The Insights Association’s Anita Watkins on the Benefits and Risks of AI in Insights Development

Anita (00:00)

I'm Anita Watkins, the CEO of the Insights Association, and you are watching the CPG Guys podcast.

PVSB (00:07)

Hello and welcome to the CPG Guys Podcast. I am your gregarious co-host PVSBA. I also Moonlight is head of industry and client engagement at Flywheel, Omnicom's Commerce Acceleration Division. My co-host, he's the father of Pop Stars Rhea Raj and Katseye’s Lara Raj. The fans call him, of course, Papa Raj. He's also the co founder at Think Blue Consulting. Please join me in welcoming my better half, the man known as Sri. Sri, How are you doing?

Sri (00:34)

We gotta get the word right. Gregarious or garrulous. That's what's on my mind today. What do we call you? We're gonna ask our guests to choose at the end of the episode, Gregarious or Garrulous.

PVSB (00:39)

no, it's gregarious. It's it's it's angelic.

I like angelic, that works, Sri. It's pretty good.

Anita (00:46)

Mm.

Sri (00:48)

Mm. I I'm

not so sure that the qualification parameters of that, you'd score a little dot on that map. Gregarious I'll give you that.

PVSB (00:54)

I know you're at a you're

I know you're at an undisclosed location on vacation with the fam. How's it going? You you ready to get back at it? you and I are pretty close to going up to Ithaca and Cooperstown for a little baseball and Cornell.

Sri (01:07)

Yeah, about a week away from

the big Cornell event, one of a kind program in the industry. You and I get to Shepherd all the week, once a year. OmniCommerce is completely changing how media works and we have Who's Who from retail, including Walmart, Epsico, you know, and all the biggest brands and retailers in the world attending. But prior to that we got a little special going on, a bucket list moment for me, attending the Baseball Hall of Fame.

induction ceremony and I owe you for that one for catching it on time and getting us the tickets and us being there. And of course Peter, we have special surprise. We have jackets.

PVSB (01:47)

we managed to prize some budget out of our accountant for some baseball Hall of Fame swag, so it should be I don't know if you're gonna wanna I don't I don't know if you wanna wear a leather and wool jacket in the end of July in upstate New York.

Sri (01:53)

Yeah, you there's a downside.

Must spare

you that, but Peter, you know, on stage appearances from now what jacket you'll be wearing. I'll leave it at that.

PVSB (02:05)

Okay.

All right. Well, Sri, thanks as always for joining. To our audience, if you're getting value from these conversations we have a couple times a week, we have just three quick asks. First, subscribe to the podcast on whatever platform you're listening on right now, Spotify, Apple, Amazon, Music, whatever. Wherever you get your podcast, hit the subscribe or follow button so you never miss an episode. Second, leave us a rating. It takes a few seconds and it makes an enormous difference in helping other CPG and retail.

Professionals find us. We've built this community one listener at a time. And a five-star rating is the single best way you can help us keep growing it. Sri, your favorite place for French fries. It's not four guys, is it? Where five guys. It's five guys. That's right. Smash the smash the five. Smash the five. And third, follow us on LinkedIn. Between episodes, we publish.

Sri (02:52)

One, two, three, four, five.

PVSB (02:58)

Thought leadership, industry analysis, and content you won't find anywhere else. Everybody loves the retail media minute by our friend Jeff Malmod, who comes out once a week. It's all good stuff. It's built for CPG and retail community that you're already a part of. Search CPG Guys on LinkedIn and hit follow or click the link in the digital show notes of this episode. Subscribe, rate, follow. Three simple actions that help us bring you more of the conversations that matter. Speaking of mattering conversations, let's talk about our guest.

As AI rewrites the rules of consumer understanding and CPG budget shift towards data lakes, retail media signals, and synthetic respondents, the insights profession faces both an existential challenge and a defining opportunity. Today's conversation explores what the Insights Association is doing to protect data integrity, raise quality standards, and ensure that human-centered consumer understanding remains at the heart.

Of brand decision making. Today we are joined by someone who has spent her career at the very intersection of consumer truth and business impact and who now holds one of the most consequential leadership roles in our industry. Anita Watkins is the CEO of the Insights Association. They are the trade body for more than 30,000 data and insights professionals. She spent over two decades at Kantar, most recently as Chief Solutions Leader for Creative Innovation and Qualitative.

