Using AI to ask deeper, more human questions

Steve Phillips [00:00:00]:

Welcome to Inside Insight, where marketing strategy meets consumer truth with your host, Steve Phillips. For decades, consumer research has followed a simple rule. If you can't turn it into a question, you can't measure it, and you measure what matters. But that rule is starting to break. Research shows companies using AI are seeing up to a 20% improvement in customer satisfaction, not by collecting more data, but by understanding people more deeply. And that's the shift, because for years, Insight teams have had to translate human problems into structured surveys, something you can quantify.

Steve Phillips [00:00:39]:

They had to do this because computers needed structured numeric data. But what if that constraint disappears? What if you can ask people what they really think in a much more open and intuitive way and actually make sense of it at scale? And what if AI doesn't make us less human, but more by helping us in that process? I'm Steve Phillips, and today I'm joined by Christian Niederauer, Vice President of Global Insights at Colgate Palmolive.

Steve Phillips [00:01:12]:

Christian leads Insights across more than 200 countries and is helping transform how one of the world's most iconic brands uses AI to understand people. Today we'll explore what it really means to be people-centric in an AI-driven world. Welcome, Christian, how are you?

Christian Niederauer [00:01:30]:

Thank you, Steve. I'm well, so I think, yeah, thanks for having me. I think it's the second time now and I really enjoyed the first time. So I think today will also be a great session.

Steve Phillips [00:01:43]:

Yeah, it's always great catching up with you. You're one of the great thinkers in Insight. I think you're often ahead of what's going on and it's really interesting to get your perspective on things.

Steve Phillips [00:01:53]:

And when we were chatting before, we were talking about something that people have been talking about, talking about. Look, for a while, I know Omnichannel, but it really feels like that the development of Omnichannel, of content across so many platforms in so many different formats and structures is really changing the world of marketing. How do you see that new world and how do you see specifically Insight working within that world?

Christian Niederauer [00:02:19]:

Yeah, as you said, I think that a lot with AI, with agentic commerce, then also with social media, social commerce, and all these things. I think, I mean, it's basically coming down to the basic question, is the marketing funnel still relevant?

Christian Niederauer [00:02:32]:

And I would basically say yes, because you still have to understand ACPs, awareness, consideration, purchase and loyalty and so on. But it's no longer really that linear anymore because I mean, nowadays, take social commerce for example. I mean, if you can now go on TikTok and in a lot of Asian markets, basically you get aware of a product, you like it and you buy it in one second basically altogether. Therefore then there is not really kind of a lot of time to build awareness and there's also not a lot of time to get you into considered set and so on. So that's why it's really important that you to understand that every touch point can be a point of sales now.

Christian Niederauer [00:03:09]:

So everything is happening often in the moment. I mean, to be fair, there's still a lot of offline purchases, off shelf and so on. So maybe with a shopping list and so on. So we shouldn't forget that. But overall it's really important for us to understand that omnichannel demand generation overall for this.

Christian Niederauer [00:03:26]:

I think as you asked the question, what does it mean for insights? I mean for insights it means a still the foundational understanding of consumer behavior is still important because I mean still people often buying the stuff. So we have to understand their needs, we have to understand their behavior and so on. But in parallel we always have to deliver always on insights. Because think about kind of 20 years back or not even 20, even 10 years back or so, you had a new business question, then you got a research brief, you translated that into an insights brief, design a study, field the study, then analyze the stuff, get a report, summarize it and so on.

Christian Niederauer [00:03:59]:

And then weeks later, often you then had kind of a summary and answer the business question. That's today often no longer kind of useful because by that time the decision has to be made. So therefore we can either accept, okay, many decisions are made without proper insights or we have to change our model as well. And therefore, as always on insights kind of are really important, I mean, in particular important for communication because nowadays you're not developing that one big campaign that you then air during prime time. At a certain point you basically have targeted communication every day. So therefore what we have to do for this, however you call it content factory, content supply chain, you have to almost have a constant stream of insights to customize, to personalize messages overall and then also keep the cultural relevance.

Christian Niederauer [00:04:47]:

I would basically say you almost have to move from data autopsies to almost like tracking or monitoring the vital signs of the market and of consumer.

Steve Phillips [00:04:56]:

Yeah. Oh, that's really interesting. And we talk about things like moments that matter. So, you know, little moments that matter, lots of little in terms of insights.

