How Visa's Insight Director Shapes Marketing Strategy

Speaker A: Welcome to what's Working in Marketing, A podcast for marketers that um, uncovers what's working across the digital landscape by tapping into the world's best data backed research and through candid conversations with industry experts. I'm your host, Charlie Grinnell. So on this episode I'm joined by Michael Nevsky, global director of Insights at Visa. Michael, thank you so much for joining me today.

Speaker B: Thank you Charlie. I'm excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

Speaker A: Yeah, of course. So you have a wildly interesting career. When you and I first met, you started sharing all these stories and I was like, I gotta have this guy on the podcast. So I want to kind of start off by like setting the stage. Could you just share a bit about your career journey to date, how you kind of got into insight work and then how you ended up at Visa?

Speaker B: I think it's a good question. So where do I start? I call myself recovering Marketer. I started actually my career a long time ago in marketing and um, especially in the US I actually worked for the ranks and I worked for several Fortune 500 companies. Eventually I managed the entire marketing strategy and operations for DVD distribution company with 10 direct reports, 70 people, 70, 80 people under me, including marketing operations. At one point I moved to very interesting vertical. It's a Danaher Corporation. It's A uh, Fortune 200 company. They do manufacturing and they use to do dental equipment, medical equipment and water quality equipment. And primarily I was in the water quality equipment division doing the direct marketing for them, um, catalogs. And at one point a colleague of mine asked me if I want to get trained on a VOC or voice of the customer, saying hey, do you want to actually learn how to conduct ideas in depth interviews and really do the B2B because it's pure B2B environment. So working with the uh, plant water quality wastewater plant managers and drinking water water plant managers and understand how they use our equipment. And I said why not? Sure, sign me up. I would love to learn something new, something curious, something interesting. So actually because I was always curious about why people do what they do versus what they say. So and after that training I really fell in love with this kind of a uh, inside environment where you can really learn about the uh, reasoning but also with time with uh, work done her, I realized that actually the insights function acts as a neck which turns the head in a certain direction, identifying those white spots, identifying those opportunities. Right. And tell the company not only how to grow bottom line, but also about uh, those next opportunities, white spaces and that's how I fell in love in marketing research in insights function. And that's how I kind of slowly but surely transition from marketing to insights. And since then I work again for several companies. One of them was IRI or nowadays people know as a Circana, a syndicated point of sales and consumer panel provider for CPG and all the major grocery and um, apparel retailers in the country, in the United States and also world player. And in that capacity I work in shopper marketing consulting as a director of Shopper and then I manage the entire global consumer panel platform marketing marketing operations for them. And after that I work on regular marketing research leading the research for Charles Schwab, a couple more players. And at one point I was admitted to Advertising Week national mentorship program. And luckily enough I got assigned to Lynn Baker, who was my mentor global CMO at Visa. And she eventually introduced me to Visa and again like in case of IRI and Nielsen Duopol and now this is called Circana. I thought that it would be very unique opportunity to work for the company which actually the payments and actually there are only two or three providers in the world which actually work and operate in the space. And it was very interesting for me to join a global organization and learn how payments industry is structured, what the key features and players. So. And that's how I ended up with Visa.

Speaker A: Yeah. Wow, that's wild. I want to talk about the analogy that I love. The insights function being the neck that kind of turn turns the head. Obviously insight is we know it's valuable because we're insights nerds. What do think that marketers get wrong about insights or what do you think they maybe don't understand or don't realize the true value of? Because that analogy that you just used of like the. It's the neck turning the head and helping. I've never actually heard that analogy before and it's a really good one.

Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you. So one what I've learned throughout my career, very often marketing or strategy comes with the perspective. Here's the task we want to complete, here's the challenge, here's the insight we think we need to get right. And they come to insights function with this kind of uh, approach that. Okay, here's the project I uh, want you to run here. The um, insights I want you to get instead of looking at inside professionals as a partners. Very often, as you know Charlie, we both work in the space. There is a dialogue here, the discussion of how can we keep our seat at the table, how can we be much more uh, strategic Partners than order takers. And that's the major preconceived conception of us as a function. When actually, for example, at Charles Schwab, I really teamed up with a strategy team because I thought that Insights, corporate insights and corporate strategy team needs to be much more integrated and identifying those white spaces. Right. And how we can, uh, help company to grow in not only bottom line again, but directions where else we can actually grow in terms of the verticals, horizontal. So those are major points. Also another one that. Okay, those are like, uh, nerdy people. They deal with data, uh, they deal with kind of analysis. But Insights professionals are very much more strategic in their approach. And nowadays with all the factors, I bet we're going to touch on argentic AI, uh, generative AI, technology, changing consumer preferences, as we both know, uh, lots of uh, economic uncertainty, government policies. Right. So it requires you as an inside professional to understand much more and have a broader skills in being not just inside person, but consultant, really. Strategic consultant. What is it really we're trying to accomplish here? What do we need to do not only in methods and methodology of research, but also what platforms we're on. Whether it's a digital part of the digital, social, syndicated data, third party data. Right. So your direct data, first primary data. So how we collect those data points, touch points, what the uh, shopper journey is. Right. So many, many other factors and technology. So it's kind of a. Yes, jack of all trades and master of none. But actually that's what requires you to be. Right. So to collectively be very broad and same time very deep consultant for those organizations, whether you're on the client or supplier side. Because strategic partnership is very important.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And I guess the thing that as I'm listening to you kind of talk is that's also very similar for marketers. Right. Like this need to be a, uh, jack of all trades kind of. Right. Is welcome to marketing. And so, you know, it is kind of similar. And so what would your advice be to marketers to help Insights folks provide better insight? Right. Because it sounds like there is this partnership that needs to exist between people sitting in the marketing seats and people sitting in the Insights seats. What do you think because you're in a unique position that you've kind of sat on both sides.

Speaker B: Yeah, thank you. Uh, I think being much more mind or a little bit more mind open. And what I mean by that, let us be with you guys not only holding your hand, but really contributing to your projects. What to give an example, again, marketing team comes to research and says, hey, we want to do this right. Even if I consult and we did a successful completion of the project, I feed that insight, actionable insight data to you as a marketing. But then marketing takes that and says, okay, thank you very much, Mr. Researcher. We're gonna go and execute that campaign. We're gonna go and incorporate that in uh, strategy 2030 or something like that. Instead of saying, okay, work with us on that path. Right, right, let's be true partners. And you're gonna provide and continue feed the insights, provide guardrails for us how to execute and bid part of that execution team going forward on this project. Because very often it's just exactly, project project. You complete the project next month. No, you need to be kind of that consultant which continues to work on that midterm long term strategy and helping your business partners, whether it's a product or marketing. Right. So brand team or media team to continue execute and deliver. That's the major part. It's not transactional, it's a relationship relational. Excuse me, if you will. Partnership.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's super interesting. And what you're describing, I think about when I worked in house at a brand. I saw that I probably contributed to that. Like I probably made that mistake at one point. So hearing it called out, you're like, oh, yeah, guilty. I wanna, I wanna kind of switch gears a little bit here. So, you know, when we think about insight and I think about modern organizations specifically, we'll say, you know, with, in marketing and around marketing, so, you know, product and leadership, it seems like some organizations really struggle with insight specifically like the stuff that we are tasked with delivering, it exists in a silo. What do you think organizations can do better to kind of integrate this stuff across those different departments? Because I think about, you know, there have been times when again I worked in house where through some serendipitous pure dumb luck where I'm, you know, at the coffee machine or something and someone goes, oh yeah, this thing. And I go, what? And then they send me something and all of a sudden I go, oh my gosh, I had no idea we were doing this. And had we not had that serendipitous coffee machine meeting, I wouldn't have known that there was this awesome nugget of insight sitting in another area of the organization. So I'm sure that that's not, you know, the first time you've probably heard something like that or seen something like that. What do you think marketers, insights folks, you know, strategists as a whole can do to kind of integrate that stuff across the board. Is there cultural shifts? What is it?

