How to Ask Power Questions

In this episode of the Consumer Insights Podcast, we speak with Joanna Dumont, VP of Strategy, Insights, and Innovation at Danone.

Change is a constant in the world of insights. Advances in technology have transformed and continue to transform methodologies, data collection, analysis, and application of insights. 

But one thing that hasn’t changed are the fundamental questions you need to answer. To set yourself, your team, and your organization up for success, you need to ensure that you’re asking the right questions to connect with consumers and move the business forward.

In this episode of The Consumer Insights Podcast, Thor is joined by Joanna Dumont, VP of Strategy, Insights, and Innovation at Danone.

They cover:

• How to build a global insights career
• The link between insights and opportunity
• How the market research and insights industry has evolved in the last 25 years
• The opportunities and pitfalls of AI in consumer insights
• Why the combination of artificial and human intelligence is where the magic lies
• Why fixating on tools is a common mistake for insights teams (and how to pivot)
• How brands and suppliers can build better solutions together
• Why some of the best insights come from your biggest challenges
• Concrete tips on how to ask better questions
• The benefits of a global insights career + tips for how to build your own
• The power of great mentors

If you want to make asking the right questions your superpower, tune in to this episode of The Consumer Insights Podcast.

You can access all episodes of the Consumer Insights Podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google, or use the RSS feed with your favorite player. Below, you'll find a lightly edited transcript of this episode.

Thor Olof Philogène:

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Consumer Insights podcast. Today I'm so excited to have a brilliant Insights leader joining me for what I know will be an incredible conversation. I'm thrilled to introduce today's guest, Joanna Dumont, VP of Strategy, Insights and Innovation at Danone, where she heads all global and cross category insights and analytics initiatives to support brand and category growth. Joanna has over 25 years of international insights experience, having previously worked at Colgate-Palmolive in four different countries, Australia, US, Switzerland and Thailand with responsibility for multiple markets around the globe. Thank you so much for joining me today, Joanna.

Joanna Dumont - 00:01:16:

Thanks, Thor. It's great to be here.

Thor - 00:01:19:

So, to get things started, could you take a couple of minutes to tell us about yourself, your company and how you got to where you're today? How did it all begin?

Joanna - 00:01:29:

Sure, that's a great question and it's one that I've tried to answer as simply as possible, but I think like most people who find themselves in insights, it wasn't a career that I chose straight out of high school or even university. 

It fell into my lap sometime in my early 20s, and I discovered insights. I discovered what we then called market research, and I discovered a love for learning about people, about behaviors, about culture, and translating that into opportunities for the business. 

So I began working for Colgate-Palmolive, as you said, in Australia. And from there I was lucky enough to have kind of been given the opportunity to work in lots of different countries for Colgate in different regions and different geographies. I think in fact, I've traveled to more than 27 countries at different times and worked with our insights people in those countries. So that kind of global experience has been super exciting to me, but also probably one of the richest aspects of the experience that I've had working in Insights.

How Joanna defines an insight

Thor - 00:02:39:

That's a fascinating background. And throughout those years, as an insights leader, with that knowledge in mind, how would you define an insight?

Joanna - 00:02:48:

I have a very simple definition for an insight. I mean, an insight is about a deep understanding of something that leads us to an opportunity. And it's that deep understanding that I think is probably the most critical thing about calling something an insight.

One of my pet peeves, if you like, is that we talk about insights all the time. A lot of the time what we're referring to is not an insight, but it's a piece of knowledge or a data point. 

And so I have a very firm perspective that in order for something to truly become an insight, it needs to be something much deeper, much richer, and it needs to obviously land in something that the business can actually use. Otherwise it's not just an insight, it's a piece of information.

How the industry has changed in the last 25 years

Thor - 00:03:37:

And if we continue on that topic of change but also shift our perspective, how would you say that the industry has changed since you started and what do you think has stayed the same?

Joanna - 00:03:50:

Yeah, obviously, having been in this industry for over 25 years, I'd say that so much has changed from a technology point of view. I did start my career, as most people in the industry do, in an, in an agency. And at that time we were still working with pen and paper. Doing KT interviews were still quite advanced, talking to people on the telephone and focus groups in a viewing room and things like that. 