Steve Phillips [00:05:07]:

And I think this world of streaming insight. So it would be great to develop a bit about what you think this world of streaming Insights looks like. But also, I think we're all challenged by the move from the old world into the new world because, as you say, some people are still going every week to the supermarket with their shopping trolley and buying in the very old world way where probably influenced by TV advertising. And then you've got other people buying something they'd never heard of on TikTok because they see an influencer. And those are two completely different ways of working, working.

Steve Phillips [00:05:35]:

How do you take, how do you develop the new, Remember the old?

Christian Niederauer [00:05:40]:

I think, I mean, it comes down to you still need strong brands overall in whatever setup. Because I think if people are not back to our kind of mental availability awareness bit, if people don't know you in whatever setting, they might not consider you and they might not purchase you. So therefore that's really the role for us to kind of, how can we make sure that with our brands, we have an emotional connection with consumers, we are present, we build that trust overall, that people really trust our brands. And then second also kind of, how can we make sure that our products and services, we fulfill needs.

Christian Niederauer [00:06:11]:

Because in the end, I mean everything, I mean, the jobs to be done theory, all these type of things, it's like, I mean, people are not buying product for the sake of buying product, at least not in our category. I mean, you would buy a toothpaste to put it somewhere on a shelf that it's seen among. I might show off, at least not that I know. But you still have to understand, okay, why are they buying the product? What is their current need?

Christian Niederauer [00:06:36]:

And that's where these moments that matter come into play. Because I think like, it's no longer, it's no longer that shopping list creation where you need to be present, but when people really think about your brand, about your category, or about the needs, I think when we talk about moments that matter or care, for example, that are easy ones, I mean, there's the scary one. The moment you brush teeth or you see blood somewhere, that's when you think about, maybe I have to do something about my gums or something is wrong. So that's, that's when you think. And then when you, when we potentially have a role for our brand to play for our brand websites, for other information sources.

Christian Niederauer [00:07:10]:

But there are also more nice moments when you think about, I mean, recording a podcast, for example, you think maybe about your teeth. Are my teeth white enough? And then it's hard to do something very quickly about it. But when you, when you have something with more planning, I think, okay, there's a wedding coming up, a reunion and so on. Then you can think about maybe I have to do something to get my teeth a bit brighter.

Christian Niederauer [00:07:29]:

And that's where we then have to be present because that's when people form minds about the category, about the brands and what they want to purchase. And then hopefully you are then present with the right information at the right time to then trigger purchase or behavior at some point later.

Steve Phillips [00:07:46]:

So I understand how the market is changing, right? So we've talked about, and you've illustrated how, the market is changing. Talk to me about how content changes in that world.

Steve Phillips [00:07:56]:

How, how does, how does the, the marketing team change their content strategies? Develop a content strategy for this new world and then specifically how do you in the Insights team enable them to do that with confidence and with insight?

Christian Niederauer [00:08:12]:

I mean, content. I don't know if content is really changing. It's just like you need more content because you need more kind of specialized content.

Christian Niederauer [00:08:19]:

You need new content because you also have to cut through. Because now basically if you're not cutting through, you're not seen and then there's no chance. Overall, I think it's basically coming back to you need to always be monitoring what's going on in the moment to really understand, okay, is it, is my content still relevant or is there something maybe out there that is better, that is working more, is working better to the objective that you have. And that again, for the Insights team, it just means more agility. I mean, we talked about agility a lot of time also before, but it's really like, okay, you can't just say I have an in depth study from two years ago and so on.

Christian Niederauer [00:08:54]:

That's how consumers behave because it has changed, I mean again, back to AI. I mean ChatGPT wasn't around a couple of years ago. Now it's basically part of almost every purchase decision. And that's why you then also have to understand what content is also relevant for the agents and what is relevant for the LMMs. So I think overall I would actually say we have been talking about consumer insights, Shopper Insights for years.

Christian Niederauer [00:09:16]:

I think we also have to talk about machine insights now. Now, because it's really important overall that you have to almost, you have to market to the machines, but you also have to still inspire the human because only those two things come together. Then you have that sweet spot because sometimes it's either or and we know how it is in business and there's new thing and then everyone jumps on it. But if you don't really understand the fundamentals and still focus on it. You might be very efficient in one area, but if you're losing out on the other, it's usually multiplicative.