Speaker B: Yeah, you're absolutely right. That's a very great notion actually. And probably with technology the last year or two I see a little bit of a change and I'm going to share my experience. So to address your question but actually throughout my almost uh, ah, 28 years career here in US I've seen it over and over again. Pretty much many organizations especially once they the large complex organizations, right. With lots of players involved. Very often you would incur that kind of a silo or pulling back in terms of the knowledge gathering. But lately what I see with the technology especially organizations but in general needs to be much more open in terms of the sharing and the way how you do it, you leverage the technology. If for example you don't have opportunity to leverage generative AI. And I talk about that a little bit so because not all organizations equipped with that but what I see that people start uh sharepoint or share a drive especially sharepoint is easier uh knowledge collection where everything what you complete and especially even if it's like um, more confidential in terms of the within the organization you provide access to certain business partners, departments. Right. Where people can actually exchange that information. Because marketing did this project, research did that project. Right. So this way you can go and mine that data, mine those reports and see what has been done to date. Right. And it's kind of indexed and um, organized Another opportunity like with my company what we're trying to do. But again not everybody can afford that from the even monetary financial standpoint of view. We have our own generative AI on premises and what technology is helping us to build the bots, right. That kind of a based on generative AI platform you can create a light label bot. And so I've seen already some replies from research team. For example oh, I'm out of office or I'm on the road. For any questions please use this URL this link to contact Yes I my counterparts in Asia Pacific. Please contact this bot to ask any questions about the recent research we've done or uh, 2024 research and you might come up with some answers for you. So that's the first point of reference where you utilizing white label chat where you train them and you upload all of your reports to share with your business partners. And the third but last but not least the third point I want to make create. Yes, I know it's probably more labor intense, right. But again you can partial automate that because once you do number of Projects complete in a month. For example, you can create in a sense newsletter or just even kind of this collective summary of those reports you've done as a department or as a team. As a person. Right. Usually as a department or team, of course. And a certain cadence. Maybe it's a quarterly, maybe it's every two months, maybe monthly. Right. Where you send that new strategy, business partners and allow them subscribe and subscribe. Manage that list. That one is a little bit more labor intense. But I know that lots of people really like that. And again, utilizing technology like SharePoint, you can just send the link with couple headlines and then people can go to your website. Right. So to your SharePoint internal website. Excuse me. So where they can actually open and look at the latest reports and mine those reports and utilize them in their work and share the ideas. Right. And having a forum where they can post the comments. So you can utilize some IM systems like teams and etc and create a channel where people can actually interact, ask questions, post questions. That's what they also utilize very widely across all five global regions. So those are aspects. Kind of is the last thing I just want to comment reason why I kind of uh, go deeper into the tactical here. Because devil, the devil is in details, the execution actual. Instead of saying hypothetical and theoretical, let's share the ideas, let's share the reports. You need to actually have that execution in mind.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I couldn't agree more. I want to touch on something that, that you kind of. You know, I wasn't necessarily planning to talk a lot about AI, but since you brought it up, I, I do have a, a follow up question. You've been in business a long time, you've been working in this function a long time. We've noticed. I've noticed specifically our team has noticed. Talking to my wife, I noticed this. Some people are quite resistant to using AI in the workplace. My personal take is a friend of mine, he. What did he say? He said, he said that AI is like a bicycle for productivity instead of like you know, a computer being a bicycle for the mind. I think he kind of ripped off that quote. I don't know if it was Steve Jobs or someone. I view that bicycle for productivity. I just feel that I'm able to get so much more done on a personal level at a high enough level of quality. It also inspires me to dig deeper into things because it's not necessarily perceived as, as time intensive. How do you, how do you think about that and what's your advice to people out there who are Maybe feeling a little bit hesitant or, or anxious about AI or is it like do we need to go through like a rapid kind of reskilling? Like you might be have been in business for 15 years but like this is fundamental change, fundamentally changing how you work day to day. I'm just curious as to like what your take is.

