KANTAR - Amy Cashman, CEO, Insights Division, UK & Ireland. Shaping business strategy and the power of brand. The importance of client interaction, building product development processes; getting the right balance between measurement and advice.

A pleasure to have Amy Cashman on this week’s podcast.  Amy is the CEO of Kantar’s Insights Division for the UK and Ireland.  Obviously Kantar is one of the best known and biggest names in the insights industry but a lot’s changed in recent year. So, we get into all that and more, including 

• Understanding how Kantar has evolved
• Balancing corporate responsibilities with staying in touch with clients
• How how the business thinks about  poduct development processes
• How to think about brand growth 
• The balance between measurement and advice
• Tying upper funnel to retail outcomes
• How Amy got into the industry
• Advice how to prosper in the insights world

And of course there’ something you probably wouldn’t know about Amy, as well as a few surprises in the quickfire round! 

All episodes available at https://www.insightplatforms.com/podcasts/

Suggestions, thoughts etc to futureviewpod@gmail.com

Chapters

• 0:52 Guest intro
• 1:54 What you might not know about Amy
• 3:46 Amy's role in Kantar
• 5:43 The importance of staying close to clients
• 8:24 Current industry trends & issues
• 12:01 The balance between measurement & consulting
• 15:37 Kantar's evolution & current focus
• 23:14 Client events & thought leadership
• 27:59 Kantar's new blueprint for brand growth
• 30:43 Lift Plus
• 32:50 Amy's progression through the Insights world
• 38:14 Quickfire round

Transcript

Henry Piney: 0:08

yeah, I mean it sounds fantastic you've been able to stay in touch, because I think in some of the bigger corporations I'm not necessarily talking about insight there can be a lot of time spent kind of managing up and looking at pll's and that type of thing and you know there's a risk of just kind of losing touch yeah, and I mean I think I would say, you know, a good chunk of my week is probably spent thinking about, like, our financial performance, like how people in the business are feeling, connecting with other colleagues.

Amy Cashman: 0:36

You know, in a multinational company there's always someone around the world to connect with or talk to about something. But I really do try and keep that time minimized because I think the most important thing in my job is to spend time with my team and to spend time with clients.

Henry Piney: 0:53

Well, what a pleasure to have Amy Cashman on this week's podcast. Amy is the CEO of Kantar's Insights Division for the UK in Ireland.

Henry Piney: 1:01

Now obviously Kantar is one of the best known and biggest names in the insights industry and a lot has changed recently. So we get into all that and more understanding how Kantar has evolved, how the business thinks about its product development processes, brand growth including Kantar's new initiatives in that area the balance between measurement and advice, tying up a funnel to retail outcomes, and all that good stuff. But also, on a more personal basis, we discuss Amy's approach on how to balance corporate responsibilities, For instance, how to look at the big picture but also stay in touch with the detail of client needs. We talk about how she got into the industry and her advice to prosper in it. And, of course, there's something you probably wouldn't know about Amy. So onto the interview, Amy, first off, thank you so much for joining today. I'm really delighted to have you on the podcast.

Amy Cashman: 1:47

No, it's an absolute pleasure to be here.

Henry Piney: 1:49

Well, brilliant, thank you for making the time and just to get going, I wanted to start off with a bit of an icebreaker and see if I could find out something that most people wouldn't know about you. I mean, you've had a great career through Kantar and there's all sorts of things on LinkedIn and on the web, but just something that wouldn't you know, most people wouldn't know um well, um well.

Amy Cashman: 2:08

One thing actually that springs to mind is um, I took a year out before I went to university, when I was 18, and I and I went backpacking on my own around Asia for several months and, um, that was pre-mobile phones, pre-internet, pre-email addresses, so I kind of just went and then came back two months later and my parents got the odd phone call and people used to write to me, post rest on to post offices, which seems almost like Victorian now when you say it. But that was quite a formative experience for me and, yeah, it really helped me develop all sorts of different skills, including resilience.

Henry Piney: 2:44

But yeah, that you wouldn't have seen that one on my linkedin, I think no, no, you wouldn't have done, and I know we were just talking before we started recording about, you know, teenagers and kids and all the rest. I mean I mean for them.