And she has been a relentless advocate for rigorous standards, ethical data practice, and developing the next generation of insights talent. She serves on the ARF Board of Trustees and has chaired the Michigan State MSMRA advisory board. If you want to understand what the insights profession needs to do to remain indispensable in an AI saturated world, well, you want to hear from Anita. Anita, welcome to the CPG guys. How you doing?

Anita (04:46)

I'm doing well. Thank you for that lovely introduction. It's great to be with both of you. And like you say, I spent actually almost three decades at Kantar. I was very close to making 30 years when I made the decision to take on the CEO role for the Insights Association. But it's been quite a journey and so much change throughout that time. And I think right now we're in the period of probably the most rapid change. So it is an exciting time to take on this new role.

PVSB (05:14)

Well, Sri and I were honored to meet you a couple months ago at the CPG Ignite event that you were hosting in Northern Kentucky University, just just beyond Cincinnati's borders. And Sri and I both agreed we needed to have you on because we think your voice is very important in this conversation. So to our audience, please check out the digital show notes of this episode. You're gonna find a hyperlink to Anita's LinkedIn profile and the Insights Association website so you can

Learn more as we carry on this conversation, which I'm now gonna kick off with my first question. As you mentioned, you spent nearly three decades at Kantar, most recently as the Chief Solutions Leader for Creative Innovation and Qualitative, and now you're leading a trade association. What drew you to the Insights Association at this particular moment in this industry's evolution?

Anita (06:02)

Yeah, well, I think it was partly where we are as an industry and partly as a personal choice. You know, it's like having having done what I did at Kantar for so long, and it was a great career, I'm very grateful to Kantar and and all the experiences I had. but it was time to look maybe think about what can I do to serve the industry beyond just the Kantar walls and try to make an impact and give back to the industry that I've loved for so long. So that's really what

first kind of you spark the idea. And then, you know, what Insights Association in particular stands for, whether it's the power of truth, the importance of ethics, the value of scientific rigor, I think in today's world, those things matter now more than ever. And we need to reassert the importance of each of those in a really bold and meaningful way moving forward. And

I'm as in love with AI as everybody else. I use it every day, all day, and you know, we're gonna continue to use it. But I think what I'm passionate about is making sure that research is done in service of humanity. After all, technology was created by humans, for humans, and we need to make sure that we keep humans at the center of everything we do in Insights, and and remain really committed to that. So

I'm all for speed and efficiency, but marketing effectiveness at the end of the day is what's really important and making sure brands stay closely connected to those they serve.

Sri (07:33)

Anita, first of all, I want to thank you for joining us here on the CPG Guys. I think now more than ever, with the impression that AI is making in its early days, it is very important that the industry on the brand side, the retail side, the service provider side put out qualified insights. I'm gonna say a word that's gonna sound controversial and probably going to make me sound a little outdated, a human glance before it's released.

Peter and I have built our careers on delivering insights and now more than ever, getting those insights professional to focus on delivering the right insights and not be over AI dependent because there's a lot of hallucination that exists within AI is very important. So thank you for having this association and getting it done. I'll put that as a backdrop now. You know, there you have 30,000 data and insights professionals that you're actually representing in the industry.

When you walked into this role, having been an insights champion as it is from your previous role, what surprised you most about stepping into advocacy kinda little bit of what I said and membership role versus a commercial one? Because when you walked in, AI was not the head honcho of the day.

Anita (08:46)

having been on the commercial side and serving clients for almost thirty years, you know, this is a different type of service. the first thing that was so surprising was quite frankly how much there was to learn. You know, I'm I've been in the industry for thirty years. I thought, okay, well, it's an association. I'll learn all the ins and outs of how this no. I was blown away.

At what the Insights Association does. You mentioned advocacy. That's an area that quite honestly a lot of the industry takes for granted because Insights Association and our lobbyists are working on your behalf and we are taking care of it for you. But there is constant threatening regulation that you're advocating either for or against, whether it's unfair government competition or stopping harmful taxes from targeting us or defending the census, which is very important to us.