Speaker B: Oh absolutely. And uh, uh, partially I can observe especially now industry, some hesitation. But it takes also company, it takes the uh, leadership, right. To realize and understand. My company is a big proponent of generative AI. Ah. Because we've been using overall AI for a long time, right? So for like fraud and some other transactional fraud and stuff like that, monitoring. But generative AI provides the opportunity and the way how I try to feed that or like let's say if people hesitant or feel that AI is going to generative AI, when I say I uh, always refer to generative AI going forward, right? Large uh, language models. So when people kind of hesitant about using it, you should showcase how you use it, right? So you show them that a not only industry is moving that direction, you need to upskill, right. To pretty much uh, train. It's not retrain, it's just training on additional skills on how to interact with generative AI models and how to use them to your benefit as a let's say inside professional, right. It could be marketing, could be something else. And you actually showcase what you do. For example, right? So you do the recording with copilot or something else, right? So like IDI and you're doing in depth interview, you get a transcription and then you put it in generative AI instance and say hey, identify those patterns, right? And Personas I'm looking and here's the specs and you have several questions like that interacting with the model and it gives you kind of results, initial results which saves you tons of money. But after that the human aspect comes in when you and me sit down and start refining, reading through. But you don't have to see through this whole bunch of information. Let's say you conducted 10 ideas or 15 ideas, right? You already have those patterns which generative AI points you to and then you can refine those fundings or if you're writing a discussion guide or creating a survey, right? So you start that initial draft of strawman and then you apply us human expertise. But another aspect to keep in mind, right. That as generative AI is kind of upskilling and getting better, but you can also use it for brainstorming, right? Or some, or even asking questions of. Okay, here I got the Personas, what I think, but is there anything in that data you can recommend me to look at? Right. Maybe some kind of a, uh, patterns or innovation. I even haven't thought about it. Right. So. And that's how you show people the value, that it's not replacing you as an expert, it's just helping you to be more efficient. Like a, uh, bicycle. Exactly. Go faster. That means you can accomplish, instead of three projects, you now can accomplish a certain time period, five projects or six projects. So companies see that efficiency and can value you as even more as an expert, as a function.

Speaker A: So yeah, I agree. I think it's so funny. You like the, that kind of idea of intellectually sparring with AI. That's. I've spent a lot of time doing that and you know, I'm oftentimes having it play devil's advocate and it's helping me think through things through different mental models or different lenses. And it's actually pushing me to be more creative because it's almost like I think about, you know, imagine you have a, uh, yeah, you're, you're practicing tennis and you have a robot who always returns the ball back to you and does a good job. It pushes you to actually give better inputs each time. So I really enjoy it. But I just had to ask, because you brought it up, but I want to switch gears here a little bit. We talked a little bit about before recording about some major shifts that you're seeing in financial services marketing. What do you think? The world's uh, in a really fascinating place. What do you think right now that's happening in the industry that you think more marketers or strategists should be thinking about at a high level.

