PepsiCo’s Kate Garner On How To Leverage Data To Take Your Company To The Next Level

The proper use of Data — data about team performance, data about customers, or data about the competition, can be a sort of force multiplier. It has the potential to dramatically help a business to scale. But sadly, many businesses have data but don’t know how how to properly leverage it. What exactly is useful data? How can you properly utilize data? How can data help a business grow? To address this, we are talking to business leaders who can share stories from their experience about “How To Effectively Leverage Data To Take Your Company To The Next Level”. As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Kate Garner.

Kate Garner serves as Senior Vice President Marketing, Demand Accelerator and has been with PepsiCo for over 20 years. She has worked in a number of roles throughout the marketing department and has been instrumental in building out PepsiCo’s industry-leading data and insights capabilities, including their proprietary data practice pepviz. She is a graduate from the Wisconsin School of Business and earned her MBA in marketing from the University of Texas McCombs School of Business.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

Entering undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin, my goal was four years and a good, stable job. A career start in accounting, confirmed I have strong aptitude for numbers and analytics but my leadership strengths in trust and confidence were also noticed. I was recruited by executives at Sprint, a client, to join their Financial Management Development Program. While I enjoyed the experiences, the objective was always to return and get my MBA. Based on previous experience, I wanted to expand my critical thinking skills and at the University of Texas –Austin, I focused on strategy and marketing. Post-graduation, I joined Frito Lay in their marketing organization.

Over my 20-year career at PepsiCo, I’ve led teams across a variety of functions, including: Marketing, Sales, Strategic Insights and Advanced Analytics. Currently I serve as SVP PepsiCo Demand Accelerator where I lead over 200 people focused on key commercial growth levers: customer marketing, shopper data and analytics, and category leadership. Prior to this role, I held a variety of leadership positions, including SVP/general manager (GM) of Sales for Sam’s Club, where I was responsible for growth across the PepsiCo portfolio of beverages, snacks and breakfast products.

I also served as vice president of Strategic Insights & Analytics for Frito-Lay North America and vice president of Shopper Marketing for the Walmart Customer Team, where I elevated the role of Innovation in the PepsiCo and Walmart growth plan, led a digital learning agenda with the Walmart Labs team, and established account support for eCommerce. Before my time at Walmart, I was with Frito Lay for 10 years where I held a variety brand and insights roles, including leading the Lay’s brand into a double-digit growth turn around, winning two Silver Effies and a Gold Obie.

On a personal side, my husband Robert, and our twin daughters, Sibley and Cecilia, and I reside in Plano, TX.

It has been said that sometimes our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about a humorous mistake you made when you were first starting and the lesson you learned from that?

In the second year of my career, I moved to a new city and a new organization. For the first several months, I could feel people “staring” at me. It was a small office, so I dismissed it as my being the “new girl.” Then, to my surprise, HR issued an office wide memo that going forward women would be allowed to wear pants to the office. The only skirt I owned, I had worn to the interview and upon starting work, had only worn pants suits. My takeaway lesson here was to always be yourself.

Leadership often entails making difficult decisions or hard choices between two apparently good paths. Can you share a story with us about a hard decision or choice you had to make as a leader?

Two factors typically create an environment for difficult decisions. The first occurs when information is gathered and there is not a clear choice. Through my analytics and insights leadership experiences, I have learned there is a point of diminishing returns investing in incremental analytics or research. It is time for the business leaders to make a decision. Driving the decision requires outlining the key assumptions, identifying those with the greatest uncertainty, using judgement to make a recommendation and decision. Then move forward.

The second occurs where there are competing objectives. Typically, this comes down to conflict resolution. The best approach is to take an assessment of your own perspective and confirm that if the decision escalates, you are confident your recommendation aligns to the broadest organization objective. As a mentor once told me, “Then escalate the decision until you reach a reasonable person.”

Are you working on any new, exciting projects now? How do you think that might help people?

Artificial Intelligence is already hitting headlines as the ‘word of the year’ for 2023. The reality is that we are surrounded by uses today in daily life — in everything from the auto sensors in our cars, algorithms that personalize our streaming and shopping experiences, and even our watches. There is clearly a great deal of discussion on how this will impact the workforce as we know it in the future. Now is the time for business leaders to evaluate the opportunities, assess the benefits, and build a roadmap for adopting those that we think show the greatest promise for quality of work for our associates.

You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

I’d have to say learning, listening and going big.