And so the methodologies have changed. The way we collect data has definitely changed. The technology, from the way that we can analyze and how quickly we can get to learnings, today is so much richer. So I'd say the technology behind the scenes has changed a lot and I think that's only serving us better and there's some downsides and maybe we'll get to that in a bit as well. 

But what hasn't changed, honestly, is the questions that we need to answer. The consumer is still the consumer. The business is still trying to drive growth and the kinds of questions that we get are still around. Is this a great piece of communication? It might be a different channel that we're communicating on, but is it a great piece of communication? Is this a great innovation? Where are the white spaces? Where are the opportunities? 

But what hasn't changed, honestly, is the questions that we need to answer. The consumer is still the consumer. The business is still trying to drive growth and the kinds of questions that we get are still around. Is this a great piece of communication? It might be a different channel that we're communicating on, but is it a great piece of communication? Is this a great innovation? Where are the white spaces? Where are the opportunities? 

These are the questions that we get today and we've been getting for the last probably 50 years or more. So for me the fundamentals remain the same, but the tools and the mechanisms that we have to answer those questions have changed vastly. 

And I think that's the seismic shift that the industry has experienced over the past couple of decades that we would never have imagined. I remember talking in 2000– we had at Colgate a big global insights conference, and it was the first time we talked about doing internet research. And it was the second coming. We were trying to figure out how to use this magic of the internet to do market research. Now, you don't even think twice about it. 

Everything we do is digital, and talking to people virtually a lot. Most of what we do is  now that. But back then it was an unknown territory, it was white fields, it was a really new thing for us to grapple with.

The opportunities and pitfalls of AI for insights teams

Thor - 00:06:25:

I know you've spoken about how Danone uses AI to solve big hairy audacious problems. I think that there are a lot of conversations going on right now about how AI has impacted and how it is impacting and will continue to impact the insights profession. As someone who has a lot of experience with integrating AI into insights work, where do you see the opportunities and where do you see the potential pitfalls?

Joanna - 00:06:53:

It is absolutely the buzzword of the moment across the industry. We are still, I think, at the tip of the iceberg in terms of what AI is potentially able to do for us. And I think much like my first comment about doing “internet research”, I think AI is becoming, or could potentially become something like that. 

For me, it's an enabler to faster, better learning as opposed to a thing in and of itself. And my experience with it so far is that AI is capable of doing, obviously processing massive amounts of data in a much more simple and easy way than what we as human beings were ever capable of doing. 

But without human intervention, it's kind of fraught with a lot of challenges and possibly misleading and misguiding. So my experience in some of the projects that we've run was very much it's the combination– it's that unique sort of combination of human intelligence and artificial intelligence that really is where the magic lies. 

And when, you know, we had an issue and I think all of us can probably relate to this. Back at the beginning of COVID when we were struggling to process so much new information that was being pushed at all of us around the COVID situation and how that would impact business and what we would do with it and how we should respond. 

And quite frankly, it was overwhelming. As an insights person, I was grateful but overwhelmed by the amount of points of view and papers and data, et cetera, that was being pushed at us. 

So it was great, but the problem with all of that was that everybody was seeing everything and we were just like literally overwhelmed. And so we actually worked with a company called Descartes & Maus, who kind of came to me at that time almost. It was like the timing was perfect because they said to me, “Look, we've got this great approach we want to figure out, we want to use artificial intelligence.” And I was like, “Okay, yeah, that's great, but I've got COVID to deal with.”

For me, it's an enabler to faster, better learning as opposed to a thing in and of itself. And my experience with it so far is that AI is capable of doing, obviously processing massive amounts of data in a much more simple and easy way than what we as human beings were ever capable of doing. 

But without human intervention, it's kind of fraught with a lot of challenges and possibly misleading and misguiding. So my experience in some of the projects that we've run was very much it's the combination– it's that unique sort of combination of human intelligence and artificial intelligence that really is where the magic lies. 

And so we talked about it and we said, “Well, what if we used AI to help us unpack the situation and the challenges and really the drivers behind the situation?” And what was really interesting about that was that it did help us to uncover things that we weren't able to so clearly see by ourselves. 