Or preserving the incentives for research participants and how those get taxed. Things like that. I mean, there's so much. And not to mention privacy and AI, some of the bigger things that we advocate for. So that was something to really deep dive into and then I really honestly took for granted. And the second thing is that what we do with our Certification Institute for Research Quality and the ISO standards, this is something that if you're a member company out there or with

To be a member or you want to consider being certified, I would highly, highly recommend this. So all of the work that we do to ensure quality requirements are met, whether it's in how you do all of the work, whether it's research or information security management.

We all understand the data quality challenges that our industry has faced. And Insights Association is giving you the tools and will work with you to make sure you have all of these things established to provide the best product to your clients. So I think it's really, really those two areas, you know, I kind of took those for granted. So I had to really learn a lot about that. And then the third thing, quite honestly, is when you work for a not for profit and I have a boss, which is a board, and 30,000 members.

and a thousand volunteers in committees. So it is a very different way in a small team, of course. it's a very different way of getting things produced.

Sri (00:00)

So Anita, you mentioned certification. of course in the digital liner notes of this episode we'll have links to the Insights Association website. So if an organization or someone wants to get certified, can they just go to your website and find details or what's the best way for them to begin this process?

Anita (00:15)

Yes,

I'm glad you mentioned that. Yes, you can go to our website. There'll be a link. can email and contact myself, Anita.Watkins at InsightsAssociation.org, or you can find more information on the website and connect with us that way. Either way works for us.

PVSB (00:32)

We're going to have a link to the association site in the digital show notes of this episode. So fear not, everyone. You don't have to write it down. It's already embedded right there for you to click on. Anita, consumer goods companies are under some pretty big pressures these days. Tariffs, private label competition, shrinking research budgets. The question to is, how is the insights function holding up and where do you see it either gaining or losing strategic influence in the C-suite?

Anita (01:02)

Well, that's actually a good question for the C-suite. But I'll give it a shake of how I would answer it. I think in general,

whether it's CPG or any sector really. I think Insights in general needs to do a much better job linking what we do to strategy, to outcomes, to business outcomes. And I think, you know, on the whole, if we're honest with ourselves as an industry, I think we have for decades now served up Insights and then kind of called it a day. Maybe we've left some recommendations in the reports or we've had a, you know, a workshop, but then we kind of back, back away.

I feel like now it's more important than ever and not just on the marketing side, but all parts of an organization where we see insights really becoming democratized. Our future hinges on the fact that we can actually use human judgment to take those insights into the last mile or even the first mile where you're actually turning those into decisions and then outcomes. And the more we can link those two things together, insight, strategy, outcomes, or three things, I guess.

the better off we're gonna be. And if we're honest with ourselves, I think we have room for improvement. And in an AI native world, we better step up to the plate and do this. This is my alarming call for everybody listening. If you're not quite doing that now, make sure you make plans to do so. I think your future is really gonna hinge on that.

Sri (02:29)

There is no debate in the CPG guys' head on that one. you know, we were at your Ignite conference over at Northern Kentucky University, as Peter just mentioned a little while ago, in and around the Cincinnati area. We of course got to present, we gotta hear some of the speakers and also mingle with the participants. But through the day, Anita, what are some of the key dominant themes that really piqued your curiosity and

What do you think as a result of which insight leaders should pay most attention to and see how to solve for the industry? AI of course is one of but outside of that.

Anita (03:08)

well first of all you all did the both of you really kicked off our day in such a powerful way. I told our events programming team. said wow what a way to start the CPG event with the CPG guys. You had such the context so clear and crisp for the audience. It was is really helpful. I know I took a lot of notes. I think the big theme from the day was that as insights professionals in the CPG realm we really need to work hard to turn complexity into

clarity

and using AI, smarter research and better shelf execution to meet a more demanding and less loyal consumer. I mean, that sums it up in a nutshell. I think a lot of what you shared at the beginning of the day and where you're talking about rising complexity everywhere, all these things you just mentioned, tariffs, supply chain, geopolitics, you know, and then you go into the shelf, you have extensive assortments. And then the fact that all of these dynamics are happening

in precisely the same time when consumer expectations are changing. So you have a less loyal Gen Z, a more value conscious digitally native consumer. So all of these forces converging really, really put the pressure on the insights leaders to really step up and guide the organization through all of these swiftly changing dynamics. So.