Christian Niederauer [00:09:47]:

And therefore then if there's a zero somewhere or low number, then it doesn't matter how high the number on the other end is.

Steve Phillips [00:09:53]:

Yeah, so that's great. Let's, let's talk about insight into the human and then we'll talk, then we can talk about insight from machines because I think that it's a really important area to develop. So we're moving from a world where you do a project, takes four to six weeks and you get a report report at the end and it's in PowerPoint, it's handed over to a world where your clients—effectively, the marketing teams—are creating content on the fly. You need to or want to give them insight to help them make better content and to optimize that content in order for your brand to flourish.

Steve Phillips [00:10:21]:

That's a world much more, as we said, of streaming Insight. How are you getting to streaming insight? How are you moving the teams along with you to get to that, this new world?

Christian Niederauer [00:10:33]:

I mean getting is basically just thinking about many more sources because I think it's, for decades really the primary research part has been very important and it still is. But I think if you really want to have that finger at the pulse of the consumer and the markets, you also then need to think about, okay, what about social media data?

Christian Niederauer [00:10:51]:

What about ratings and reviews in particular when you think about product insights? Also what about other things like, like monitoring influencers, for example, in our categories? And then we have consumer affairs data. So people voluntarily or because they have some praise or some problem, calling us, telling us something about our brands, products, campaigns. So you have to almost put all of that together into one kind of source. And back in the days it was always kind of, I mean everyone talked about that for, for quite a while and then a lot of companies also did that. But the big challenge was it was just too much data.

Christian Niederauer [00:11:23]:

So we almost had that kind of dilemma that we were kind of data rich but insights poor. And that kind of has completely changed now with AI because now I can basically, I mean take concept testing. I mean we did so many concept validation or I did that in my career. Usually you go to report, there was hundred something pages and so on. If it was really kind of a very detailed kind of concept test, you looked at the one summary page.

Christian Niederauer [00:11:47]:

So you scroll to page 47, looked at the height, you had tons of open ends, you had tons of verbatims that you never looked at when you were a focus group, for example, you wrote down something, you wrote down, your summary was one page of two days of focus groups and then that was basically it. So you might have overheard something because you were just going to the fridge, grabbing a drink or whatever. So nowadays it's almost like you can put all of that information together. It's still some work to do because you have to harmonize it. You have to get the data streams and the APIs, but now you can basically analyze it to a very high level of detail overall.

Christian Niederauer [00:12:19]:

So you almost get kind of the, you get the best of qual and the best of quant because you get basically the depth of the quality, but you also get the statistical certainty of the quant now. And that's, but that also means you have to change the mindset because yes, we have, we have a lot of strong researchers in the industry, in our company and so on that grew up with these old methodologies for them it's like, okay, there's a lot of stuff now coming in. How relevant is this? Because we also say, I mean we spend so much time and also you as a company, I mean making sure there's a sample quality is great. So when you social listening, I mean you, you don't know if that person pretends to be somebody else or is just like writing something to get some attention.

Christian Niederauer [00:12:55]:

So therefore you still have to feel that. And that's where the human comes also into play. So AI is enabling it, but you still need the human in the loop. How you usually say to really then also sense check and then draw conclusions and also make decisions in the end.

Steve Phillips [00:13:13]:

So I remember talking, I think it was about the idea of insight people, particularly on the client side, becoming more data curators and the idea of managing these multiple spaces of insight and then pulling them together.

Steve Phillips [00:13:25]:

And it does create a challenge. You know, if you've got a very well sampled brand tracker with an open ended in it and you're trying to align that data with a social media feed, both of them are valid, have their purpose, have that, but. But somehow you want to stream a single insight into a marketing person that creates a challenge on your side.

Christian Niederauer [00:13:44]:

Yeah, yeah, it definitely does. And I think that's also why, because everyone has now multiple sources to go to and therefore, I mean we also, I mean a big initiative that we also have been driving on the last couple of years is to democratize insights.

Christian Niederauer [00:13:57]:

So meaning that you don't have that kind of gatekeeper as Insights, but person or team, because that's also often a bottleneck. But that also means that sometimes people who make then a decision, who might not be that familiar with all of these challenges with biases and so on, might take a decision on a small thing. I mean it's not different in the past because again, back to focus groups. I think then you also had sometimes a marketing director in there or creative director. They've heard that one person saying this great, that's exactly what I needed done.

Christian Niederauer [00:14:26]:

I'm off.

