

Lorin Drake:
Yeah, so my first question to that, so the title of my presentation, Thor, was Generative AI Friend, Foe, or Frenemy. And so there are people in our industry who view generative AI as a clear and present danger to their profession. There are some who view it with sort of guarded suspicion, and there's others who have embraced it. None of them are, no one's wrong. And I certainly wouldn't condemn any other viewpoints at all. In fact, I'm very open-minded and respect other people's opinions. And I certainly understand why some people view it as a threat. I'm in the camp of embracing it. I fully embrace generative AI. It's one of those things where I think that it's going to be unavoidable whether you like it or not.

I kind of equate it to the internet in general. People were suspicious about the internet. I still remember a time when people were worried hard information on the website. Clearly that fear has dissipated. So, but in terms of our industry, so first of all, I embrace it. The second thing I believe is that there are some industries that are at risk where generative AI can potentially replace or change their professions in such a way that it becomes an existential threat. So photography, graphic design, even movies and screenwriting. I'm sure you heard about the Hollywood strike here, the writer's strike here. And one of the things at the center of that writer's strike was a sort of ethical and moral conversation about generative AI and the role that it will play in the future of screenwriting. I believe all those existential threats are real. I see more and more images and photography and even advertising campaigns where it's very clear that generative AI and tools like Mid Journey and DALL-E are being used to generate images.

In our industry, circling back to consumer insights, I feel fortunate in that I feel like it's going to be a tool that we can use and leverage. The last time I checked, generative AI cannot find a story in the data, at least not in a way that people like myself and my team can do. Generative AI does not give presentations. Generative AI does not help business leaders understand the implications and complexity of customer data. They don't make judgment calls. They don't understand the grocery business. There's a lack of fundamental understanding there that only a human being with flesh and bones like myself and you can bring to the table. So I look forward to a future in which Generative AI will be a healthy partner in the work of that insights professionals like myself do. And I do, I believe that Generative AI will replace some of the more route, some of the more mechanical and tedious tasks that we perform. And I look forward to that day. I may, some may call me overly optimistic or even naive, but I'm willing to say out loud that I do not see generative AI replacing insights professionals. That's my opinion.

Thor:
And if we switch topics, I know that you had, and you know, going beyond generative AI and talking more about general work, I know you've had some thoughts on feedback overload. Can you tell us more about what you mean here by giving us an example? And why do you think that's a problem?

Lorin Drake:
Yeah. Yeah, so let me back up a little bit. So I think what's concerning to me in general and that when I look at the industry is that every single transaction that I conduct, every single consumer transaction purchase, I guess purchase that I made, whether I buy a sandwich or stay in a hotel or fly on an airplane or buy a piece of luggage or buy an accessory or buy a gift, I get invited to give feedback. And it's just, it's exhausting. I mean, that's, that's the thing. Everybody, every company is out there collecting massive amounts of feedback. Where my skepticism comes in is a we're overwhelming our customers. So I bought, you know, I bought a briefcase, um, a few months ago and. They sent me an email asking me to not only answer a survey, but write a review on that particular briefcase that I bought for work. And so I don't know if companies realize, or perhaps they're not thinking about it enough, is multiply that by 50. And basically every single purchase I've made wants some form of feedback.

And so I worry about this on two levels. One is we are overloading the consumer with our need for data and metrics. Companies have a never ending insatiable appetite for metrics. I call it chasing the metrics monster because we keep wanting more and more data. So I worry about overwhelming the consumer.

And on the flip side, I'm skeptical that companies, organizations are using the sheer amount of data that they collect in a meaningful way it can't possibly have the staff or the bandwidth to collect this much information, either passively or directly. So there's all this passive data that's coming in as well, big data that's coming in, web traffic, click-throughs, consuming of media online, retargeting, cookies and all that data. And then on top of it, you add survey data and you add ratings and review data, and you've got this avalanche or tsunami of data that companies are collecting. And I know from personal experience, there's only so, there's the data, and then there's the human capital, the staff that you need to be able to analyze that data, report it in a way that's meaningful, and then have stakeholders and business decision makers act on it. I'm skeptical that that's happening. So that's my point of view on feedback overload.