I think the other thing to note, and you might have said it, but consumers are changing faster than brands. So I think we really, as a brand leader, need to make sure we're at pace with where they are. So they're becoming much more price sensitive, as you mentioned. They're becoming more open to private label. And they're easily overwhelmed. So,

I think there's a lot of work to do, but I think it also means there's a lot of opportunity for those brands and those retailers to get it right. To win big.

Sri (05:05)

And so clearly the themes are emerging. It's pretty clear to us as you mentioned. You know, we've been observing the industry. A lot of those conversations happen in the room that day. Do you feel the industry, C suite, other leadership to where these insights leaders are accountable are able to get that message through?

Anita (05:26)

I think sometimes yes. I can think about cases where, yeah, I think they are getting some of the message through and you can see some of the brands that continue to just succeed and do well. And then I think others maybe are lagging behind and how they catch the attention, I think it has as much to do with the insights themselves. So that's what I mean about kind of that last mile or that activation side of the equation of what we can do and play a role. We need to be

better storytellers and stop sending off 40 slides where the reader is bored stiff by the third page and they don't know even what you're trying to say. So there's all kinds of new ways to actually deliver the stories and bring these things to life, but also kind of hold hands with the teams that need to make decisions based on the information that we're providing. So yeah, think some could do much better. Yeah, for sure. I think we have opportunities.

abounding everywhere.

PVSB (06:25)

Anita, the Insights Association has a webinar series literally titled Simulating Humans. Sri and I would say that's a pretty provocative framing. So how should consumer brands think about AI generated synthetic respondents versus real consumer research? And where does the AI draw the line on standards around this?

Anita (06:51)

Yeah, that's something that keeps coming up. It's funny my second week in the job I got tagged on a LinkedIn question on this very topic and it was just I was like, wow, I'm gonna have to answer this about synthetic and this is the big discussion point. I better get a point of view on what does Insights Association want to say about this topic? I think I'll just first step back and say that synthetic data really isn't the risk.

misusing it is. And I think the future of insights really depends on balancing innovation with transparency, rigor, and trust. And what we're seeing now, we actually just put a survey out to understand the adoption rate of synthetic and then how many people are using it, what use cases they're using, and how they're seeing it. We're just getting some preliminary results and we haven't gotten the full study back yet, but.

early signs say that where the applications seem to be most useful is a little bit earlier in the process where you're looking at early stage exploration or hypothesis generation or scenario modeling. And it's really more complementary to human, verified human data and human insights and shouldn't be a replacement for. And I think the most important thing is to keep human judgment in the loop at all times, for sure.

And I think in terms of what we're saying around it is it's not a replacement, but it can be used to accelerate learning and reduce the burden on real participants. But we should never mislead our stakeholders. It shouldn't replace human judgment entirely. And the ethical innovation is essential for long-term future of any of these methods, because trust is obviously in jeopardy if we don't do that.

We have started to look at this in our IA code and a lot of the main themes in terms of what we would recommend are that we have to have a clear purpose for its use, methodological rigor, strong transparency, consent and understanding how previous data is getting anonymized or feeding LLMs and getting clarity between terms and conditions with your clients and your suppliers and agencies.

And again, just being completely transparent. That is a non-negotiable. And so, you know, setting those guardrails in place in terms of ethical use, but also critically to make sure you manage risks around false certainty, which you mentioned earlier, bias or lack of representation, you know, all of those things. So, but I do think this is going to be here from here on out.

So we need to know how to work with all these new methods and like synthetic data and synthetic personas, and there's lots of different categories. But at the bottom line is that it's a powerful tool, but I don't think it should be a replacement for verified human data and human-centered insight.

Sri (09:48)

again, I think at the top of this conversation we kind of discussed you know, we use simple words like human glance, but what I really meant is humans to look and approve at the insights being put out. You know, I do believe AI at some point will have very good intelligence, but it's not gonna have the experience of a human under any circumstance. Some may argue that if you put four thousand experiences via AI in, it may be smarter than the average human, but

we haven't seen that day yet. So until we see that day, we're not gonna give it that much credit. So clearly, clearly, simulating humans is a topic that caught my attention. synthetic data you've

Anita (10:22)

Yeah.