Steve Phillips [00:14:27]:

They turn up for one, one focus group, have two glasses of wine and think that they understand the market. And that can still happen also in the new world because I'm not perfect. I'm not saying that AI is now the big savior. And then out of a sudden Insights is getting so much better.

Christian Niederauer [00:14:41]:

I think it's still, that's why there's still a role for Insights people also who understand kind of where we're coming from and what's relevant because there's also, I mean that's also most likely a lot of fraud in there. And you also have multiple ways how to stream Insights. Then you have companies like Amazon and so on and Meta that own the data. So they're also not voluntarily sharing everything because for them it's also currency. I mean that's basically where they make their money with that understanding, with that 1p data.

Christian Niederauer [00:15:07]:

That's where maybe companies like brand manufacturers that don't have a lot of D2C business overall might have a bit more challenges because we first have to get that data somehow in house. While when you are retailer you have all of that data purchase behavior from your consumers or from, from, from your shoppers all the time.

Steve Phillips [00:15:25]:

So this is such an interesting space and we would talk, you were talking about democratizing insight. And that's something that lots of companies and companies are thinking about and trying to do, but is also scary, right? So particularly for research professionals like, like ourselves who are used to managing the process, putting data together, creating a report, and it being our voice and suddenly we're handing that over and letting you know, marketing and other people within the organization have direct access.

Steve Phillips [00:15:54]:

How, how is that, how has it been managing the, you know, the letting go?

Christian Niederauer [00:16:00]:

I think, I mean at the start it's difficult because yeah, we always, we like to sometimes be that gatekeeper because we say, I mean very often you had also for years people saying Insights is the independent voice of the consumer. The rest of the organization doesn't know anything about the consumer. We know it, which was never true to be fair anyway. But I think it's still like sometimes you have that feeling, okay, what if they don't interpret it the right way and so on.

Christian Niederauer [00:16:26]:

But that also means, I mean, you also still have to curate content. So I don't want to say somebody also look at the raw data. So there's still a role for us or for, for our agents then, or whatever. So then distill it into something meaningful that can also help to, to, to fuel decision making or make decisions better. But I mean, I have this strong belief that everyone in the company, independent of function, can only be at their best if they have the right information at the right time.

Christian Niederauer [00:16:54]:

And information, even kind of insight, not really information, because it's really needs to have also that kind of that aha moment and that why is it relevant for me? And therefore. And overall I see it also more on the positive side because yes, there are a couple of systematic errors overall in that new process and so on. But now I would say maybe in the past, 30 to 40% of all decisions were made with real consumer insights. Now with democratization, we can basically almost get to 100% because nobody can complain anymore that they didn't have access to the information because it's actually there.

Christian Niederauer [00:17:29]:

Therefore there's much more scale. So I think the scale is basically the important bits. I think maybe we don't have the super high quality of insights anymore or maybe we have, I mean we are in the jurisdiction phase sometimes, but we therefore are in many more decisions present, which is also quite important because in the past we always had to focus on a couple of things. And I think back to your letting go. Sometimes when I then hear people, okay, but now I'm not present in all of these things anymore.

Christian Niederauer [00:17:57]:

I don't look at all the data. It's like, I mean, but for years you have been complaining that you are caught up in I have to analyze that data, I have to wade through reports, do statistical analysis. That's all gone now. So now focus on the things that you always said you want to do. Kind of making strategic decisions on the back of it, kind of creating stories.

Christian Niederauer [00:18:21]:

That's also important. We also have to tell stories that it sticks overall. And then also kind of, yeah, really trying to better understand consumers, but also the business. And then they have much more time for that now.

Steve Phillips [00:18:38]:

Yeah, yeah, now.

Steve Phillips [00:18:40]:

And I, we've said the same message. Such an exciting time in consumer insight in that for the first time we can be involved in every decision. We can be in the Amazon world, we can be the chair in the room. We can be there for every decision maker who wants to think, I wonder what the customer would think or I wonder what our consumer would want. And we can give them an idea.

Steve Phillips [00:19:00]:

And sometimes it won't be 95% accurate, but it will be directional and it will help them make the decision in real time. I think it's very exciting. Let's go on to talk about agents and this new world of agentic shopping. We've talked about this before.

Steve Phillips [00:19:15]:

It's obviously early stage. We don't know how this world is going to pan out. We don't know whether the agents will work for the consumer or work at the retailer level. You know, so there are lots of things that aren't cheap. Sure.