I feel like there's a lot of information being collected from consumers in a vacuum and not enough is being done with existing data, but there's this never ending appetite to collect more and more and more and more information, but it's not done in a strategic or systematic way.

Thor:
And from your perspective, what should insights professionals do instead? How can they get meaningful customer feedback without overdoing it?

Lorin Drake:
So I think number one is prioritizing, right? So what's most important to the business? It can't just be every single transaction, every single thing that a customer purchases. You know, so for example, not all customers are created equal, right? So you've heard of the Pareto principle, you know, where 80% of your revenue comes from 20% of your customers. So it doesn't have to be every customer treated equal. You can you can look at segmentation. You can in the grocery business, you can look at people who's a vast hype, very high percentage of their share of wallet goes to our company, which would be Publix, our grocery store. So prioritizing segmentation, being more intentional and mindful about how we collect this information, not just go out and collect it. I believe that human attention span is finite. It's not something that doesn't have a limit to it. Human attention span and their willingness to participate in giving feedback, they're only, they're doing it out of generosity. Most of the surveys that I get asked to take have zero incentive. I just take them because there's a goodwill there. I want to help my fellow mankind and that's the reason why people write Amazon reviews. They have a good or bad experience with a product. It's one of the reasons why you can see thousands of videos every product installation or how to... over the weekend I put together a fire pit and I got all the way to the end and I was ready to light it. I assembled it myself, my wife, my wife and I did together and by the time I got to lighting it, it didn't work.

So what did I do? I went to YouTube, found someone who with free of charge had recorded a 10-minute video installing the same fire pit that I installed over the weekend, and lo and behold, I found the hack or the fix. And the only thing that I did wrong was I was supposed to hold the fuel button down while pressing in the ignition button, and I didn't hold it down, and that's why I didn't like. So it was a very simple fix, but I was able to find it on YouTube. So all that to say these humans are generous by design, we're social creatures. We wanna help our fellow men, men and women. We want to help mankind by giving information that could be helpful to others. But that doesn't mean that there's an unlimited supply of people willing to give their feedback. And especially when it comes to organizations, we are getting free insights from these customers in some cases, not all cases. In some cases, we do incentivize them. We invite them to a sweepstakes. But in many cases, we're just asking customers to give us feedback and we can use that information to then market to them differently or improve the customer experience. So there is an intrinsic benefit from them doing this, but it's not always obvious or apparent. The point that I'm trying to make and I apologize for being a little long-winded here, but the point I'm trying to make is that there's a finite amount of feedback that customers are willing to give, and we should not exploit that as insights professionals.

Thor:
I think that's very good advice. Another topic I'd like to discuss with you is storytelling. My understanding is that you feel that it's become a bit of a cliche. Can you tell us a bit more about how you reached this perspective? Was there a particular experience that brought you there?

Lorin Drake:
Sure. Yeah, I mean, I can, I mean, first of all, I want to say that I believe in storytelling. I believe that it's very important. You probably noticed I weaved a few stories into my conversation with you today, including the fire pit story I just told you.

I believe that so long before you go back thousands, if not millions of years, long before we had the internet, long before we had television, what did human beings do? Even once they discovered the power of local communication, words, the ability to move other people, before the printing press was invented, stories were passed along by sitting along the fire, and generational stories were told by grandparents or elders in the family, and they would pass them on to their adult children who would then pass them on to their children, you know, their small children.

And that's how stories survived through hundreds, if not thousands of years. And then somebody invented the printing press and then somebody invented television and then we had movies, we had silent pictures. And now we have many, many different ways to tell stories. My point is that our brains are hardwired to listen to stories. So that's why presenters, Ted Talks can be so powerful when somebody starts with a personal anecdote or story or they talk about what happened on their way to work or they talk about what happened to them on their way to the stage at which they're speaking. So I do believe in storytelling. The point that I made in having a kind of a pre-conversation leading up to this podcast was that it's become overused and anything that becomes overused then becomes a cliche. So I remember in 2012, I had a meeting with one of my key vendors. And every conference I went to talked about storytelling. And he and I, this key partner of mine, and I talked about the importance of storytelling when presenting research results. My only point is that I feel like it has become tired and it also has become a table stakes expectation.

