AI: Powering-up consumer insights 2024

09.00 Welcome from the Chair

Rose Crabb, Deputy MD, Discover.ai

09.10 Conversations with AI: the power of insightful questions in AI-assisted qualitative research

Every conversation starts with a single question, and sometimes when the question isn’t good, it ends with a single, uninformative response. In contrast, a well-crafted question can lead to accurate, insightful, and just answers. This sentiment applies not only to human conversations but also to prompts in the context of generative AI.

In this session, Ipsos will explore how to get the most out of AI solutions for qualitative research, ensuring quality and accuracy, while defending data privacy and mitigating against hallucinations.

Ajay Bangia, Global Scale Lead, Ipsos Qualitative

Katherine Jameson Armstrong, Head of Media Qualitative in UK, Ipsos 

09.40 Beyond traditional research: leveraging conversational AI to optimise product range

Conversational AI is already making a real difference in market research, delivering deeper insight at scale and speed. This case study will explore why General Mills chose a conversational AI methodology to inform the launch of a new range of Old El Paso products for the Australian market. Examine how the ‘inca’ conversational AI methodology, which uses AI to probe open-ended responses, provided richer insight than traditional quantitative research methodologies. Hear the insights obtained and the impact they have had on the business.  

Phil Sutcliffe, Managing Partner, Nexxt Intelligence 

Michelle Cusumano, Consumer Insights Manager, General Mills

10.10 Optimising customer advocacy in real-time using AI powered insight

Mention Me is a leading referral marketing company - servicing over 400 retailers globally such as Pret, Puma and Farfetch. This talk will explore how Faculty worked with Mention Me to deploy state-of-the-art, real-time AI capabilities that can predict and optimise customer referrals in real-time for Mention Me's clients. Examine how the self-optimising AI system behind Propensity to Refer® is able to analyse customer profiles and predict customers’ activity in real time and gain tips on how to effectively use AI to build differentiated customer experiences.

Josh Muncke, Commercial Director, Faculty

Roy Robinson, Chief Product Officer, MentionMe

10.40 Morning break

11.10 Accelerating product and service design with AI enhanced behavioural insights

Cambridge Design Partnership (CDP) is an innovation partner that designs and tests new products and digital services. In this talk, CDP will demonstrate how bringing together advanced data processing techniques, AI enhanced behavioural insight platforms and accessible technology are key to accelerating product and service innovation.

Ben and Tim will discuss their cross-capability approach that fuses claimed and actual behavioural insights to deliver faster and more accurate user insights. They’ll show AI's role in enhancing consumer insights, particularly in; interpretation, segmentation, sentiment analysis, and real-time trend analysis of unstructured data.

Ben Kelsey, Head of Insight, Cambridge Design Partnership

Tim Murdoch, Head of Digital, Cambridge Design Partnership

11.40 Transforming insight delivery at Premier Foods

Examine how a suite of AI functionality is delivering faster, smarter insights for Premier Foods and transforming the day-to-day operations of its inhouse insight team.

In this case study you’ll hear how Bulbshare’s end-to-end ‘smart assistant’ solution is being used to build complex surveys in seconds, create fully-realised PowerPoint presentations and mine, group, and analyse all historic data instantly. Hear how this smart assistant solution is speeding up insight delivery and changing how insight projects are run at Premier Foods.

Darren Till, Senior Researcher, Bulbshare

Kat Hatton, Insights Controller: Desserts, Home Baking and Plant-Based, Premier Foods

12.10 Researching the robot: The ‘sensitive’ side of conversational AI

Differentology and the7stars decided to challenge the way ‘open-ended questions’ have historically been asked. Their new AI methodology replaced pre-programmed open questions with ‘Smart Probes’ by embedding free text ‘conversations’ within surveys. In a fascinating experiment of 2000 respondents, they were able to measure the impact of this new technique and discover how far they could push the boundaries of conversational AI… tackling ‘sensitive topics’, engaging ‘under-represented groups’, and finding out whether a robot can really produce greater ‘emotional’ insight. 

