Insight & strategy Challenging preconceptions other. With KnowledgeNet, you can see before you start a new project whats been done in the past, says Syddall. Amid these various changes for the insight function, its priorities include better understanding of the path to purchase hence, category and shopper being one of its five prongs. This means multiple research techniques are being applied from ethnographic research, going into bars and observing consumers and how they behave, and accompanied shops. Pinning down the best route to foresight is another area in which the business wants to improve. The challenge is that theres a lot of information, so we need to understand which trends are most relevant and not just a short-term blip. We then need to orientate the whole business around them. With its toolkit of research agencies and methodologies, Carlsberg has a broad approach but what does Syddall want to know thats currently not being achieved? Were about to kick off some more work on path to purchase. In the past, a consumers path to purchase was quite linear, but, increasingly, in this omnichannel world where were seeing all these channel boundaries blurring its more complex. So were about to start mapping all the points of interaction, and then well overlay our demand space understanding into that. The imperative for the insight function remains the same, however, Syddall says: Our businesses are changing all the time; its important in an insight function to put in time to reflect are we focused on the right stuff, and is there anything we need to dial up or change? The need for research is broad, so we had to explore where will we have the most commercial impact. In the UK, we now talk about it being a pilsner, not just a lager so weve With more than 140 brands across 100 given the brand a bit more meaning. markets, insight must be applied across From a central-team perspective, we global and local markets. While Syddall, supported the refresh of Carlsbergs based in Carlsbergs central office in global positioning and branding, which Copenhagen, is focused on global work, rolled out quite a different pack design she says there is a cross-pollination of for Carlsberg. ideas. Were respecting and learning about the local markets, and where its relevant we then scale it up. Managing data The repositioning of Carlsberg in the In terms of centralisation, a major issue UK is an example of local markets going for the business with more than 40 it alone. While Syddall wasnt involved insight and analytics people around in this project directly, she says it the world is sharing human data demonstrates the way the business intelligence. To this end, it is building thinks. The company recognised it a knowledge toolkit the needed to revisit our brew in the UK, KnowledgeNet platform which hosts and the local team went with this the data from all its markets. This is not really ballsy campaign to support the just about servicing the insight team, new brew, challenging the probably but rather sharing knowledge with the the best positioning. It said we hold whole business. our hands up we dont think we are There are six of us in the central team the best. in group commercial in Copenhagen, This was based on a need to elevate but we have a big insight community in the experience of our products and the markets. Were keen to work as one challenge peoples preconceptions of team, and share and learn from each the brand. Consumers increasingly want transparent communication and I dont think it would have been enough to just We need to understand which say, weve reinvented our trends are most relevant and brews. We wanted not just a short-term blip something that cut through. 46