Of course you should tell a story when presenting research. Of course your presentation should be well thought out. Of course you should have a strong beginning a golden thread that weaves throughout the entire presentation and brings people along on this journey to appeal to their ethos, their pathos, basically to appeal to their emotions so that we bring them along and create engagement. Anybody can create graphs and charts, but data itself doesn't really tell a compelling story. It's the human aspect of the data, telling stories about people. And that's one of the things that insights professionals need to always remember. And that we sometimes forget, we're usually good at it, but sometimes we forget that all the numbers we show and all the fancy statistical techniques that we employ are stories about people. They're stories about people and people are fascinating and unbelievably complicated. And they change and they fluctuate. And there's so much inconsistency, that's beautiful inconsistencies and how people think and feel and how they buy, and it's our job to study them and to demonstrate empathy when trying to understand people. So while our reports have lots of numbers in them, ironically we tell human stories, and that's what we need to remember.

Thor:
I think that's a very good way of looking at it. And I also know that you're really interested in how the insights industry is innovating outside of tech. What are some of the areas you're paying attention to at the moment?

Lorin Drake:
Sure, so one of those areas, and there was a recent article that I circulated to my team as well, and it's the area of, you probably have heard of ethnography. This is an emerging area called emography, and it's really the study of understanding the root emotions that drive people to do what they do. And so if I may, kind of issue an example. Are you familiar with Domino's Pizza here in the United States? 

Thor:
Yes. 

Lorin Drake:
Okay. So then you know what I'm talking about. You know about Domino's Pizza. So one of my favorite examples to kind of bring this to life of innovation in the insights industry is if you have had the pleasure of ordering Domino's Pizza, you know, they made some dramatic improvements. One of the things their insights team learned was that people thought their pizza tasted like cardboard. And that was some of the reviews that they got, some of the feedback they got from their customers. And the joke about Domino's was when I eat Domino's Pizza, it tastes like the box. And so they, rather than being defensive or dismissing that feedback, they took it very, very seriously and they basically started over. I mean, they hired chefs, they revamped their kitchens, they did everything to make their pizza taste better. I mean, they had been a solid brand and back in the 80s, Domino's Pizza became big brand by promising delivery within 30 minutes or less, or you get your money back, or the pizza's free. And so they became a big successful brand, but they kind of lost their way in the 90s and in the early 2000s, and they really had to reinvent themselves.

And so one of the things they did based on a consumer insight, which is why I love this example, is that when you order a pizza, you're probably not eating it alone and you're probably doing something with friends or family. Maybe you're watching a football game, maybe you're watching, in Sweden, maybe there's an event or a national event or some type of national holiday. Bottom line is you're doing something. And so you've got a lot of hungry people. And so what Domino's did was they listened to their customers and they studied what it feels like to order a pizza and it turns out that there's this black hole between ordering the pizza and getting the pizza. Like when is the pizza gonna get here? You've got hungry people, maybe they're drinking beer, maybe they're consuming alcohol, they're doing other things, but they're really just waiting for the pizza to get there. And there's this moment of truth when the pizza arrives and you open up the box and there's a hot pizza and everybody can grab their slice and the party is all of a sudden complete, right? We've all had that experience.

Well, Domino's created something unique called the Domino's Pizza Tracker. And what it does, it shows you exactly where your pizza is, right? It shows you when your order has been received, when the pizza is being made, when it's actually put into the oven, when it's taken out of the oven, when it's being prepped for delivery, when the driver picks it up, and finally when it's on its way to your house. That is 100% consumer insights driven, because what Domino's understood is that there's a fair amount of anxiety when you're waiting for your pizza. Whether it takes 30 minutes, 45 minutes, or an hour, you're wondering what is happening with my pizza. And so the idea that you have this individual pizza tracker, and I use it in my onboarding presentation, that shows you exactly what the stage of your pizza is, is an innovation that Domino's came up with that is uniquely based on a single consumer insight. And that's where I feel innovation needs to happen. There's countless other examples.