Amy Cashman: 2:54

They must be amazed that that was ever the case, that we do that type of thing oh, yeah, I mean, they can't get their head around and, to be honest, now I'm a parent like I. I really thank my parents that they were just very encouraging at the time, because I'm sure, like looking back, they must have been pretty terrified to let me do that, but, um, but it was brilliant. So, yeah, it's a good. It's a good, uh, reminder for me to be like that with my kids as well yeah, yeah, exactly.

Henry Piney: 3:19

Um, it was just a very different era, wasn't it? My kids can't. My kids can't believe that there were only four tv channels and you know even less. At one point I believe yeah, I remember the start of channel four, but I'm really dating myself and this I should, I should.

Henry Piney: 3:33

I should probably move on and get back onto the, onto the interview industry yeah exactly so if we were to jump onto that in a little bit of scene setting. So could you just explain broadly what what you do now at Kantar and what the role encompasses?

Amy Cashman: 3:47

Yeah, of course. So I'm responsible for the UK and Ireland Insights Division at Kantar, so that is the part of the business that sort of has surveys and data analytics and qualitative research and consulting, research and consulting. So we we answer questions that clients have from a wide range of topics around brand, creative, media, innovation, cx, um. But we tend to do it through either analyzing data sets that already exist or through creating our own data sets, be that whatever type of format, as I say, qual, digital surveys, um. And there is another division in the UK called World Panel, which is where we have the shopper panel business, and so we work closely with them as well. But, yeah, that's my main responsibility.

Henry Piney: 4:34

I see and so do, you play a role as kind of the glues in between, in terms of if there are kind of client issues or big strategic initiatives, you're helping to pull everybody together and deciding where to allocate resources and that type of thing.

Amy Cashman: 4:51

Yeah, absolutely, that's a key part of my role. The UK is one of the largest markets within the Cantar Group, so often it's where the headquarters is and a lot of our big global clients are based here. So a lot of my colleagues in the UK team as well support colleagues around the world and we see that as a really important part of what we do in the UK business in Kantar. But more, I guess, in my role I have, like we have about 700 people in the team and so I have oversight of all of that, so I can see what's happening in different parts of the business. I can see where there's opportunities for us to push harder or opportunities where we need to try something different. And that's a key part of my role really is to have that oversight and that ability to think across the whole piece.

Henry Piney: 5:36

And so, Amy, how do you stay in touch then with client issues? I might diverge from the schedule a little bit, but I can imagine you've kind of got this oversight but how do you know what's relevant and current for clients?

Amy Cashman: 5:50

well, so I've always grown up, I grew up in the client service part of the business and, um, and working on client business has always, like, fascinated me.

Amy Cashman: 5:55

It's one of the reasons I got into the industry in the first place. So I really make an effort to spend a lot of time with clients still so small trick, but what I do is I color code client meetings in my diary so I can take a look every week like, have I got enough client meetings in this week? So, for example, I've got two meetings in this week just talking to clients um, one who's starting working with us, one who already works with us, just to hear how they're feeling about things. Um, and that's really important as far as I'm concerned. You know, clients are a huge priority for us. Um, so I it's something I actively invest time in. Essentially, I think there's no, there's no, um, no way around just talking to people, hearing what's on their on their minds and hearing what their challenges are and it sounds like that's kind of very embedded within the structure, like the client service teams are used to you doing that.

Henry Piney: 6:44

They're not intimidated by you turning up. Oh no, no not at all.

Amy Cashman: 6:49

I mean, there's like kind of so we we often um. There are several accounts that I'm like a senior sponsor for, so obviously on those accounts I work really closely with the account team to just make sure that we're doing the very best work we can for clients. But I often get involved in pitching new business. I get involved with um things. Like you know, we do quite a lot of socializing with our clients, um events that we host, things like that as well, so there's lots of opportunities for lots of different types of touch points um with clients and I get involved across a whole range of those. So, and as you just alluded, it's a great opportunity to work with the teams as well, because I really like spending time with my team too, so it's a great opportunity to do that too.