And I'll give you an example. At the beginning – I think we can hopefully stretch our minds back to the early part of 2020 when COVID was first upon us – and the overwhelming media coverage was about the health crisis, right? 

So everybody was viewing COVID as a health crisis. But through the process that we went through, and by understanding the social data and the media data and the technology and everything, what we uncovered was it wasn't so much a health crisis, though health was very important. 

What it was was a safety and security crisis because people were actually destabilized. They didn't understand what was happening to them. They were worried about their finances, their future, their children, themselves. And so health was part of that, but it was a part of it. 

And so at the end of it, it's a safety and security crisis. So it helped us, it enabled us as a company to be able to step back from that and say, “Okay, we can't solve the health crisis, but we can solve, at least start to help solve the safety and security crisis.Meaning we have to secure our supply chain. We have to reassure people that our packaging is safe. We have to make sure that the products that people want from us are readily available and everywhere that we need to be.”

So it helped us focus our efforts on the things that mattered most to consumers at a time when everything was kind of turned around and up on its end.

How to leverage tech in insights work

Thor - 00:11:21:

That's such a fascinating story. If we zoom out to think about technology more broadly, not just AI, how do you think about the role of tools in insights work? What do you think is essential?

Joanna - 00:11:36:

So it's also another passion of mine, is that I see tools for us as insight professionals, as tools. And so I actually say to my team, “My goal, our goal is to make the tools invisible.”

And it's not that tools aren't important because they are really important, but they're our tools. So I hire a builder to build a house. I don't need to know which hammer he used and which saw he used. What I need to know is that he delivered a house that's stable and sturdy and will stand the test of time. And it's the same for us. 

The tools that we have at our disposal now are vastly superior to anything that I could have ever imagined when I started in this industry. And that's wonderful for me because that helps make my life and my team's life that much better. 

But it's not about the tools for the audience that I'm communicating with and for my marketing teams and for the business. The business shouldn't care about the tools. 

And sometimes that's been a danger in our industry, is that we get fixated on tools when what we really ought to be fixated on is the questions that we ask and leave it to us to answer those questions. 

So when we think about this at Danone, we think about a lot the questions. So we actually spend time training our teams on finding power questions and really emphasizing the notion that spending time up front to define the right question is as valuable as any time you're going to spend at the end to try and answer that question with the right tool. 

So we sort of flip it on its end, the tools are for us, the questions are for the business, and in the end, we are the interface between the tools and those questions.

The tools that we have at our disposal now are vastly superior to anything that I could have ever imagined when I started in this industry. And that's wonderful for me because that helps make my life and my team's life that much better. 

But it's not about the tools for the audience that I'm communicating with and for my marketing teams and for the business. The business shouldn't care about the tools. 

And sometimes that's been a danger in our industry, is that we get fixated on tools when what we really ought to be fixated on is the questions that we ask and leave it to us to answer those questions. 

But in answer to your question about the tools that are most relevant to us, I personally have found that a tool is only as good as the question that it's able to answer for us. So we are constantly looking to renew our toolbox. That is a reality. 

And over the years, if I look at the tools that I used to use a few years ago and what we use now, it is completely different. Many of them are AI enabled and many of them are obviously designed to be self-service. But the tools themselves are our secret weapon, if you like, for providing the business with the answers that they require.

Having said that, I think it's also important that we, with the right partners, are building the tools that we need. So we have some great examples, and Stravito is also one that we've been working and partnering with you guys for a long time on building the tools that we know we need for our business. 

So it's a little bit of we see agencies and suppliers coming to us with new ideas, but it's also the partnership that we have with certain partners to build the right tools that we know that we need to service our business. 

And I think that's kind of the magic of a great partnership. But it's also the opportunity for the industry, is to listen to the people who are at the coalface using those tools to find the right tools that we need in order to deliver more efficiently to the questions that people have for us.

Using insights to fuel innovation

Thor - 00:15:11:

I think it's such an interesting answer because it connects directly to what you said in the very beginning when you reflected on the 25 years you've been in the industry. Methodologies and technologies of analysis have changed. They’ve become much richer, but the questions have not changed. 

And ultimately, it's the ability for you to phrase those questions that will determine how well the results you get, et cetera. I think that very much connects to what you said before. 