There are certainly things that we at Publix have done that I probably can't get into today for proprietary reasons, but just, just think of it as Publix has our very own pizza tracker as well, we just have our version of it. And that's where I feel like the insights industry needs to evolve. We need to get closer to our customers, develop customer intimacy, truly look at our customers with the most empathetic eyes possible and really understand their pain points and you know. Domino's is in the pizza industry. They understood that there's a black hole between ordering your pizza and receiving the pizza. Grocery shopping can be stressful. It can be difficult. And so what can we do to better understand our customers' pain points? And how can we innovate around those pain points and create products and services that ultimately solve those pain points for our customers? And that can only come from talking and listening, deep, deep listening to your customers and not just listening to the words that they say, but listening to the emotions that are underneath those words. And that's hemography, and that's kind of what I'm kind of focused on lately.

Thor:
Well, thank you so much for that. I think that was such a great example. Unfortunately, we're getting towards the end of our conversation today. So I actually have two questions for you. First of all, what would you say is the one big takeaway you want our listeners to get from this episode?

Lorin Drake:
Sure. Yeah, I would say to keep it concise, which isn't my strength, but I'd like to keep it short on this one, is there's never been a better time to be an insights professional, in my opinion. As you said at the beginning of this podcast, I've been doing this for 20, 25 years used to go to phone rooms and brief interviewers, and all of my surveys were conducted by phone from a call center in Lincoln, Nebraska. And I would fly to Lincoln and I would meet with the interviewers, and that's how we did research. And we would call people during dinner and we'd say, would you be willing to take a 10 minute survey? And we would interrupt their dinners and literally take a survey with them over the phone. So the innovations that have happened in the course of my lifetime, in my career, in the insights industry have been fantastic. And I feel like this is a unique and special time to be in Insights.

The insightful lunch 

Thor:
And lastly, the last question that I love to ask is who in the world of insights would you love to have lunch with?

Lorin Drake:
Sure, well, there definitely are lots of thought leaders that I truly appreciate in the world of insights. I would think there are definitely colleagues that I'm connected through on LinkedIn.

If I can take it up to a higher level, just slightly, they're not necessarily insights professional, but at the top of my list is Malcolm Gladwell.

I know he probably doesn't think of himself as an insights professional, but I've read all of his books. I'm a huge fan. I would also add Simon Sinek to that list even though he's not technically an insights professional, I'd love to have lunch with him and pick his brain and learn from him. I'm a prolific reader, and so I do read a lot of books on marketing and on insights and on strategy. And so really any of the authors of the books that I've read, I would love to spend some additional time with if I had the chance.

Thor:
Well, thank you so much for that. Wow. This has been such an amazing conversation, Lauren. Your perspective is truly one of a kind, and I think we can all learn from it. I'd love to rewind and return some of the moments of our conversation that have really stuck with me. When defining an insight, you said that an insight is a key discovery that can yield tangible opportunity if applied in a business context. When we talked about purchases and things you buy, you reminded us that every transaction and purchase that I make, I get invited to give feedback. We're overloading the consumer with our needs for data and metrics. We can be skeptical about the ability for organizations to make usage of all that data being collected. Beware of the feedback overload. Prioritize what's most important for the business. With a journalistic background, you said that coming from journalism, you used to tell stories with words, and now you tell stories with numbers. And of course, you should tell a story when presenting your research to appeal to their emotions and to create engagement. But remember that at the core, great stories are stories about people. 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.

Lorin Drake:
It's been a pleasure and that was a fantastic summary of what I said. I'm really impressed that you were able to somehow capture that. So thank you so much for having me. It's been an absolute privilege and a pleasure.