Henry Piney: 7:29

Yeah, I mean it sounds fantastic you've been able to stay in touch, because I think in some of you know the bigger corporations I'm not necessarily talking about insight there can be a lot of time spent kind of managing up and looking at PLLs and that type of thing and you know, you know there's a risk of just kind of losing touch.

Amy Cashman: 7:46

Yeah, and I mean I think I still would say, you know, a good chunk of my week is probably spent thinking about, like our financial performance, like how people in the business are feeling, connecting with other colleagues. You know, in a multinational company there's always someone around the world to connect with or talk to about something. But I really do try and keep that time minimized because I think the most important thing in my job is to spend time with my team and to spend time with clients. Those are the numbers, those are the two most important things, and other things have to have a focus and attention, but I'd never try and let them get out of kilter with the other thing and what type of issues are on clients minds at the moment, say over the last 12 months or so?

Amy Cashman: 8:29

I mean, obviously I don't expect to talk about specific clients I mean there's, there's all the usual things I think people have talked about. Like you know, obviously ai is very much top of mind for a number of clients. They want to understand you know what they can be doing themselves better than that. But you know, often we get clients because kantar is a big company with lots of different clients. They'll ask us for introductions to other clients facing the same sort of challenges. But I still, but definitely budget pressures still are a big challenge for clients.

Amy Cashman: 8:59

Um, really trying to get as much value from the money they're spending in the insight space, speed of results and speed of insight, being able to facilitate their decision makers and their organizations to make decisions quickly and stay ahead of the market, which I think we'd started seeing that trend before COVID, but then it's just accelerated. I would say just accelerated. I would say um, and and I think more generally, just understanding, you know where Kantar sees the industry evolving because we, obviously one of the leading players, um often get asked you know just what are we doing with other clients. They want to know and again, we'd never give away secrets or anything but in general terms what the kind of things other clients are exploring. So I think sometimes for client-side researchers it can be a little bit lonely in organizations, particularly if the, if the insight function isn't enormous. Like who else do they talk to about their craft, their area, their, their knowledge, um?

Henry Piney: 9:57

and I think that's a really important role agencies can play actually to facilitate that kind of discussion yeah, it's, it's a phrase someone gave me the other day around a different area, but it's almost this kind of thing not giving away secrets being, but being kind of discreetly indiscreet. They described it as being in that you can help connect and go. Actually, these guys are thinking about it this way, or maybe I can introduce you and yeah, and obviously you don't introduce competitors to one another necessarily, but there's lots of.

Amy Cashman: 10:25

Because we work with such a variety of clients, there's always. You know we've made some very useful connections that have sort of endured over the years, I think.

Henry Piney: 10:33

Yeah, I was just doing an interview, actually last week, which is going to come up soon with a lady who's at Nike and she described her role as almost as a chief of staff for insights within that division, and a friend of mine has been doing something similar at Sky. I don't know if you work for if you work with Sky at all which I thought was a really interesting client setup whereby, rather than operating and interfacing with the different insights departments which is its own subject in terms of how they're organized and who kind of covers what they basically allocated one person person to go it's your job to make sure the exec in charge of this unit is getting what they need from all the insights departments. Have you seen that type of structure elsewhere, or is it just struck me?

Amy Cashman: 11:18

definitely we have. I have seen it, um, I think other companies have termed it things like business partnering, for examples. They might say build their insights function, say that certain individuals within it like face into particular parts of the business, um, be that by like product line or be that by, uh, sort of the form of speciality, um, and I think that actually talks to the point I was making earlier about how clients really want to derive the maximum benefit they can from the money they're spending on insights. And to me it seems really sensible because you know you get people who have a deep understanding of what part of the business is trying to achieve. I can only see that that would elevate what the insights would then support if people have that kind of knowledge.

Henry Piney: 12:05

It gets into this question, which actually quite a few interviews have touched on as well, around having the permission almost to give advice within the insight space. It seems like a lot of insight and research companies have been kind of put into the reporting category and it's your job to provide very solid, robust data, but almost from a measurement type perspective, but it's not your job to tell us what to do with it. Do you run into that kind of dichotomy at all?