Steve Phillips [00:19:27]:

But it also potentially sort of changes everything or, or at least a lot. How are you thinking about the world of agentic shopping?

Christian Niederauer [00:19:38]:

Yeah, I think again, it's exciting because it's something new overall. And then of course it could be. It could open up the.

Christian Niederauer [00:19:46]:

Or lowers maybe entry barriers for smaller brands, for other players and so on. They weren't that present because in the past, I mean, in particular on Colgate, our main brand, we had the mental and physical availability everywhere. I mean, you mentioned earlier, and we are present in 200 countries, which I think by itself is kind of weird because there is, at least in Germany, there's a song that talks about 195 countries, which if you look it up, I mean the UN definition says only 195 countries. So whenever I see that in our also sales presentations on the website. Where is that coming from?

Christian Niederauer [00:20:17]:

It's basically, when you look closer it says countries and territories. So meaning that that means Hong Kong is basically a separate country. Overall, you have a big island that was in the news earlier on this year, kind of close to the US but part of Europe. So therefore that's also a separate kind of.

Steve Phillips [00:20:34]:

Are you sure it's part of Europe, not part of.

Christian Niederauer [00:20:37]:

Anyway, let's. Let's not go there. Let's.

Steve Phillips [00:20:40]:

No, exactly.

Christian Niederauer [00:20:42]:

But that's basically.

Christian Niederauer [00:20:43]:

That's why we. It's 200 countries, but yeah, overall. Oh no, I forgot what the quest.

Steve Phillips [00:20:47]:

Agents. Agentic shopping—what's happening in this world.

Christian Niederauer [00:20:52]:

Yeah, with the agents. I think, as I said earlier, I think it's really important. You have to think about marketing the machines but inspire the human.

Christian Niederauer [00:20:59]:

But how can they work? I mean, for the machine, they can work very well with structured data, overall. So therefore what you need to do is basically you have to translate your product, your product attributes into attribute catalogs, into features, product description pages and so on that are easy readable product hiring keys that it's easy to find. But at the same, so you need almost optimized assets for that that really work well with the algorithm because if it's not processed easily, then it's gone.

Christian Niederauer [00:21:28]:

But same thing happened also with search engine optimization and so on in the past. So I think that's not new. I think we understand that pretty well already. But the second thing is also you have to still build that emotional capital with the consumer, with the human, and therefore create cultural relevance for your brand. And because that can be almost kind of your overriding code in the agentic commerce.

Christian Niederauer [00:21:50]:

Because the worst thing that can happen is basically if people just tell their agent, restock any kind of toothpaste because then it opens up the world for everything. And then whoever optimizes the machine insights best will most likely be part of the purchase. But if, ideally, if we build enough emotional capital and so on and strong brands, then hopefully that query then means buy me Colgate and then the best one that fits my needs. But then already you have that anchor in there and then you know, okay, that's only your brand and hopefully that's where we have to get to. And that's I think, where as an insights team, but also together with our marketing partners and also external partners, we have to work on very well to really understand, okay, how do agents make the decision, but also how do humans interact with their agents?

Christian Niederauer [00:22:35]:

Because that's where we can then where we have a road in.

Steve Phillips [00:22:39]:

Yeah, it's interesting and I am going to play devil's advocate a little bit here. So I was listening to another podcast that was talking about agentic shopping and setting, saying the retailer has to own the customer. So they were developing agents for the retailer. You're talking about you're having a strong brand, but from a consumer perspective, if I've got an agent working on my behalf to do my weekly shopping for me, I wanted to look in the fridge and say, oh, what, you're out of this, you've got this.

Steve Phillips [00:23:03]:

But I also want it to know what my health profile is and what's good for me and what's bad for me and then potentially make decisions on my behalf, then if it's making decisions on my behalf. Brand was always the purpose of brand from the beginning of marketing was is as a trust mark because. And I've just written a blog post about this because I can't be bothered to do all of the research, right? So I can't be bothered to look at the ingredients of every single toothpaste out there and decide which is functionally best for me. So, so I will default to brand because I trust Colgate, because I've known them for years.

Steve Phillips [00:23:32]:

An agent doesn't have that problem. An agent will look at every ingredient for every toothpaste, every review that's ever been said about every toothpaste. And it specifically doesn't care about brand, right? It doesn't care about the emotional factors because it will do its homework. Do you see that being a threat to your brands?