Learning: My first career was in accounting and in that environment, professional education is a requirement to maintain your CPA license. There are similar requirements in other fields such as medicine and law, but in business, there are no specific requirements. For years, experience has been the equivalent to continuous education. However, over the last several decades the speed of technological change has required all leaders to invest in their development for the future.

Listening: Very little is constant in today’s world. We must be listening and ever-present to adapt and change, while perfecting our listening filters. In a time of messaging proliferation, one can become overwhelmed by the amount of information flowing at them. Excellence in listening today requires thoughtfulness in the commitment to listen, as well as focus on where to listen.

Going Big: One can listen and learn all day, but in the end, it is only action that will lead to the fulfillment of the shareholder’s expectations of growth. In a world that is quickly evolving, future leaders will lean into uncertainty, new frontiers, and be willing to try, learn, adapt, and repeat. This can be a big bet on a project, an opportunity to take on a role in a new function or organization, or even to sponsor an innovative idea. The biggest risk in today’s business world is standing still, as the world will evolve past you.

Thank you for all that. Let’s now turn to the main focus of our discussion about empowering organizations to be more “data-driven.” For the benefit of our readers, can you help explain what it looks like to use data to make decisions?

Everything we do at PepsiCo, from the products and equipment we create to the community initiatives we champion, is grounded in data and transformed into powerful insights by our talented data and analytics team. And these insights only become more powerful when we collaborate with our retailer partners.

We use pepviz, PepsiCo’s proprietary data and insights practice, to forge those partnerships. By bringing together our perspectives on the shopper, the category, and the biggest trends in F&B, we arrive at a bigger picture understanding of our customers’ unique problems to solve and shine a light on new opportunities for everyone to grow. In this way, pepviz helps PepsiCo turn our strength in data and insights into industry-wide thought leadership, helping raise all boats in Food & Beverage.

Based on your experience. which companies can most benefit from tools that empower data collaboration?

In today’s digital world, we think that every organization, regardless of industry or function, would benefit from stronger data collaboration and capabilities. However, in my line of work, I’ve seen the most direct value for our convenience and retail customers. Data was important before the pandemic but as omnichannel shopping continues to grow, we’re seeing even more opportunities through ecommerce and retail media networks.

Can you share some examples of how data analytics and data collaboration can help to improve operations, processes, and customer experiences? We’d love to hear some stories if possible.

In working with our retail partners, we’ve found that there are 5 core problems that they are consistently experiencing: winning new shoppers, driving loyalty, inspiring impulse purchases, improving specific category performance (for example, salty snacks or canned soft drinks) and boosting omnichannel shopping. Data helps us hone in on the specific problem at hand, and then leverage our robust data to offer personalized solutions.

For example, some retailers are located near an interstate which might make them strongly positioned to welcome road trippers, while others located near schools might see more carpool groups. Understanding who your shopper is (truck drivers, soccer moms, remote office workers), what time of day they will be visiting your store (breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack), what items will be most relevant to them and what sort of shopping experience they desire is important to driving sales.

A specific example we had recently is one of our retail partners had a problem to solve around declines in their Salty Snacks category. We used data to better understand that they had an opportunity to expand shopper reach within Salty.

We leveraged our space solutions to do a store-by-store analysis which revealed that there were opportunities to correct their space-to-sales dynamic and improve the aisle flow and focus on the expandability of Salty. We also provided new assortment recommendations and adjusted shelf offerings to match shopper needs which ultimately increased year-over-year sales in the Salty Snacks category, increased trips and converted more buyers.

From your vantage point, has the shift toward becoming more data-driven been challenging for some teams or organizations? What are the challenges? How can organizations solve these challenges?

Any sort of change can be hard to implement, especially if you don’t’ have a company culture built on innovation. Plus, in today’s world, technologies and new data systems are entering the market and evolving faster than ever before. Although this can certainly create some challenges, we see it as an incredible opportunity.

At PepsiCo, our digital transformation started long before the pandemic, but those years created an important opportunity for us to really put a spotlight on our stronger data capabilities and cement our status as an industry leader amid broader adoption of ecommerce, retail media and omnichannel shopping. By really building on our existing foundation and renewed partner trust, we have been and will continue to be specifically poised for early adoption and accelerated growth.

Still, one of the biggest challenges is that emerging technologies and changing shopper behaviors mean that data must be more adaptable than ever. When you operate an organization as robust as PepsiCo, implementing new practices in real time and at scale can be challenging but we have been pretty successful over the years due to our collaborative culture.

