Insights can now move faster than the factory, and most teams still plan as if they can't. Carla Mahfuz, Senior Manager, Consumer Insights at Ferrara, has worked agency-side and company-side, and she bridges global and local teams across Brazil, Korea, France, and the UK.
She shows how to split a universal human need from its local expression so one brand can stay consistent while each market gets its own story, and how to bring marketing, R&D, and commercial teams to the table from day one so every insight ends in an action. She also draws a clear line on AI: use it to cut the analysis grind and turn research around in days, but think twice before trusting synthetic personas with anything truly new.
[00:13] Steve Phillips: I'm Steve Phillips, founder and Chief Innovation Officer at Zappi, and this is Inside Insights, a podcast by Zappi. Joining me today is Carla Mahfuz, Senior Manager, Consumer Insights at Ferrara, the US confectionery company behind some of the world's best known candy brands like Nerds and Brach's. Today, Carla is going to explain what happens when consumer insights and marketing can move faster than the physical innovation process and how she finds consumer truths that can travel across very different markets. Carla, welcome to Inside Insights.
[01:09] Carla Mahfuz: Thank you.
[01:13] Steve Phillips: Let's kick off. So Carla, tell me, you work with teams across Europe, Asia and Latin America, and global and local teams don't always have the same priorities or timelines, as we know. Where does the tension show up most, and how do you act as a bridge between the two?
[01:33] Carla Mahfuz: Well, sometimes local teams and global teams are working at a different pace because they do have different priorities in their day to day lives. So for example, local teams are always working in the short term decisions while global teams are looking much forward, looking for long term product innovation, product development. So sometimes there are tensions between those different priorities. And my role in between those two different teams is to try to translate their own language, one to the other, because sometimes they are working for the same thing. They are just not being understand and understand with one by the other. So my role is to try to translate those to different perspectives, helping the global teams to understand the local realities and vice versa, because in the end they are all working for the same thing. They want to succeed with our consumer.
[02:41] Steve Phillips: Yeah, it's interesting. I think we've chatted about this before. I used to work in Indonesia, so I worked very much for one of the sort of distant local teams. And you'd have America telling Hong Kong to tell Indonesia what to do. And often we would say, yeah, but we know the reality on the ground much better. We know our consumers, we understand the market, the geography. And you know, the States would say, yes, but this is the new product and we need you to sell it in this way. You naturally have those tensions.
[03:17] Carla Mahfuz: Yes, for sure, for sure. Because again, if we do have a product that's succeeding here in the US, we will of course want this product to succeed anywhere. And as I said before, sometimes the local teams have other priorities. They have a, they have to, they are facing a problem, a local problem with, for example, a local competitor that has entered the market and they need to be this, this product as soon as possible. So, and then some conflicts come, as I said in the beginning, on long term priorities versus short term priorities, because if you have a competitor entering the market, you would like to have probably this innovation as fast as possible. And sometimes because of all the process that the global teams have to launch a new product in a new market, this will take longer time than needed. And then those conflicts are always a real thing.
[04:17] Steve Phillips: And of course they may love the idea of the innovation, but want to localize it for their market, and that will have cost implications. So given your role, which is overseeing so many markets, are you the fulcrum, are you the bit that is trying to calm the tension down or make sure everyone understands each other's side?
[04:36] Carla Mahfuz: Yes, for sure, for sure. So part of my role is to translate what's happening in the local markets to the global teams and vice versa. So we need to converge into one single objective that succeeded with the consumers. So global teams need sometimes to understand that things may be a little bit different in certain markets and try to adapt, while the local teams will need to adapt to the global team needs in terms of maybe having a longer calendar for an innovation or maybe doing some, maybe adapting some things when you have a launch of a global product. So those conversations are always an ongoing process.
[05:25] Steve Phillips: And do you manage to persuade the, the sort of global team to come and have a look at the local market and really give them an insight into what's going on on the ground?