Steve Phillips [00:23:49]:

Do you see are there things that you're putting in place so that the agent can interact much more, in much more detail with the scientific literature behind what your brands are doing? But behind some of the, you know, the online reviews that were particularly favorable.

Christian Niederauer [00:24:05]:

I mean it still comes down to. Because I mean yes, ingredients are important, but it's also kind of then what do you, how do you mix it together and what do you have overall? I mean yes, we have a couple of formula that are IP protected and so on.

Christian Niederauer [00:24:19]:

So that's helping. So because also agents are not only looking at consumer created kind of content but also then is it mentioned in kind of scientific studies for example, or for us dentists, veterinarians, when we think about our hills brand and so on, are they recommending it? So therefore when you then have kind of key opinion leaders speaking highly of your brand or of your kind of your company, then that's also helpful. That's also content that if you create so meaning kind of, that's, that's why now actually I think our technical teams are and, and regulatory teams, they are much happier because now a lot of consumers like you said, didn't really look at that. They just trusted the brand.

Christian Niederauer [00:24:54]:

So therefore you could almost kind of make up a story for a brand. We have that strong scientific backgrounding for most of our brands or for all of our brands. And that's what actually helping because then it browses also those databases and then kind of you get almost kind of that credibility score, not only that brand trust score, but also then credibility score from Prorest. So I think overall it's still important for brands to be meaningfully different. So meaning first of all you need to meet needs, you have to have that emotional connection and so on.

Christian Niederauer [00:25:25]:

But on the other side you also have to be different and have we talk a lot internally about perceivable superiority because in the end you only get positive reviews in ratings and reviews if the product experience is there and if people really perceive a superiority or perceive something that's there because I mean in, in or care for example a lot of other categories, I mean you don't know if you're brushing your teeth twice, ideally three times and so on if it still prevents you from losing teeth, getting gum issues and so on in 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, whatever. And that's where the trust comes into play. But then when you, when you're delivering a superior product experience then you almost create that, that flywheel because then people talk positively about you, professionals, consumers and so on. And then you are in more citations and then you actually get a higher rank. I mean similar to the search rank and so on.

Christian Niederauer [00:26:11]:

That was in the past. I think there are a lot of parallels to that. But of course it is a risk overall because yeah it might be that at some point. I mean the whole reason why brand exists friends exist is basically because humans are not making rational behaviors. I mean if, if everyone would be kind of fully rational then a lot of categories wouldn't exist.

Christian Niederauer [00:26:31]:

I mean take, take the whole kind of maybe cars, apparel and so on. I mean a lot of product that are maybe not the same quality but the brand is there. And that's why I think it's really important to deliver on both ends. So you have to have, yes you need, you need strong brands but you also need to have strong products that really deliver on it. Because I think the times of where you just can bank on.

Christian Niederauer [00:26:53]:

I just have a strong brand that I invested in the past but my products are actually not delivering, they're not fitting to needs are kind of gone because I think that that will, that will go away over time.

Steve Phillips [00:27:08]:

Yeah, it's such an interesting new space and I think there's real opportunity for research to try and understand not just the human but also the machine and how the machine and the human interact. And that's going to make a real difference and I think it will change change a lot of what happens in marketing. So yeah, exciting times to come with that. Christian, let's move on to our lightning round where I'm going to ask you a few quick hitting customer insights related questions.

Steve Phillips [00:27:34]:

Are you ready?

Christian Niederauer [00:27:36]:

Okay, let's go.

Steve Phillips [00:27:38]:

Okay, what's one consumer insight that AI has helped you uncover that traditional research may have missed?

Christian Niederauer [00:27:47]:

I mean it's difficult first of all, I mean I guess it's not a self destructing kind of mission impossible recording so therefore, there might also be competition, listening and so on. So therefore, I can't help with the one insight that now kind of changes the world.

Christian Niederauer [00:28:01]:

But I think overall, let me say it this way, it's all these small things that aren't very often actually part of the main research objective. But you hear it. But when you are focused on a specific objective, you forget about it. But they compound over time. So therefore now AI finds these overlooked weak signals there because if they are present often enough, then at some point they will surface.

Christian Niederauer [00:28:25]:

And those are. Sometimes you really get insights. We didn't even ask that question, but we got that insight. And I think that's something new because in the past everyone was so focused on answering that one question or these few questions that they overlooked those. And I think that's what, what is now much better with, with AI than it was with traditional research.