One of the biggest changes is that we historically relied on deep data analysis but to continue solving these challenges, we are approaching an increasingly digital age through which customization is key to reaching your target audience. We are closing the loop on reporting to measure impact and turning to audience-based insights to fuel personalization and loyalty.

Ok. Thank you. Here is the primary question of our discussion. Based on your experience and success, what are “Five Ways a Company Can Effectively Leverage Data to Take It To The Next Level”? Please share a story or an example for each.

• Understand your shoppers: We are always leaning into the latest data technologies, leveraging AI and other methods to best capture, track and predict consumer behaviors so we can give our retail partners a 360-degree view of their customers. We need to understand what drives them throughout the entire omnichannel journey, and we identified how retailers can improve shopper loyalty in an ever-evolving retailer environment which requires meeting basic expectations of shoppers and then delivering beyond those basics to drive choice before they get into the store and during their shopper journey.

As an example, some of the basic expectations shoppers have are that they want to easily find what they need when they shop, an app for online ordering and relevant food and beverage assortment at checkout. To become the shoppers first choice, retailers should look to focus on top drivers of choice like tailored assortment in line with shopper needs, strong digital solutions that easily link to a loyalty card and non-traditional checkout experiences that drive convenience at the end of the shopping trip.

• Redefine Value: Amid economic pressures and a greater desire for personalization at scale, shoppers are changing how they define value. Today’s equation goes beyond financial value as people prioritize health and wellness, want better variety and customization, care more about waste and are willing to prioritize their favorite brands. At PepsiCo, we’ve found that there are five distinct shopper segments; thrifters who search for the best deal, no frills pragmatists who just want the basics, deliberate shoppers who want the right amount, the busy go-getter looking for fast and easy experiences and quality buyer who aims for “the best.”

By utilizing this consumer and shopper DNA breakdown from pepviz, we’ve enabled our retail partners to understand which value segments are most relevant to them so they can tailor their offerings accordingly.

• Get Granular: We’re constantly mining for new data sources to inform our decisions that help our company and partners unlock granular growth opportunities. Stronger shopper insights can help find the balance between stocking the right products in the right places and then connecting with customers in the right moments and ways.

We are targeting shoppers by using the granularity of retailers’ consumer data and measuring the results to drive incremental growth. This also includes personalized services and solutions that provide a deeper understanding of store level data to provide more targeted recommendations. Historically, we have used these insights to showcase to our retail partners how knowing each store and shopper is critical to understand how, what and why certain products are being purchased.

• Shop The Seasons: By pairing real-time consumer behavior trends with historic data on when and how people shopped for specific occasions, retailers can tap into short-term demand for holidays and other special occasions. Certain attributes will become more important and by aligning the right items to key times of year or a specific mindset, you can maximize impact and increase the likelihood of capturing future demand with a focus on key categories.

The holidays are a time where shoppers are nostalgic as they plan for gatherings with close friends and family. This is an opportunity for retailer partners to lean into this seasonal occasion by focusing on categories like breakfast that appeal to shoppers’ nostalgic need state and then connect with them in-store through eye-catching displays and bundling.

• Optimize Your Channel Strategy: According to recent pepviz data, when it comes to maximizing ROI, the two most important measures to influence are shopper recall and unplanned purchases. Over the last three years, CMOs have reported a drop in marketing spend while marketers have reported an increase in the number of channels they are using. As people embrace omnichannel marketing tactics to reach people throughout the shopper journey, they must use data to be more targeted, efficient and precise than ever to connect with shoppers at the right time and place. We’ve found that half of all shoppers recall at least one pre-shop or at-shop marketing lever related to their purchase and a majority (¾) of ecommerce shoppers recall at least one online marketing lever. So regardless of channel, plan your strategy and use data to drive efficiency.

Based on your experience, how do you think the needs for data might evolve and change over the next five years?

The already expanded — and continuing to expand — capabilities of AI will certainly be one of the biggest trends over the next few years. At PepsiCo, we’ve been using forms of AI for a long time and think it has several positive applications, particularly in marketing and data. It can be utilized for stated purchase behavior, sentiment tracking and search.

However, as our partners, customers and consumers further take advantage of its capabilities, there will likely be other unlocks for the CPG and retail industries as well and the adoption or growth will be dependent on the generative AI solutions that develop around current technology investments.

Thank you for your great insights, We are nearly done. You are a person of significant influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

Positive impact on the mental health of the world’s population.

How can our readers further follow your work?

You can check out my LinkedIn page, but also follow along with the PepsiCo Industry Insiders and visit pepviz.com and subscribe for regular emails with the latest data-driven updates from my team.

Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!