So sign up next week. Come and join us.

Sri (10:33)

Synthetic data is something you have already spoken to. But I see AI as this mixed bag of opportunity, because maybe the insights can be generated a whole lot faster with great content. But I also see it as a threat to the insights profession because of everything we've been speaking so far, including the synthetic data. If I ask you to pinpoint what are what are some of those risks, or is there one possible risk to the integrity of consumer data?

What would that be? And then with the role that y'all have at the IA, how are you going about preventing that risk or trying to eliminate or minimize it?

Anita (11:14)

Yeah, so I'll talk about the risks next but first what we're doing is we are doing a lot I would say so the first thing is we participate in a global work stream called the global data quality work stream of which Looks at all of these topics with great detail and great interest We also of course have a standards committee that works on our code our IA code and making sure it's up to date with AI and all the things we need to be educating our

our member base in the industry at large for. And so there's quite a lot that I think we're doing. have town halls. Of course, it'll be on stage at our corporate researchers conference coming up in September. If you haven't registered yet, there's the plug. Do so now before it sells out. It's going to be great. A thousand researchers there, over half brands. So we hope to see you there. But in terms of the risks around AI, I think just to take a step back before we talk about research.

I think the risk of AI in general is the race to the average, is the race to the middle. And I think the problem with that is that brands need to be meaningful, different, they need to have nuance, they need to stand out. marketing in its heart is about creativity, it's about imagination, it's about possibility, it's about things that AI can give us a foundational understanding of, but really it's the human that's gonna take that.

and make it such that a brand is something that some people want to buy. So I think the critical questions that researchers and others need to ask around AI is first, where's the data coming from? How current is the data? How representative is it? How frequently is it refreshed? Which leads to a core need, which is we're going to have to refresh these models.

with verified human data frequently because humans are constantly changing. that's also gonna mean, because poor inputs are gonna mean poor outputs. So just because you have a huge lake of data doesn't mean the output is gonna get you where you need to go now. And I think we talked a little bit about trust earlier, but really understanding trust in the data itself, trust in methodologies, and then trust in the outputs.

And that's really going to require human judgment all along the way. So I think, you know, the biggest risk isn't really with AI and the technology, but the biggest risk is becoming disconnected from humans themselves as a result.

PVSB (13:41)

Let me remind our audience that today Shreya and I are speaking with Anita Watkins. She's CEO of the Insights Association. Anita, I'm going to put a link in the digital show notes of this episode to the corporate researchers conference that you referenced earlier so that anyone listening can find that in our show notes very easily. Don't even have to go to your site. You can go right to the microsite for the event registration.

So the Insights Association has been driving the Global Data Quality Excellence Pledge and launching new resources around procurement and incentive guidelines. So for consumer brands buying research, what should they actually be demanding from their vendors right now that oftentimes they just aren't?

Anita (14:27)

In fact, we just did a town hall on this very topic a few weeks back. But what we recommended is buyers to first look in the mirror. What are they doing to help with data quality? You know, are they demanding we have super lengthy questionnaires that people, know, it's more, you know, could potentially bake in, you know, bad quality responses. That's one thing. But then in terms of looking at the suppliers, the agencies they work with, you know, we have a whole checklist of things like

Can you share your written data quality standard operating procedures? What does your fraud duplication detection rate look like? How are your URL parameters protected? Is that encryption or rotation? How are you doing that? What standards govern the work? Do you adhere to certain ethical codes like IA? Are you ISO standard certified?

And how do you pilot questionnaires before launch? Some of those simple things. Again, like I mentioned, how do you handle long, fatiguing, or accessibility-sensitive questionnaires? And what about the subcontractors you work with? How are you managing them? And finally, have you signed the Global Data Quality Pledge? Because if you have, then you'll go through some of this, and you already have done some standard operating procedures to get yourself a little further.