Dan Barnes, Associate Director, Differentology

Melike Dogan, Insight Lead, the7Stars

12.40 Lunch

13.40 Harnessing the power of multi modal AI to curate insight at The Score  

‘The Score’ captures the mood of the nation, weekly, by leveraging over 200,000 data points from diverse media sources. To deliver this high impact insight fast, Kokoro developed a tailored AI application which encapsulated three, powerful modules, to be used alongside the brightest of human brains.

This multi-module application exemplifies the practical application of generative AI, natural language processing, and machine learning in dissecting and summarising content: where used responsibly, it accelerates informed decision-making and insight dissemination, aligning with the evolving paradigms of AI-powered market research while upholding data privacy and security. 

Ade Ososami, Head of Analytics, Kokoro

Bart Bilski, Data Scientist, Kokoro

14.10 Researching the behaviors of machines and humans to reach humans effectively

Digital commerce has grown exponentially around the world, including on demand delivery (ODD). Mars Wrigley needed to learn more about its customers’ behaviours in this channel, the operation and performance of different ODD platforms and how its product categories factored into the ODD purchase pathway. 

This case study demonstrates the combination of human, machine and statistical analysis (all aided by AI) that helped Mars Wrigley shape its strategy for the ODD channel. It marries together qualitative, in-the-moment, lifestyle research and data mining on customer opinions & behaviours observed on digital channels and through traditional qualitative in-the-moment research.

Shari Aaron, EVP, Growth & Innovation, Radius

Shayna Beckwith, Vice President, Radius

Prerit Souda, Director - Data Science & Strategic Insights, PSA Consultants

Betsy Fitzgibbons, Shopper Insights Lead - eCommerce & New Transactions, Mars Wrigley

Matt Blacknell, Global Dcomm Customer & Shopper Insights, Mars Wrigley

14.40 Afternoon break

15.00 An AI optimised approach to product development at Mondelez

Testing consumer and market acceptance of new flavour formulations for existing food brands requires extensive R&D and consumer research that is becoming more expensive. Consequently, Mondel?z International and NIQ Bases are working together to apply an AI-powered application to identify unique and highly liked optimisation strategies when approaching flavour development.

This case study will explore how an AI application, based on consumer preference, sensory and market data, is predicting the performance of new and refined flavour formulations with consumers.

Hear how this approach is leading to new insights, reducing costs and risks in formulation optimisation and delivering market success for product ranges.

Chris Sinclair, Global Growth Officer, NIQ Bases

Angela Fernandes, Director of Consumer Science, Mondel?z International

15.30 Decoding the in-store jeans shopping experience: from briefing to report in less than 24 hours with AI-automated qualitative research

Kearney, in collaboration with Bolt Insight, showcase the transformative power of generative and conversational AI to deliver shopper insights in 24 hours. This case study will show how BoltChat AI (an AI-automated qualitative research tool) conducted in-depth interviews with jeans shoppers, delivering an exploratory understanding of their in-store experiences and unearthing insights about why consumers favoured physical stores. Examine the ground breaking methodology behind these rapid insights and hear how it empowers Kearney's teams to provide stakeholders with unparalleled agile research solutions.

Ester Marchetti, Co-Founder & Head of Innovation, Bolt Insight

Minesh Parikh, Vice President, Kearney PERLab

16.00 Blending generative AI and proprietary models to drive innovation in market research methodologies

In less than a year, generative AI has grabbed the attention of the research industry. Some organisations are embracing this technology, while others are watching from the sidelines with a mix of scepticism and curiosity. An emerging and controversial area is using generative AI and proprietary models to simulate research activities with virtual respondents. Join TD Bank and Sago (formerly Schlesinger Group) as they share key learnings from a recent pilot and uncover how this technology can change the way we see insights and look at innovation.

Raj Manocha, CCO, Sago

Andrew Hui, AVP, Consumer Insights, TD Bank

16.30 Close of conference