How Bel Group scaled marketer-led research without losing rigor

Bel Group's insights team set out to give marketers faster, more consistent access to consumer research across markets, while keeping deeper expertise in the loop where it mattered. Here's how they built a self-serve model with Zappi.

Key results

Internal adoption

from early skepticism to independent use

15+ claims

tested by the marketing team and narrowed to a decision-ready recommendation

Insights team repositioned

from order-taker to strategic partner

Making Zappi's platform self-serve at Bel Group was more than giving marketers just a tool. It was about showing the power of insights across the organization, about being a true business partner.

Anastasiia Afanaseva

Strategic Insights, Bel Group

THE CHALLENGE

Scaling access without losing trust

Bel Group's insights approach differs from market to market. Some markets have dedicated research support, while others rely on a central insights team across categories. As the business looked to bring consumer research into more business decisions, marketers needed faster, more consistent access to insights.

That's the gap Anastasiia Afanaseva, Senior Strategic Insights Manager at Bel Group, set out to close. In partnership with Zappi, she led the effort to set up a self-serve insights tool that let marketers move quickly - defining where agile, marketer-led research made sense vs. where deeper expertise was still needed.

THE APPROACH

Letting the question lead, not the method

With Zappi’s platform, marketers at Bel Group were able to access agile advertising and innovation research at speed. Rather than having marketers choose a methodology, the platform's guided workflow starts from the business question they need answered and routes them to the right test automatically. Guardrails behind the scenes define what's appropriate for independent research versus what still needs deeper expertise, so speed didn't come at the cost of rigor.

THE RESULTS

From skepticism to power user

Rather than mandate adoption top-down, the team built momentum through small wins. Early users tested the platform on lower-stakes projects, and usage and confidence grew across markets. One example of the platform in practice was the Babybel team using it to test innovation packaging. Using Zappi’s Screen It tool, the team tested packaging claims for believability, relevance, and likely impact on purchase behavior, then ran a follow-up analysis to identify which combination of claims would perform best together. The full process, from initial screening to a decision-ready recommendation, was run independently by the marketing team.

THE IMPACT

Redefining the insights function

Beyond adoption, Bel Group's insights function is positioning themselves as a strategic partner, who champions a systematic, continuous research process rather than ad hoc testing. This is the power of connected insights across an organization, and collaborating with Zappi on a self-serve research tool for the marketing team was a piece of that puzzle. For Bel Group, this creates an exciting opportunity to scale and innovate - as more staff are able to bring insights into their own workflows, decisions move faster.