But if we go, if we maybe double click a bit on your experiences, do you have any stories you can share about times during your career when you've integrated insights to fuel innovation? Walk us through the whole process of the insight that created the opportunity. How did you identify it and how was it used? What results did you get?

Joanna - 00:15:59:

So there's so many examples and it's always the hardest part to choose a really concrete one. And I'm not avoiding your question, but because it's not the first time that it's been asked to me, and sure, to anybody, but it is actually sometimes it becomes so blurred because it's something that we do so naturally each and every day. But the big stuff comes from asking much bigger questions, right? 

So when I think about some of the experiences that I've had either in, in Danone or before, the best insights that we've come to have been through, the biggest challenges that we have faced. 

And so when we were faced with a challenge in India where we had a massive share of market, and in order to grow, we needed innovation. And innovation wasn't necessarily about yet another line extension that we could launch in the toothpaste category. 

So when I think about some of the experiences that I've had either in, in Danone or before, the best insights that we've come to have been through, the biggest challenges that we have faced. 

We really needed to think differently about the problems. And this is really good old-fashioned insights, exploratory work. And what we did was we went to homes, we spent time in villages, we spent time with experts, we spent time with other professionals and different companies and different professions. 

And we identified an opportunity which was if people don't have access to a dentist, they still have pain and they need to solve the pain. And so we developed a product which was all about taking away the pain based on a very simple insight that dentistry is not typically available and readily available for people and therefore they need an over the counter solution that's cheap and effective for them to temporarily solve their issue. 

And so this led to an innovation that was launched in the local market based on good old-fashioned deep dives and connections with consumers. So that's another interesting example that innovation can come from thinking about not just your category, but thinking about the world outside of your category.

How to make asking the right questions your superpower 

Thor - 00:20:23:

I love the fact that and this has been sort of a theme throughout this conversation, the ability to ask the right question. And I think our audience is very curious if you have any tips on how to think about that, what are your hacks? How do you help yourself to identify the questions to ask? Because ultimately that seems to be your superpower.

Joanna - 00:20:48:

Yeah, I think it should be every insight professional's superpower, let me be honest. And it's not just mine or my teams, but it's something that we all feel very passionate about. 

And some of the tips that I would give is: first of all, think of the question behind the question. So when somebody comes with a question to you, the conversation starts from there. So we never answer directly the initial question. We always are questioning the person who's come to us and asking and discussing to try and get to the root of the problem that they're trying to solve. 

So that's one thing: question the question. The other approach is to take a different tact on the challenge that we have. 

And I use the example of trying to solve an issue of an existing brand. If an existing brand is not working, the last thing you want to do is just keep asking the same questions. Try a different question, try a different angle to the problem that you have and ask “How can we expand the penetration of this brand?” or “Why are people not buying this?” or “Who is actually using it and who loves it?” Ask different questions. And then if that doesn't work, ask a completely irrelevant question.

Think of the question behind the question. So when somebody comes with a question to you, the conversation starts from there. So we never answer directly the initial question. We always are questioning the person who's come to us and asking and discussing to try and get to the root of the problem that they're trying to solve. 

Like think about business questions separately from insight questions or from research questions. And I think by doing that we start to ask more interesting types of questions. 

So we actually train our people on power questions. We have a whole training course around power questions. And actually, by doing that, we realized that this is not something that a lot of people were doing. 

There wasn't a lot of great literature out there on asking power questions. So we are definitely not power questions “answerers” or “askers” as yet. But that's the objective. The objective is to get there. 

And then once we have that question, guess what? We know a lot more than we already thought we did. And in fact, one of the things that one of the exercises that we do in our training program is we get people to ask a question about a problem that comes to them almost every day, but they don't have the answers that they would like to have. 

And the answer is about pricing. So how can I take pricing? Well, the typical answer is, well, “Where's my price elasticity?” But actually, if I don't have a price elasticity study to draw upon, how do I answer that question? 

So that's how we start the conversation. And what we find is that we actually have more answers to these questions than we thought we did, even without the benefit of having the study that answers the question. 

And that's really where it gets exciting, because we start to become more creative and we actually start to challenge more the questions that we're being asked, and we actually find more creative solutions than what we might typically have done in the past.