Speaker B: That's another very good question, Charlie. I think one of the key aspects, what I see in my research and observe from the industry, hyper personalization. I think especially with the technology, we're going to see more and more of that. Pretty much it's micro segmentation, you name it. Right. So micro marketing. So pretty much you and me, we're a different age, different origin, uh, different stage in life. Right. So. But we expect brands more and more, and especially Gen Z and Millennials, to have that very individualized approach. Right. So not only there is a such meaning in banking, know your customer, Ky kyc. Right. So. But it's not only identifying you from the, your uh, credential standpoint of your security when you come in online and stuff, but also already knowing lots of information about you as a customer and not in A creepy way, but understanding your preferences, understanding your purchase history and your tastes and desires and feeding you right away what you need, which is very efficient, saves you time, you get what you need and you leave without really wasting any time. And you feel that you're talking to the brand, which really understands you, really gets you right. And that's where I see probably next stage of interactions between brands and consumers and even businesses as well. Because especially in business it's very important to feed the very relevant message. So and I think that's where we're moving. There is another aspect I want to mention actually back to this generative AI aspect. Me and you, we chat before the podcast actually before the recording about uh, argentic AI. Right. So that's the next stage in my opinion. And the conversation started from my conversations at the conferences and um, keynote speaking. Uh, people ask where back in the fall where we see this new technologies developing argentic AI. It's pretty much generative AI, let's say the legend, the boat which is acting on behalf of consumer as a personal assistant which does the all the functions of a human mind goes and let's say pre selects products and services at the most optimal price, which perfectly fits to my taste as a consumer. Whether it's a closing or travel, coming travel or maybe vacation trip, where actually not only compiles and provides me with some kind of a suggestions and offering, but actually going out up there in the market and acts on my behalf as a consumer, completes those transactions and bring me pretty much ready to go service a product where I can actually utilize and enjoy. And that gentic AI I think is going to completely change the way how consumers interact with us as brands and researcher function. Because we would need to really understand how generative AI or gentic AI perceives us as brands not only based on consumer preferences but but also based on reviews based on interaction of technology with that brand, that particular brand to CEO a number of brands. Right. So and again we need to think where us as marketing researchers or researchers and side professionals fit into that equation and how we will be able more efficiently to extract those actionable insights to advise the brands to be even more relevant in this hyper personalization era.

Speaker A: Yep, yep, super interesting. One of the things you said about the like, I, I agree with you about the, the personalization piece. I think I'd be curious to get your take. I'll, I'll give you mine first and hopefully this doesn't bias you. I always find it hilarious the debate that happens around privacy because I feel like on one hand, without a doubt, we love convenience. And when I say we, I mean we as humans, we love convenience. We love that our algorithm knows what type of, you know, power washing time lapse video on TikTok. We love that we know that it likes, we like cat videos. We like that Starbucks knows our order. We like, we like all. We like that Spotify suggests new music. Right. So like we love personalization and in my opinion you need data to have great personalization. However, there's also a disproportionate uproar it seems around privacy right where people are yelling, you know, once upon a time there was hashtag delete Facebook and all these kind of things happening. And my personal take is don't listen to what people say, watch what they do. And guess what? People are still going to use it. And so they're doing it. And I actually think that I agree to have great experiences moving forward. We are going to need that personalization. What do you think in terms of that kind of balance between privacy and convenience? Because it can be quite polarizing. Uh, it's definitely a topic of conversation. We're seeing big tech do this with the Apple kind of iPhone ads where it's like all security and you know, the iOS 14.5 updates. I'm just curious as to like where. Yeah, where do you, where do you land on that?

Speaker B: Yeah, that's a awesome question. I love it, Charlie. So before we jump actual security, security or privacy? Sorry, security. Privacy. Actually if you the way how I approach show the value in return for some in a sense privacy information. Right. I mean by that if you look at the national consumer survey views on the recently BI which has been done 26% of the US consumers saying that they would share their private information, personal, not personal information in return for personalized services. So that means every data point. Yeah, that means thank you. That means every fourth consumer says yes, I'm willing to share but show me the value and the way how it needs to be done. Not in a creepy way again. So I'm not asking for your PII personal identifiable information. I'm asking about your preferences and tastes. Right. So maybe purchase history, what are you buying? Where are you vacationing without really knowing the Charlie's Charlie where he lives, his email, his Social Security in US or whatever that identification you use in Canada. Right. So pretty much have staying high level but same time creating personalized experiences related to my business with you. That's where I see the potential. Once consumers realize and see that opt in model should work. And that's what I see. Especially younger generations when they can get those flash sales, specialized sales from the loyalty program with discounts or more personalized services. Not in the creepy way exactly, not kind of talking about your family or something, what you've done three years ago, but really concerning or related to that product or service they want to procure or consider procure from us. Then you will see that consumers say, yes, there is a gdrp, there is a privacy. And we both know, for example we live in two different markets where Canadian market is much more stricter than US market in terms of the privacy and much more challenging for companies like, ah, yours to conduct the business sometimes to get those insights. But showing that value to consumers is the way forward because once you have that critical mass of consumers feeling that they really getting the value in a good way. So we will see that tight change kind of situation.