[05:34] Carla Mahfuz: Yes, yes, for sure. Because as I said, in the end everybody's working for the same company and we need to succeed in this market. So if you do have a product with, I don't know, a feature that doesn't work in certain market, for an example of packaging that works super well here may not work well in another market. So is there anything that we can do to adapt to this market but without losing our identity? So all those things need to be, need to be. We need to put this into, in the table and discuss together so that we can have the better proposition possible for a tailored for each market.
[06:21] Steve Phillips: Great. And understanding what a consumer wants is only half the job. The harder part is translating that into something a business can actually brief, develop and build, especially when you're working across innovation, marketing and R&D teams who all move at different speeds. So how do you make that leap from consumer understanding to decisions the business can act on? Consumer understanding across different markets and getting the innovation done at the top, at the global level, how do you go about that job of translation?
[06:54] Carla Mahfuz: Well, I always say that an insight will only be valued if it drives an action. So the consumer truth will be for sure the starting point, but never the end line. So when we identify something that a consumer need in certain markets, so the next question should be, what can we do inside the company? What does this mean for the business? So I think that the ideal world is when we can put together everybody, so all the areas of marketing, R&D, the commercial teams, sometimes even the manufacturing teams, so that we can understand each piece of the work that has to be done and how we can solve this business problem problem and have this insight put into action. So what we need to do, do we need to do some, I don't know, a communication change or do we need to change anything on the packaging, [unclear] in all the markets that we want to launch. So we need to decide this together and put everything on the table and work as a team.
[08:09] Steve Phillips: So that makes perfect sense. But bear in mind, in your case, your team is sitting in different offices in different markets. Do you physically get them around the table? How do you manage to create that? Presumably a lot of it has got to be virtual. How do you get the feeling that they're all playing in the same table and discussing the same issues at the same time?
[08:35] Carla Mahfuz: Yeah, most of the discussions are done, obviously, virtually, and it's good because today we do have a lot of technology for this. We do have some people traveling through the countries and from the countries to the US and from here to the countries. Sometimes it's not always the case that we can have everybody together. So what we need to do is to trust that the teams are doing their best to be connected, and that's it. So I think it's. It has worked so far. And sometimes when we have the opportunity to be there or to have people from the countries here in the office, it's even better. Because when you connect bonds face to face, things go even smoother in the future.
[09:26] Steve Phillips: Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. And you recently had a marketing team come to you needing answers for a creative test in three days. What does it take for insights to operate at that speed without sacrificing the quality of the decision?
[09:43] Carla Mahfuz: Well, I would say that this is only possible because of the technology that we have today. So I am in this area for a long time. I have worked in both sides, at the agency side and on the company side. So I know that to have a quick turnaround as a three day turnaround as we had, it's a big, big challenge. And this was only possible because today we have the technology. So because of the AI and after the pandemic, because of the pandemic, many things evolved super fast, faster than it was before. And so we can collect data much faster, faster today. We can also analyze data much faster today because of the help of the AI. But also I think that this was only possible because first we were prepared to have this turnaround in three days. So we knew in advance that we would have a very short time to give marketing the answer they needed. And we were, we, we didn't deliver like a complete report. We just looked to into the main insights needed for them to move forward with what was needed. And that worked because we worked together in the end. So both marketing and insights, we worked together. We evaluated a schedule that we had. We understood that we only had three days. And working together with a trusted partner, we could do this, we could make this happen. But again, this cannot be something that will happen for all the projects. This has to be, of course, an agreement upfront so that we can be prepared to not make mistakes or deliver results that are not true.
[11:27] Steve Phillips: Yeah, it's interesting. And both of us have been in consumer insight for a while, myself significantly longer than you, I think. But the technology has changed the way that we can work, both from being able to not having to travel to every market because you've got Zoom or you've got Google Meet or whatever, but also the technology in terms of automation of the process. So we've seen a change in the way you work, but also an increase in the speed that is possible to move. How have you managed to integrate that into workflows in very different markets?