How global experience boosts insights careers

Thor - 00:24:59:

I absolutely love that answer. And you've also had the possibility to live in multiple places, and that has obviously given you different perspectives, and I'm sure to some degree, that must have supported your ability to ask the right questions.

From my understanding, you've gone from Australia to New York to Switzerland to Thailand and back again. Now, you've been in France, in Paris, for almost five years. How would you say that global experience has impacted your career? And how did you make the decision to take that leap each time?

Joanna - 00:25:33:

Yeah, it's a question that I've had to answer myself many times as I've moved from country to country. Why am I doing this? I think a lot of people shy away from making international moves. 

I think coming from Australia–actually, I'm from New Zealand originally. But coming from Australia, you realize that there's only so much interesting stuff to learn. 

I love culture, and I love experiencing new cultures. So the opportunity to move from one place to another was also an opportunity, a rich opportunity for us to learn about a new culture. 

But from a business perspective, what's been so powerful is that the culture might be different, but often the business challenges are precisely the same. And the categories live in a culture, and therefore there are different uses, different behaviors, et cetera. 

And so kind of learning about that for me was like the most interesting part of this experience. As I said, these 27 countries that I've gone to and done home visits and store checks and whatever, and that's been a big part of the personally enriching experience.

I love culture, and I love experiencing new cultures. So the opportunity to move from one place to another was also an opportunity, a rich opportunity for us to learn about a new culture. 

But from a business perspective, what's been so powerful is that the culture might be different, but often the business challenges are precisely the same. And the categories live in a culture, and therefore there are different uses, different behaviors, et cetera. 

But also being able to transfer learning from one country to another. So often you find the same challenge being tackled from one place to another. And so being able to bring that knowledge from one place and say, “Look, Mexico has just done it that way. Turkey, why don't you think about doing that the same?”

It creates connections, and then working in global companies, that's obviously something that we have to do. So that part has been super rewarding. 

And if you ever look at my Facebook, you'll see people all over the world that I'm connected to on Facebook and on LinkedIn and it's because of all of those experiences. 

In terms of the last thing, how did I make those choices? I think a lot of times those choices are made for you. I think I was very privileged to work in a global organization that fostered and encouraged people to move from one country to another. 

But not many people take that opportunity. And so I did with my family, and we moved. And so I certainly encourage anybody who's considering to do it, to jump into it with two feet. Because it will not only give you work experiences that you never thought possible, but also personal experiences that you might only dream about. 

So I think it's a great thing to be able to do. And from an insight standpoint, I think your credibility of being able to draw upon different experiences in different cultures and countries only enriches your credibility within the organization. So not being mono-market focused, I think is very important, especially in global organizations and there's so much for us to learn from every market. 

There's something that we take away that can be applied somewhere else and that's the richness of having that global experience that can bring to any organization.

How to develop as an insights leader

Thor - 00:28:54:

If we stay on that topic and we maybe talk to the people in our audience that are earlier in their career. You've built quite an impressive career. I mean, you started as a market research planner, and you've progressed all the way to the VP level. 

What advice would you give to people that are looking to evolve as insights professionals? What should they consider if they're looking to make a similar progression?

Joanna - 00:29:16:

So for me it's about grabbing as many different types of experiences as possible, but starting with a very solid foundation. So I firmly believe that as an insights organization or as an insights profession, there are fundamentals that you have to have which are not so important in some other occupations in a business. 

And I say that by just kind of saying when you think about market research, we need to think about the basics. We need to understand things about sample sizes, about sample composition, about the basics. How do you design a questionnaire? What are you asking? 

These are fundamentals that need to be firmly in place. And if you don't understand those things, then it's very hard for you to add value later on. So build a really solid foundation of the basics because that will serve you well throughout your career and it's still something that I leverage today and every day. 

You need to be adaptable, we need to be versatile and that's what will serve you well throughout your career. So don't think only in one direction. Definitely I encourage all my team to get a breadth of experience and have a full appreciation of the entire journey of going through insights, and that will serve you very well. 

And then get out, go overseas, move around, travel, observe, ask questions. Some of my favorite insights I've gotten from talking to taxi drivers and to know about a market. Always ask the taxi driver where do they live, what do they do, what do they think about our categories?