Speaker A: Uh, yeah, well, and it's funny, just as I'm listening to you answer that, I think about to what you said earlier, where the devil is in the details and I can't help but wonder, has the word data and privacy just kind of been thrown around as a blanket thing? But to your point, the devil is in the details or the value is in the details, where we're saying, yes, there is, you need privacy. But the data points that we would actually use for personalization aren't necessarily personally identifiable. However, they can still provide value to you as a consumer as well as value to the business. And there is a fair value exchange happening between the two sides that ultimately creates a, you know, a net positive for both, for both sides. And so I think, and now that as we're kind of talking this through, and I'm definitely thinking out loud here as I go, oh, has everything just kind of been overblown before? Or people just say the word data and they instantly latch on to thinking like it's going to be my sin number and my data, most private detailed information. When it's like, no, really, I just want to know like, do you like the Denver Nuggets or are you more of a Miami Heat fan? You know what I mean? Like Canada, right? So, so it is one of those things. But I think you raise a good point, right? The devil is in the details or the value is in the details. And I think that when most people who aren't necessarily as savvy with data privacy, all of that sort of stuff, but are very sensitive to it, I wonder if they're kind of thinking like, oh no, I've that big brother is kind of looking over at me and you know, I think the vast majority of businesses could actually care less about what your sin number is. They want to more so understand like what are, where are you spending time so we can actually try and go out there and earn some of your attention to potentially put our brand in front of you.

Speaker B: Right, right. Our physical address. And I think it stems out of like kind of a search engine providers. Right. So initially when you go and look at something and, and right away after that you start feeding or getting those feeds of commercials or advertising those products which you just click on it accidentally. And that's what creeped out the people. Probably in the first place it felt like first place we felt like out of place. It needs to be relevant, not just maybe some kind of one offs. When consumers do something, it needs to be very much uh, uh, based on understanding, based on a history of interactions, based on purchase history. Then it makes sense. Then consumers will feel that's much more relevant versus you kind of watching my every step and move. Every, every step you go, right, so that's what's been happening before. It needs to be kind of this noise should be eliminated and be really one to one relationship instead of okay, we're gonna watch every step you take in digital arena. Right. So in the digital omnichannel, that's not gonna work anymore. So yeah, you're absolutely right.

Speaker A: Uh, so okay, I want to, you know, you've worked in financial for a long time. Financial services is a highly regulated industry. We have a lot of marketers who listen to this show who are working in financial services. Do you have any tips that kind of come to mind for balancing the need for innovation, but also caution required to kind of stay compliant? Because you know, oftentimes we've had this where we, we work with a lot of financial services customers and you know, there's something really interesting happening out there in the market and they go, yeah, you know, like that'll, that'll never happen for us because we're in a different kind of thing. How do you think about that? You know, whether you're helping your teams or is there, is there a framework or something that pops into your mind where you go hey, yeah, how do we push the envelope a little bit while staying compliant? Because it is very different than you know, selling consumer packaged goods or apparel or whatever. Right? Like there are just different, different things in, in financial services that other industries don't have to necessarily deal with.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, you're right. And especially I work both in banking and investments, wealth management. Right. And wealth management is even stricter than banking because again funeral regulation and uh, what you can do, what you cannot do. And to me look the way how I approach definitely always discover full disclosure. You need to be in compliance definitely you need to follow the, the rules and letter of the law. Right. So in file the regulatory agencies, uh, how you deal with consumers. But same time again building the relationship in terms of the innovation. Maybe it's new messaging, new commercial, but also building a relationship, one to one relationship. Especially in the financial services industry where people opening uh, accounts, they investing money, they opening banking products, they're really trusting us their financial future. That means financial health. It's like a doctor, right. So again very similar situation. If what you do, you pretty much asking for their permission. Again back to that uh, proactive opt in model where you asking them for permission to provide certain personalization, personalized products and services in return for some opportunities to really understand and knowing them. Right. Who they are as a consumers, as a clients, as investors. Right. So and that's where the innovation can come. Providing those more personalized services not as a blanket because you might cross some red lines. Right. So in terms of the regulatory, but once consumers, clients or investors give you that permission and they see that value, that's where you can kick in with some innovation Also top line, right. Upper funnel in the sense that's where you can come up with more creativity in terms of product and services offering, in terms of your messaging, in terms of the channels you're using, where you're knowing where your potential consumers or clients are. Right. So that's where I don't want to advertise making any advertising but you know there is this investment company, us based and they've been like a trading up company and they've been very much in the news but they constantly coming up up with innovation in terms of the products and financial services. Right. Offering so and as long as they act within the regulatory environment, so they actually attracting a lot of attention and interest from investors because they not being stalled, right. Or uh, stale I would say even styled. Excuse me. So because they're coming up with ideas how else they can attract the investors and potential clients, right. So what other products and services we can offer them. So that is true by reaching out and penetrating the market architecture and crossing those white spaces, I guess chasms through innovation. What else we're not covering, what else we're not thinking and where my potential investors might be interested in. And that's how you overcome that kind of a, uh, regulatory act in a regulatory environment like healthcare, financial services. Right. As you know. So that's the way forward. And I hope that generative AI is going to help us to be even more creative in terms of thinking about those potential patterns and identifying those unique opportunities for touch points, journeys, etc. Mhm.

