How to become a data detective and uncover actionable brand insights

*Image courtesy of Joe Pilcavage, Head of Creative, Digital Surgeons

For our latest 4:4:4 virtual conversation, Alina Bilger, Director of Brand Insights at goPuff joined Pete Sena, co-founder and CCO of Digital Surgeons to chat about CPG Brand Insights.

Alina and Pete covered anything and everything, from defining what a consumer insight is to analyzing the contrast between traditional research and modern technologies.

Without a doubt, goPuff is experiencing rapid growth and innovation which is unsurprisingly being sped up by the pandemic. That being said, it was really fun to discuss brand insights and all things CPG with Alina.

For those of you that don’t know what goPuff is, it’s a delivery app. The company began as a convenience store delivery app delivering products in 30-minutes or less. Fast-forward 7 years, goPuff has now expanded into the “instant needs” category and aims to deliver anything a consumer could think of, from junk food to diapers, still in 30 minutes or less. Their formula to success is simple.

If I were to boil down what the goal and purpose of this conversation was, I’d say it was to demonstrate the importance of understanding what an insight is, by going “beyond the basket.”

As a Director of Brand Insights, Alina is what I like to call a “data detective.” Her job is to unearth consumer patterns by identifying a person’s traits and demographics, then she can predict how someone will make a decision. Afterwards, Alina and her team collate data through the examination of cart compositions and abandonments. The result of all this is Alina understanding what people are coming to goPuff to buy.

You are probably wondering, how can I use insights to understand my target audience and create some kind of ROI? Here’s some helpful insight from Alina.

“Consumer insight is becoming the new buzzword. Everyone likes to say these insights use data. It’s getting deeper than basic demographics, it’s understanding if someone has been routine-driven since the age of 10, if they value fashion over function, if they’re likely to stop somewhere on the way home to buy but not spend a lot. Understanding these nuances is what consumer insights really is.” – Alina

Consumer insights is taking away the need for a gut instinct and is giving creative ideas more science and backing to ensure execution. Using a mixed methodology of technologies to capture information, process it at scale, parse through data, then group everything based on commonalities is how Alina makes educated deductions instead of placing a bet and hoping it works out.

A couple different things Alina is using right now at goPuff to create action from consumer insights is big data to analyze behavioral and qualitative topics to understand consumer perceptions, IBM Watson AI to study linguistic patterns, online surveys to collect real-time data, etc.

Before I sign off, I’d like to give a big thanks to the branding experts, designers, digital strategists and everyone else that joined us for this 4:4:4 last Thursday, on 6/25.

See below, to watch the full episode:

See you next time!
-Kyle