Those are the things that we always recommend to buyers to start with. But I think what we'd like to move to too is it's really both teams working together. And we've seen a lot of brands now say, you know what, we're not going to push it all just on the agency side. We're going to step up as well and take responsibility to be a partner in this effort also.

Sri (16:10)

You know, it's great that you're asking organizations about their data quality standards as well as internal policies that they have. Having worked for some of the largest Fortune five hundred brands in the world myself, I know those don't exist. But the pressure from the organization hopefully requires them to create it so that as AI becomes more popular, the quality of the input is robust and industrial indeed. But I'm gonna

Keep that as my backdrop now when I ask you about survey. So survey fraud, data integrity issues around these things have become were and have now become a serious industry problem. I can just imagine if you feed 10 surveys into AI, the kind of hallucination it's going to give you if it's not accurate. In your eyes, what have you seen? Is it serious? And then what levers do you have at

the Insights Association to enforce quality standards across the ecosystem. One of course is you're asking for documents that show that there are quality standards, but anything else out there? And then how bad is it?

Anita (17:16)

Well, I think, you know, we just did like this town hall I mentioned earlier, I think, you know, some.

some rates of fraud are anywhere from 20 to 30 percent, some even higher depending on the segment. But the good news is that it's getting caught much more often and they're getting taken out and surveys rerun, etc. I think in the future the panel providers and other survey companies, the ones that win, will have definitely ways to verify it as a human, just like banks and outside of our industry have done for many years now. So in fact we just

We're listed at Town Hall where we had cybersecurity experts from beyond the industry because we really see this as a cybersecurity threat. We've been just talking to ourselves for a long time. So let's go to the experts who have been doing this in financial services, in the legal realm, in the tech space, all of those domains we can learn a lot from. So we have a full group within Insights Association, a task force called the Council for Data Integrity that also partners with the Global Data Quality Workstream.

And so we've really been trying to attack it from all kinds of angles. And I think, you know, just stay close to us because I do think that was another surprise, honestly, when I joined. I knew this was going to be a big topic for the Insights Association, but I was blown away by how much work is already done and that's always ongoing. And so, yeah, stay close to us for that, for sure.

PVSB (18:45)

I am often reminded that we don't just live in one country. We live in a country of 50 smaller countries, each with their own rules and regulations. The Insights Association is actively tracking state-by-state privacy legislation, GDPR, and how the proposed Secure Data Act will impact the industry. How does a fragmented US privacy landscape create

operational challenges for consumer brands doing consumer research at scale. I've got to imagine that this isn't very easy.

Anita (19:24)

Well, as you can imagine, if we had a patchwork quilt of privacy laws across 50 states, can you imagine doing a national survey? With all these various requirements, it would be a complete nightmare. So the Insights Association lobbies for comprehensive privacy legislation at the federal level. And we have been working in a coalition that we helped to found called the Privacy for America Foundation and its model and this framework that we all created together.

that really would preempt this morass of growing conflicting state legislation. There's 20 so far that I know of. And that would improve the situation at the federal level. And so we're really working on that. And I think we have a new platform that we're a part of called Quorum. This is another plug. And if you sign on, it's so easy to do. You put in your information and you can log on once a week or wherever you want to.

And it will give you the work that we're doing on your behalf to lobby either at the federal level or the state level where you're sat. And we will give you exactly the laws that are in play, Insights Association's point of view for the industry, text, and you just click, click, click, and you can automatically send off a lobby note to your individual state, local representatives, and then sometimes, of course, there'll be federal legislation as well that we're asking to help you.

And you can choose to do some or all or not all or whatever you're interested in. You can customize them. It's so easy. Within five minutes, you can fire five notes. And a lot of times you will hear right away back from your state representatives or congressmen and women. So it's fantastic. We'd love to see more uptick because we have one full-time lobbyist on staff, Howard Feinberg, and he's amazing. But he's one person. So can you imagine if through technology now we can have

up to 30,000, 40,000, anybody can join this and help us make an impact to protect the great work that we do from harmful laws. There's always something popping up too, which is so interesting. And you'll be amazed at just how much work we do to make sure we can continue doing what we do.

PVSB (21:20)

Mm-hmm.