[12:10] Carla Mahfuz: Well, I think the beauty of the technology is exactly that we can integrate different markets much faster and much easily than we did before. So today, for example, with the usage of AI, you can run projects, the same project in multiple markets. You can have, for example, you can do one guide and translate into multiple languages in seconds. And then you can run the research at the same time for 2, 3, 10 markets and get results all together. And again with the help of the AI, you can summarize all this information very quickly so that you or myself as an insights person, I can spend my time analyzing this data or finding similarities or differences or different insights, or say, insights across all those markets in a much faster way that I used to do before. Because before you have to coordinate every country probably in a different page, and then you receive thousands of data that you have to summarize by yourself. So the technology is really a huge. Improving the way we're working insights today. And it's much better.
[13:35] Steve Phillips: Yeah, yeah, brilliant. And you, I must say, your markets couldn't look much more different. You've got Brazil, Korea, France, the UK. And I suppose when you look at those markets, you think there's a lot that divides them. The instinct is to. Everything has to be localized. But I know that you found that that's not always true. How do you find a. Try and find and then discover consumer truth that aligns us, that unites us, rather than divides us?
[14:08] Carla Mahfuz: I think there are two different layers because at the first look, sometimes you can think, oh my God, this is completely different. If you look at Brazil and Korea, for example, this product has a different use, completely different use in both countries. But then when you look at the second layer and you try to find the common human need, it may be the same need. So, for example, while a product can be an indulgent treat somewhere and an energy boost in another place, if you look at the human need, may those people are looking for reward or maybe they're looking for enjoyment, for comfort. So maybe the human. Normally the human need is common across the markets, while the way it manifests in each market will be different. So again, the challenge here is how can we separate this universal need from the local expression of that need?
[15:09] Steve Phillips: Yeah. And how do you decide then whether it's at a product level or a communication level? Because there are obviously huge advantages to making something global. It means it's much more scalable. You don't have to create multiple variants, et cetera. But also you want to be successful at the local level. How do you. But you're finding, you know, some things are the same, some occasions, some, some motivations will be different. How, how do you manage that, you know, battle between consistency and local success?
[15:41] Carla Mahfuz: Well, I think the, I think that the, the key thing here again is to find the commonalities so that we can keep the consistency of the brand across all the markets. So, for example, we need a brand to have the same features. Sometimes we need a brand to have the same formulations with maybe some variations due to, I don't know, compliance or other local restrictions. But in the end it has to deliver the same experience. But then the way we introduce this product to the consumers may vary and may be a little bit localized. So for example, if you go to Korea and if they are wanting something because they want a quick boost of energy, then locally we can work more towards this consumer need. While when you go to Brazil, if they want this because they want an indulgence or as a reward, we can also locally work on something to make them understand that this product can be for this, for this need.
[17:02] Steve Phillips: And when, when you're working locally, I know, I mean, obviously you're doing traditional market research projects, but also looking at things like social listening, ethnography, segmentation, you use many of these in many different markets. How, how do you, how do you decide on the approach? And does that vary by market? Are you using different methods in different markets for, for different reasons?
[17:25] Carla Mahfuz: It will depend always on the business objectives. So for example, if it's a completely new market that we are trying to understand, we probably need more foundational work. So we will do more marketing understanding. Or, if there is something specific that we need to understand, if it connects with another market. So for example, let's say that we do have a product that's succeeding within one segment of people in one market and we would like to understand if this would work in another one. Maybe we can use social listening to understand if they are talking about this as well in this market. So again, it depends on the business objective and then one thing can complement the other.
[18:11] Steve Phillips: Yeah, yeah, of course. And, and I, and you've, of course, you've been in the markets a long time, you can build up that bank of knowledge. And now that you have this bank of knowledge and you also have the new technologies that we've been talking about, which enable you to act much more quickly at a research level, at a consumer understanding level. But R&D in many of your categories is still dealing with physical products, ingredients, suppliers. You're on a different clock. So how do, what happens to innovation when you can move at this much greater pace in terms of research and insight? Does it change the way that innovation works, or are you waiting for their clock for the new product to come out? How has that changed over the years?