Speaker A: Totally. One of the things that comes to mind is, you know, we do a lot of work where we're looking, we're working with a customer in a specific industry, but we help them look at another industry. And where that actually came from was there's this woman named Marissa Thalberg. She used to be the CMO at like Taco Bell and a whole bunch of different places. She's super smart. But she has this quote that we always thought about at Right Metric, which was you need to look within your industry for information and outside your industry for inspiration. And so oftentimes, uh, the best kind of like learning and innovation can actually come from maybe other industries. But then you're transferring that or taking inspiration and using that to drive innovation within your own industry. Talk about that like you, that could be a way. We've seen that work in financial services. What do you think about that?

Speaker B: Absolutely, yes. Uh, bring the analogy. So like look for that inspiration from other industries and what else consumers are doing that. That's absolutely right approach. And in my work I constantly bring experiences from CPG and retail industries. You know, in North America it's a duopoly between two providers, Nielsen and nowadays and look at financial services and say, hey, this is what, how it's done. Even in terms of the privacy in uh, what we call merchant world. Right. So versus what financial services apply. And if you want to provide additional insights and business insights and support your uh, business partners, you need to apply uh, some principles and maybe some innovation from other industries the way how other players are doing. Right. So uh, I, I absolutely. I couldn't agree more with this statement. So you need to look for inspiration outside of your industry very often.

Speaker A: Yep. Okay. As we start to wind down the episode here, I just have a couple more questions. So if you could offer one or two immediate actions or pieces of advice to either marketers or Insights Pro to kind of how they should think about navigating shifts, what would they be?

Speaker B: Be proactive. Not like everybody says, oh, you need to have a, uh, natural curiosity, um, and learn about new things. We all do. We read a lot, we try to apply skills. But be proactive. Right. I know very often daily routine and work and family is kind of get us into this kind of a routine. We um, focus on what is important at hand right now, the task at hand. But sometimes try to allocate time, maybe a week or something to really be proactively learning something you want to focus on and let's say generative AI in research. Right. Or some new trends in your industry. So that's number one. Besides the curiosity, besides the learning new skills in general, be proactive, see what is most relevant to you and your industry. And the second one, like you're saying, couple ones probably, uh, look for opportunities where you can interact people outside of your industry, outside of your function to learn something new. Uh, again, yes, you can read the books, you can do self directed kind of search, but when you interact with experts and people outside of your industry, actually you're learning a lot because again you're looking for those inspirations as you said Charlie. So outside of your industry or outside of your function, your profession, maybe I want to talk to somebody who's leading team and finance or cost accounting, you never know economics. So you're learning something new trends, what they observing. Maybe you didn't think about it. Right. So I was at the conference recently speaking and federal manufacturing brand manager came to me and said, oh, I never thought this way about uh, halo effect among Gen Z. Right. So because they actually using the digital wallet and not even thinking what card they use in the digital wallet because with time they totally forget about that. Right. So stuff like that. So you need to really kind of cross pollinate and interact with people from other their functions and other industries.