So if you're trying to take this to the national level, does that mean that by definition, whichever is the most comprehensive state law, say it's the California Consumer Protection Act, the CCPA, that that becomes the default? Or is there some horse trading that's going on here that can allow the federal government to supersede what the states are doing for the purpose of

bringing clarity to an otherwise very confusing landscape on privacy.

Anita (22:15)

Yeah, exactly. I do believe it's the latter. I'm not an expert in how we would be able to tell you all the details, but yeah, I believe there would be some compromise involved and it would be the most radical, laws adopted at the federal level. But I do think it may be some time until we get that kind of bipartisan agreement and something, you know, that's pushed through. But we're certainly working hard on that because it would be beneficial for everyone. It would be beneficial for consumers, for us as individual citizens.

as well as for industry at large. So, yes.

Sri (22:46)

That is absolutely fantastic. Another thought that came to my mind after Peter and I have been discussing it is the fact that you recently raised concerns about how the Department of Labor classifies actual research respondents, which of course could end up as a serious data challenge, insights challenge for the entire industry, and how even maybe brand equity is developed, created, how innovation cycles are.

getting their input and and which means all of that can only mean real expensive implications for brands, which means eventually it impacts retailers. Can you take a moment for our audience and explain what's at stake here to get this right?

Anita (23:34)

Yes, absolutely. Well, the insights industry needs laws and regulations that are most likely recognize research subjects as receiving participant incentives as independent contractors and not employees. So this is really important. And federal and state labor and tax authorities sometimes misclassify research subjects receiving incentives for participating in market research as actual employees of the companies conducting the research studies, which can be

very costly, as you can imagine, and very detrimental to doing insights work. and sometimes these laws and regulations are so maybe inadvertently flawed that they make it difficult for research subjects to be properly classified as independent contractors. And so when that kind of goes, you know, off of the edge, then we really have to step in and lobby to get them pulled back. And we had a situation with that in California recently.

which Insights Association actually helped to correct. And so that was a big win for us. And so that meant we continued doing work and paying incentives to participants and not getting them taxed as an actual employee of a company. So there's all these kinds of things. Like I mentioned when I was at Kantar, I never even really knew was happening, but it's happening all the time. So this is where I'd love to get more people to support Insights Association because we are...

the member-based association where your membership dollars go to fund all of this advocacy work that we do, not just events and all the other amazing things that we do, but this is really, really important. So that you all stay in business and do great work.

PVSB (25:15)

I would agree if you're an insights professional and you Wonder how these issues get resolved. Well, it's the insights Association doing it on your behalf in the background And you want to play a more active role So again go to the link in the show notes of this episode to learn more about how you can become actively engaged

Anita, you've been recognized for developing the next generation of insights leaders throughout your career, particularly your time at Kantar with burnout high among market researchers and AI changing the job description pretty rapidly. What will you tell a young person today about why this profession is really worth pursuing?

Anita (26:00)

Well, I definitely think it's worth pursuing. mean, I think importantly in today's world, we need stewards of the truth and professionals who want to understand people to build better businesses, better societies, ultimately create a better world. I think what we do matters, and I hope to remind the Insights community that the work you do is really important.

You you help to bring the best products, services, brands to the world and sometimes, you know, help change lives because of it. And we need people who are curious to enter our profession, who want to understand people. And the United States is, I love the diversity and the richness and the complexity of our great country where we can explore all of these things and the generations coming behind me that

Think differently. I love it. I think it's brilliant. And I think we need more and more of that next generation to enter a profession and help us navigate the future. I think insights, whether it's in the consumer packaged goods world or any other spaces that we play, great human centered insights, human centered truths that intend to make life better. It's meaningful. It's important. Our enduring purpose is eternal.

to understand people, that's never gonna change, no matter what method, AI native or other ways of doing work. I've seen those changes all throughout my 30 years, but that enduring purpose is eternal to understand people and that will never go away. That'll be a need 100, 200, 300 years from now when we're all no longer walking the face of the earth. So don't forget the people behind the data and enjoy this profession. It's fantastic.

I think we're really in the golden age of understanding people and it's needed now more than ever.