[18:58] Carla Mahfuz: I think, well, this is a reality, of course. So while marketing and insights can be benefited with the technology, with AI, with the digital transformation and all this speed is great brought to our lives, R&D still has worked with physical things. So if they need, it's a physical ingredient. It's a factory, a pilot plant. So they cannot move as fast as we do. So I think that the beauty of having an area of Insights moving faster is that even though they have their own pace, we can turn around very quickly with bridge results to support them in their own schedule in a way that they can in the end move a little bit faster. Because if, if before it took me like two months to tell them if the product was accepted by the consumers or not. And today I can do this in like three weeks. Of course, their schedule will be shorter in the end. So we are working together.
[20:03] Steve Phillips: And, and are they very pleased that it's happening quicker, or does it, does it mean that they've got to try and work faster or they don't get as much time to, you know, consider different options?
[20:18] Carla Mahfuz: I think, I think, I think they are happy because in the end, this, this faster turnaround of answers will benefit everybody. So again, when we work together from the beginning, they can plan accordingly on their schedule that they will have results faster than before so that they will be expecting as before, and so they can move forward faster in the end.
[20:47] Steve Phillips: Brilliant. And let's talk a bit specifically about AI. I know it's come up and it comes up in every conversation. Now, as you know, it's helping you interview consumers and process research faster. Of course, you've said to me before that you're still cautious about synthetic Personas. Where do you see AI genuinely making research better? And where do you think we still need to be careful?
[21:15] Carla Mahfuz: Certainly it's helping a lot on all this process of analyzing lots of information. So today we have much more information available than we had before. So as we said, we can have consumer insights coming from social listening, from social media, also from regular research that we do. So AI helps us to connect the dots much faster, so it synthesize it, organize thousands of information in a much faster way so that, as I said before, I can have much more time, time to analyze everything and come up with the insights that I need from my team. But on the other hand, I am a little bit more cautious when it comes to the synthetic Personas because I think that insights is much, much more about people than about data. And today the consumer is changing super fast. So if you follow social media, for example, you will see that one week is trending one thing, the week they there is another thing trending. So when you base this, when you, when you create a synthetic Persona based on something that you knew before, maybe this is not valid anymore. And you were analyzing, I don't know, concepts, ideas with this synthetic created Persona that does not reflect the reality. So with this I'm a little bit cautious. Maybe we can use this together with real people to calibrate the results. But to me, this is the only thing that I'm not super into up to now within the AI technology. But all the rest, I think it's super valid and super helpful.
[23:16] Steve Phillips: Yeah, I should say I'm a big fan of synthetic in the right place, I think very much like you. And I've said this to clients before, you know, synthetic is great as long as you're not trying to test something that's genuinely new. Yeah, because it's trained on old data. It's not the human being working in the real life. So if you've come up with something derivative and quite often, for instance in the world of digital, you know, one of the 10,000 executions, you're doing fine. Test that with synthetic. But if you're coming up with a new campaign idea, then synthetic, it's not the way to go. But we, and you've talked about the time saving and the ability to do analysis and cross analysis across multiple data streams, Whether it's adding social media and a qualitative report and some quant, AI can do that analysis for you. Really? Well, I think we would agree that saves a lot of time because in my career that was a lot of time spent doing that sort of. That sort of, yes. So how, so what are you now doing that you couldn't do before? What, what are you using that additional time to do?
[24:20] Carla Mahfuz: I'm using this additional time to analyze what AI already summarized to me so that I can, I can spend much more time doing my analysis than before. As I said, I had, I worked a lot, a long time in an agency. So before we used most of the time of the analysis collecting data, connecting the dots, analyzing tables, numbers. So with AI, this comes to your hand, ready, so that all this time that before you are doing this hand work you can use to do real analysis, you put your real thinking on the, on the insights and come up with much better information to the teams than before. Not that we couldn't do this before, of course we could, but it would take much longer time.