And then the second thing is: get a breadth of experience. Don't just be fixated on doing the strategy part of insights. Think about also market insights and business analytics and think about getting a breadth of experience through modeling and all sorts of things. There's so many different things that you can do. 

So get a breadth of experience, and certainly get it early on because again, you don't need to be an expert necessarily. The great thing about being in insights is you get to touch on lots of different things, whether it's qualitative and ethnography and to market mix modeling and fancy stuff. You do all of these things. 

You need to be adaptable, we need to be versatile and that's what will serve you well throughout your career. So don't think only in one direction. Definitely I encourage all my team to get a breadth of experience and have a full appreciation of the entire journey of going through insights, and that will serve you very well. 

And then get out, go overseas, move around, travel, observe, ask questions. Some of my favorite insights I've gotten from talking to taxi drivers and to know about a market. Always ask the taxi driver where do they live, what do they do, what do they think about our categories?

I ask questions to everybody and check out my friends. So always learning about not just the category, but also the culture and how the categories that we operate in fit within the culture that we operate in.

The best career advice Joanna has ever received

Thor - 00:31:55

I just love that. You never stop working with insights, do you? With that in mind, what's the best career advice you've ever received?

Joanna - 00:32:05:

I think I've probably been lucky enough to have had great mentors, and so I think listening to the right mentors or having great mentors has provided me with great opportunities from a career standpoint. 

I think I often get the best career advice from my husband, to be honest. He listens to me and he listens to what I'm talking about, and he does not work in the industry. And he's constantly pushing me to try different things and to move on and to keep expanding my experiences. 

So the best career advice I've ever gotten is actually the support that I've been able to have from the people around me to be able to move from one place to another and to go from one role to another, always knowing that I have the support behind me. 

So the support network at home and in the office and in the workplace is really what enables you to be successful in your career. So best advice is build that network. Build a network inside the company and outside the company, and that's what will serve you well no matter where you are.

Who in the world of insights Joanna would love to have lunch with

Thor - 00:33:21:

That's really great advice. Unfortunately, Joanna, this is the painful part for me. We've gotten to the towards the end of our conversation today and I only have one more question for you. It's a question I really love to ask, which is: who in the world of insights would you love to have lunch with?

Joanna - 00:33:40:

I was thinking about this a lot and there are a lot of very interesting people that I would love to have lunch with. I think one person I would love to meet is Daniel Kahneman. And the reason I say that is because I think the work that he has done and led on effectively social anthropology, has been so transformative in our industry of really encouraging us to think differently and to think about the way people respond to stimulus. 

And it's actually enabled the insights world to think very differently about how we listen to the consumers and processing the responses that they give to us. So I would love to spend time with him. I think he's really challenged thinking on so many different levels, and I think he's really impacted so much of how now we think about the problems that we're solving and the way that we can answer the questions that are given to us. So that would be my answer. I would love to meet him.

Summary

Thor - 00:34:45:

Well, I would definitely love to hear that conversation. 

Joanna, this has been such an illuminating conversation. It's been incredible to hear about how you've championed insights throughout your career. 

And if I play back some of the pieces that have really struck a chord with me, I'll start with your definition of an insight, which is an insight is a deeper understanding of something that leads us to an opportunity. 

I really like what you said about AI, where you effectively said that you believe that we're still at the tip of the iceberg in terms of what AI can do for us. It's an enabler.

And 20 years ago we talked about how the internet would impact research, and now it's integrated into everything we do, and we never talk about it. And you're right, AI might very well follow that same trajectory. But ultimately the magic lies in the combination of human and artificial intelligence. 

You also talked about on, multiple occasions, the importance about asking the right questions. So as advice to our listeners, first think about the questions behind the question. When someone comes with a question, make sure to get to the root of the question that you're trying to solve. Try a different angle to the problem that you have. Think about business questions separately from insights questions. 

Ensure that you train your team on how to ask questions to make that their superpower. I absolutely love that. 

And lastly, some career advice. Grab as many experiences as possible, but don't forget to start with a very solid foundation. Now, I know that I've learned a lot from talking to you today, and I'm sure our audience has as well. So thank you so much for joining me today.

Joanna - 00:36:37:

You're very welcome. It was a pleasure. Thank you for inviting me.