Sri (27:53)

needed now more than ever. Yes. So I get the pleasure of asking you the last question on this episode. And I'll go back to the time in when you were appointed to this role. You said I've spent my career believing in the power of insights to drive better decision making and better outcomes for the industry. For CPG brands that are dip deprioritizing primary research in favor of data lakes and retail media signals.

What's the outcome and you know, Peter and I would like to say the cost of that trade off that they might not be understanding today and maybe running with this flow?

Anita (28:30)

Yeah, well, I think all of that is fantastic that we can have all that data. But don't forget the person behind the data, that rational, emotional human being that's trying to make their way in the world, that has hopes and dreams and fears and challenges and just wants to make a better life for themselves or their children.

The signals are important and they're gonna be great and they're a piece of the puzzle, but understanding that whole person is really, really critical. The context in which they're living and research in service of humanity and not the other way around is really what we need to focus on. And I think it's that human centered insight that adds that creativity, inspiration, imagination that creates meaningful difference for brands that

is so, important. don't forget to get really close to the people that you serve. And I think that's what I hope we'll continue to do.

PVSB (29:33)

Do you see that Sri in your effort to build an AI agent to replace me as co-host? You have lost the humanity in our relationship. Listen to Anita.

Sri (29:44)

you're assuming you and I deliver any insights at all?

PVSB (29:47)

I, well, in any event, just remember the humanity here. Sri, this is a really great conversation. What's your big takeaway from what Anita shared with us?

Sri (29:56)

When I walked into the presentation that we did at the Ignite conference, I knew we'd meet a lot of insights professionals. You and I prioritize insights very highly in our ecosystem or what we put out on the CPG guys. That's how we qualify our candidates. But the one thing I did not know about the Insights Association, which we've had quite a deep conversation on today, is the advocacy and the lobby work that needs to happen.

For some strange reason, Peter, it did not even feature in my mindset that when it comes to data, these things are as important as sugar or food or bev or colors in food, things of that nature. I just did not know it never naturally occurred to me. So the role of Anita and the Insights Association in ensuring, I'm gonna say a few words here, data quality standards, keeping accountability for brands.

to have those in the first place asking them for data control policies. And then right towards the end, Peter, I think it was my question number 10 that I asked about the classification of labor, a department of labor and how it's calling certain people employees. That doesn't even make sense. But somebody's got to keep all this in check. And that valuable role that the Insights Association provides in this,

is a new learning moment for me. And I think for many in the industry it probably is as well as a result. Because I come from three decades of brand stewardship. What about you, Peter?

PVSB (31:30)

Yeah, I'll double down on that, The Insights Association sweats the details so that professionals don't have to. And to some degree, we take that for granted. No, think that they play a very important role. I would encourage people, if this is something that's your passion, think about attending the CRC event, the Corporate Researchers Conference, that's September 15th through the 17th. It's in Chicago.

It's probably well worth your time. You can learn about how you can get more engaged in this industry and all CPG brands, you should be part of the Insights Association. This is an important role that they play in enabling you to do the research you need to innovate and to respond to consumer needs. It's absolutely something you should do. So that's my big takeaway.

Anita, thank you for taking time out of your schedule to join us for this conversation. We really appreciate it. We look forward to you've got new news and things happening. Give us a ring. We'll have you back on. We would love to talk to you about this is the kind of stuff that Sri and I love geeking over. So we're happy to do that with you.

Anita (32:42)

Thank you so much for having me and thank you so much for letting us share stories from the Insights Association. It's been a pleasure to speak with both of you. Let's connect again soon.

PVSB (32:54)

To our audience, if today's conversation sparked something for you, maybe a new idea, a fresh perspective, I hope so. Maybe it's just a reminder of why this industry is worth showing up for every day. I think absolutely we covered that today. Share it, tag us, tell a colleague. The more voices we bring to this community, the sharper all of us get. And to the over 46,000 followers on LinkedIn that trust us to inform, educate, and entertain them about our industry, thank you.

for your trust and encouragement. We are so grateful and anytime you see us at an industry event like CPG Ignite or what have you, come up and say hi to us. We don't bite, we're very nice, we're very friendly. Until next time, keep pushing the conversation forward. I am PVSB On behalf of my co-host, Papa Raj, this has been the CPG Guys Podcast. Goodbye.