[25:20] Steve Phillips: Yeah. And yeah, so one of our other guests talks about, you know, the work before the work, the work and then the work after the work. And actually the work itself, AI is making much, much quicker and much more effective, but the work after the work is taking that Insight and applying it to the business. You know, making the teams actually change their behavior. That's when you were talking before about it. It doesn't matter if you have an insight. What matters is if you have an action after the insight. And presumably that's where you can now spend more of your time.
[25:59] Carla Mahfuz: Yes, of course, of course. Totally.
[26:03] Steve Phillips: Brilliant. Okay, Carla, let's move on to our lightning round where I'm going to ask you a few quick hitting consumer insights related questions. Are you ready? Yes. Brilliant. Brilliant. Okay, first of all, what would a synthetic Persona have to get right before you let it stand in for a real consumer?
[26:23] Carla Mahfuz: I think I would need to be sure that's not just predicting the average behavior, but capturing emotional cultural context behind the decision. So as we said before, I wouldn't trust a synthetic Persona to evaluate something that's totally disruptive or totally new because for sure it couldn't predict this consumer behavior.
[26:53] Steve Phillips: That's really interesting. After more than 20 years in insight, what change did you resist the longest before it sort of won you over?
[27:01] Carla Mahfuz: I would say the AI generated consumers, as we just said. I'm still a little bit skeptical with this. So I think we cannot. It's not that we cannot, but we need to be cautious about replacing real consumers. But I'm not skeptical about the AI as a research partner, for example. So I'm using it a lot. It helps me a lot in my day to day activities during the research process after to analyzing data. For this, it's a perfect partner. But for the synthetic consumers, I'm still a little bit skeptical.
[27:45] Steve Phillips: Yeah, I think at some point the industry will find the right time and place for them. Yeah, we're at this early stage where everyone's coming up with lots of ideas and thinking they can replace everything. And I think we both know that that's not going to work.
[27:57] Carla Mahfuz: Yeah.
[27:59] Steve Phillips: Yeah, that's it. Okay. Next is a three day turnaround for on a creative test. A win for Insights or a warning sign for marketing?
[28:10] Carla Mahfuz: I think it's a little bit of both. It is a win because we can probably make a better decision, a quicker turnaround. But as I said before, we need to be together with the marketing team since the beginning so that this is not, this is not something that we can do for every research, for example. So if it is an emergency, it is something that happened in one specific project. Of course we can work together to make this happen, but this cannot be something that we do every day. It can't be the default.
[28:47] Steve Phillips: That makes a lot of sense. Exactly. Next, if budget forced you to drop one, brand health tracking or concept testing, which would you drop first?
[28:58] Carla Mahfuz: It depends on the strategy. So if we are investing heavily in media, if there is a new competitor in the market, changes in the market, I would probably invest more in brand health Tracker. However, if we are investing heavily into innovation, we want to launch new product in one year from now, then I would probably protect the concept test.
[29:22] Steve Phillips: Perfect. That makes perfect sense. Before we let you go, Carla, we have one last question we'd like to ask all of our guests. What's the one thing, the one piece of advice you give to marketing and insight teams that they need to do together in the next 12 months to help their company win with consumers and grow their business?
[29:43] Carla Mahfuz: I would be obsessed by understanding the consumer needs instead of just looking for the performance of the brands, because the brands that will grow better are the ones that for sure anticipate consumer needs and then they can quickly turn around and succeed in the markets before the competitors.
[30:09] Steve Phillips: That's very, very smart advice. Brilliant. Okay, that wraps up this episode of Inside Insights. Thank you to Carla, senior Manager, Consumer Insights at Ferrara, for joining us. If you'd like to contact Carla, you can find her link to her LinkedIn profile in our show notes or at InsideInsightsPod.com, or you can visit her company website at ferrara.com. If you haven't subscribed yet and want a regular stream of conversations with some of the world's leading marketing and insight professionals, 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.