Steve Phillips [00:28:48]:

Brilliant. I completely agree. Next, what's the biggest misconception leaders still have about AI in the consumer insights industry?

Christian Niederauer [00:28:59]:

Yeah, I think, I mean, consumer insights or a lot of functions. I think it's basically the misconception is really that AI replaces insights, experts or humans, because we are not really replacing human expertise with AI, we are actually supercharging it.

Christian Niederauer [00:29:15]:

So you're now basically just like a one team army overall to do all of these things. And I think it still comes down to, was it five or so years ago, Harvard Business Review, where they basically said AI won't replace humans, but humans with AI will be replaced by humans without AI. And I think that's so true because if you're not using it to advantage, if you're not using it as your superpower, it's like if 30, 40 years back, I'm an accountant, didn't use Excel, and you're still using a calculator and sheet of paper. I think it's just like you have to embrace it.

Steve Phillips [00:29:47]:

Yeah, completely. Next up, where does AI actually deliver the most value for you right now? Is it speed, scale, depth, or any combination of them?

Christian Niederauer [00:30:00]:

I mean, I think with AI is always like choosing is losing. So guy for all, maybe I would. Say it's depth at scale, with speed as a, as a byproduct.

Christian Niederauer [00:30:15]:

So they'll be all three. But I mean, if you really. Because the jury is still out, like a lot of companies investing heavily into AI, but you don't really know what is the real kind of ROI for it. That's why I say, on a serious note, I think speed of knowledge retrieval is really something that drives measure RI at the moment. So meaning kind of, you don't waste time searching research, you don't waste time kind of conducting quite competitive, repetitive stuff because you don't know it's there anymore.

Christian Niederauer [00:30:40]:

That's why I would say speed potentially has the most tangible one for the time being.

Steve Phillips [00:30:46]:

Great. And then next up, what's one thing insights teams should stop doing immediately in an AI enabled world?

Christian Niederauer [00:30:54]:

That's easy. Not using AI, not using AI for repetitive tasks, for finding patterns, for analyzing data, cleaning data, but even for writing things like claims concepts and so on, or fine tuning, because I think there you get so much value and you can speed up so much.

Christian Niederauer [00:31:11]:

So back to my when I said supercharging your abilities, I think not using isv. Yeah, the crime world.

Steve Phillips [00:31:18]:

And then finally, last one—in one sentence, what does it really mean to be people centric today?

Christian Niederauer [00:31:25]:

In one sense is always difficult, but I think overall, I mean, it hasn't really changed. It's really understanding people holistically, not seeing them just as shoppers or consumers.

Christian Niederauer [00:31:36]:

And I, that's for me what people centricity means. Because if I can explain that one sentence, I think for me it's like we always see, okay, we have to understand the shopper, we have to understand the consumer. But even for our categories, where we are basically present in 2/3 of households and so on, and have category penetration for a lot of our categories, soap, toothpaste and so on, of, of, of, of almost 100% people are consumers potentially three, four times a day for a couple of seconds, maybe a minute. I mean, yeah, so that's it. They are shoppers once a week, couple of times a week for a couple of seconds or minutes again.

Christian Niederauer [00:32:09]:

So, but then there's that whole lot of 24/7 that is where they are just humans, where they are people. And that's where it becomes important where you understand them or where you then become relevant. Because in those few short moments, yes, it's also important to be present, but you really have to understand people. And that's where people centricity comes into mind.

Christian Niederauer [00:32:32]:

That's why as an intern we talk a lot about people insights or kind of people centricity and not consumer insights and so on, because it's really about that, that human being behind all of these different layers.

Steve Phillips [00:32:43]:

I love that. I love that. Okay, that wraps up this episode of the Inside Insights podcast. Thanks to Christian Niederauer, Vice President, Global Insights at Colgate Palmolive for joining us.

Steve Phillips [00:32:54]:

If you'd like to contact Christian, you can find a link to his LinkedIn profile on our show notes or at InsideInsightsPod.com or you can visit his company website, ColgatePalmolive.com. If you haven't subscribed yet and want a regular stream of insight and research knowledge in your podcast feed, hit that subscribe button in your podcast app or follow us on YouTube. Okay, that's all for today. See you on the next episode of Inside Insights.