Speaker A: Yep, absolutely. And you mentioned this kind of, you know, continuous learning. I personally spend a ton of time reading. I know you do as well. Most insights folks tend to do that. What are the types of things that you read? I feel like you would have almost a non traditional or very broad reading diet. What are, is it, is it newsletters? Like is there different podcasts you listen to? Like what's the information diet that you have?

Speaker B: Yeah, that's a very good one. Yes. I do podcasts. I also read regular books. Right. Sometimes you need to take your mind off and especially nowadays audiobooks. I love to run and I run about 7, 8 miles, so I try to do it every week. Uh, it's very good for your kind of staying fit in general. Right. So but I do Haruki Murakami, I love this writer, prolific writer. So this is more for inspiration just to take my mind off. But I also do industry specific podcasts. Right. So I read a lot of syndicated reports or news. Right. So that's kind of a consumption. I try to not just focus on my industry. Again I'm looking at marketing, I'm looking at uh, different verticals. Right. Because I always curious understand what actually is going on with other industries. So but it could be just the basic stuff like Crossing the chasm by Professor Keller on marketing. Right. Or reading about consulting for example McKinsey mindset, recent book I just completed. Right. So stuff like that or podcast from consulting or other organization. Uh, other verticals you podcasts like yours. Right. Because those are specific to insights professionals. So it's more of um, what is interesting, what is uh, trending right now and what is fundamental. Right. So where else I can bump up my knowledge or refresh the mouth maybe. Maybe I need a refresh that can join or MaxDIF analysis. Right. So just this is more like boring stuff. Again I'm not trying to like here's the top five or three podcasts or books or some kind of publications I go to. Yes, there are some but I still try to be very open minded. Sometimes I Even do you YouTube, right. Because a lots of stuff, you be surprised. You can find a lot of stuff of documentaries and snippets I guess, um, on YouTube relevant to our industry or other industries. So.

Speaker A: Yep, absolutely. I feel like my reading has almost kind of evolved. You know when I was working more in marketing I was reading marketing specific stuff. And then as I kind of started to get more onto the insights thing, I started to read more broadly, not just around business, but just more broadly in general. I was reading, you know, psychology, I was reading all these other things I think about, you know, one of the books that I'm, I'm just reading and finishing right now is the Great Mental Models Volume 4 by Shane Parrish. And he's written, he's putting together these great mental models books. And so you know, the first volume is general thinking concepts. The second volume is all about mental models related to physics, chemistry, biology. The third one is systems and mathematics. And the fourth one, which I'm almost done is around economics and art and it's these mental models and I never thought that I would be interested in those. But now that I've read those I'm like, oh, you could apply that to all of these different things. So. So for me, selfishly, it's nice to hear that reading broadly across the board as well as going deep in different things sounds to like the way forward. So at least I'm doing that. Right.

Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Uh, I love it, actually. Thank you for referencing those books, because I'd love to read it now.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, they're great books. They're absolutely great books. Well, Michael, last question for you, because I'm sure there's going to be people wanting to know, how can people get ahold of you if they have questions?

Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. My LinkedIn is number one. Definitely. They can always connect with me via LinkedIn and they can always message me. So that would be the primary. And also I speak at the conferences. I speak at the major events. I'm probably going to be at Cannes at Alliance Festival of Creativity, so. And, um, I'm looking forward to meet and interact with the community and not only Insights Professional, but Marketing Product and many others. So. So I'm always open to expand my network and I really value this opportunity to speak with you today.

Speaker A: Yeah. Well, thank you so much for taking the time. We really appreciate you. And we're definitely going to have to have you back for another episode in the future.

Speaker B: Yeah, likewise. Thank you.

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Speaker B: Co.

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