It’s the end for single use data

Welcome to Ryan’s Rant, my weekly newsletter aimed at helping companies drive customer-centric growth.

It’s crazy to me how many companies invest the time and money to run market research — but throw it out as soon as the data comes in.

Ok, they may not literally throw it out, but they certainly aren’t using it to its fullest potential. 

They’ll run a project to get consumer feedback on a product concept, for example, use that data to inform that current project, and then never think about the data again.

Or they’ll buy a knowledge management system and use it to house reports that get dusty like the accounting isle of a high school library.

What a waste!

What’s the problem? 

Historically, consumer insights was approached project by project. You’re looking to answer a specific question so you launch one study, get the results back, present the findings, and move on to the next question. 

And the data was essentially analog. It lived, at best, in PowerPoint reports that were uploaded to a knowledge management system so it could be accessed by the rest of the organization. But it couldn’t be combined with the rest of the consumer insights data. It couldn’t be used to learn anything beyond the original purpose of the research. 

If all your data is delivered via PowerPoints, you can’t quickly access older research, compare performance over time or identify patterns for success. When you have to dig around in many different places, you’re never able to see the bigger picture. 

Many insights teams are working to become more digital, but the industry is certainly not there yet. 

What the future looks like

But to me, it’s imperative that we do get there. Think of the opportunity that comes with intentionally connecting insights. 

When we can easily query a database of consumer insights to find out what works and what doesn’t — and more importantly, why. When anyone in an organization can quickly and easily ask a question and get a clear answer back based on all the consumer research available.

That’s what the future of consumer insights looks like, but we can’t get there if we’re not intentional about connecting insights. 

If we don’t connect our data and make it accessible to our organizations, then we’re wasting the opportunity to build a competitive advantage. To make our organizations truly consumer centric — where all decisions can really be made with the consumer in mind, based on a deep understanding of the consumer. 

One of the insights leaders who is ahead of the game on this front is Stephan Gans, SVP Chief Consumer Insights and Analytics Officer at PepsiCo. He has spent the last several years thinking about how to connect and transform insights within PepsiCo. And this is what he says about the value: 

Through consistency and owning our own data, we now have greater consumer centricity. We are getting smarter and smarter over time by connecting all our data across brands, countries, categories, on and off platform to give us meta learnings.

At PepsiCo, they call the type of data I’m ranting about “single use data.” Like single use plastic, it can only be used once, which has limited value to the organization. But data that can be used again and again to make the whole company smarter — that’s a true competitive advantage. 

We have to connect the data

There is a huge opportunity facing insights teams today to deliver strategic value and facilitate consumer centricity through their organizations. But that future can’t be realized when the data is disconnected. 

It can only be done through an intentional, systematized, connected approach.

If you missed it

Stephan Gans joined me on the Inside Insights podcast a few years ago to talk about PepsiCo's transformation. Check it out if you missed it!