Amy Cashman: 12:36

I mean, I think that varies a lot by client. If I'm honest, I think some of it is a function of the culture of that client organization, be that like where the insights function sits within the organization, the level of impact it has within the organization, or has a bearing then on how the agency itself can show up and behave. I certainly encourage my team to have a point of view, to, to give, um, you know, feedback on what we think can be improved, because that, to me, is where the value of the insight really lives. It's where it can actually generate a different form of impact for for the business, and I and I would really encourage people to be bold in our industry about that.

Amy Cashman: 13:22

The example I'll give you is, um, at the very start of covid, when people were, you know, just literally didn't know what was going on, and we really saw clients really trying to get hold of as much information as they could to try and make decisions, and we we held a webinar I think it was about the first couple of weeks after lockdown where we brought together world panel insights and our own insights on what we could see from shopping behavior and things, and we put the webinar out and within 24 hours we had 6,000 people signed up to it, which we literally couldn't believe we had to go and get ourselves a new platform, but it was.

Amy Cashman: 13:59

I think it was a start of people really understanding like the value that insight can give you. I mean, that's a very extreme example when, when the situation, the market is so volatile but I've only seen that sort of build really since that time people really seeing the value of information but but the key thing is then how you translate it into business impact. So I think that for me that's critical, that that's you doing your job properly is giving that kind of impact.

Henry Piney: 14:28

Yeah, I mean I would certainly agree. I mean I was at Nielsen years and years ago and again, it's not really a comment on Nielsen because that's almost 20 years ago now but you had so many kind of POS type businesses within the Nielsen structure and it really wasn't seen to be almost appropriate to kind of comment on the data. Your job was just to provide accurate measurement or whatever category you happen to be in I mean, I think the best clients really try and encourage that from their agency teams.

Amy Cashman: 15:00

Well, I mean, don't get me wrong, I do think agencies should show up in that way. I do think some of it is to do with the type of client, the type of organization and culture that they have, whether they're open to that kind of challenge. But I also do think clients themselves can, you know, prod for it and ask for it, and that's where they're getting the best value, I think, as well from their agency partners.

Henry Piney: 15:21

Yeah, exactly Agreed In terms of Kantar itself. So quite a few changes over recent years. So, for those who aren't familiar, you touched on in terms of world panel and some of the structural issues, but how's the business changed over the last few years and how is it structured now?

Amy Cashman: 15:40

So I mean the business has changed a lot over the last five years, really, I would say so. At the end of 2019, the Bain Capital, who are a private equity company, acquired a 60% stake in Kantar. The remaining 40% still owned by WPP, who were previously the Kantar owners. And it's really interesting working in a private equity-backed business. It's quite different, obviously, from working in an advertising holding company environment. But some of the things that have changed is, I think we've got far more focused as a business. So we're much more. You know, we've divested things like our healthcare business, like our public business, our media monitoring business, things like that, and we've really got down to a very focused business that can quite clearly say we're about brands. So we're the insights team, we're the world panel team and we're the profiles team as well. Who the profiles are the people who manage our panels and the quality of our sampling and things like that. So that's been really important for us, because I think in the past it's been a challenge to say, well, what are we about? Well, we're about brands, but we're also about patients, we're about citizens, and that's kind of gone away. We are Kantar, we are about brands, we're about helping shape the brands of tomorrow, and that's given us more of a clarity, I think, as an organization.

Amy Cashman: 17:01

And the other thing as well is that we've had a real investment behind things like our product portfolio and our technology. That's enabled us to move things forward that I think might have been more challenging in a different sort of ownership environment. And, um, we've brought a lot of new products to the market. Our marketplace platform has been a huge and continues to be a huge success for us, um. So I think as a business, we're we still. We still got the same people culture, which is one of the reasons why I've worked here a long time. You know we're a very nice business. Everyone always says that that people at canto are really nice. We are nice, we're friendly, um, we like to get stuff done, but we like to have a good time as we do it. Um. But I think it's just added a different level of focus. There's the changes to our structure over the last couple of years, which have been very positive.

Henry Piney: 17:53

Yeah, thank you. That's a great summary, actually clarified a few things to me, even though I should follow this type of area, and something else I should probably know as well what's Kantar Marketplace? Is that more focused at sort of smaller businesses or mid-sized businesses?

Amy Cashman: 18:11

Well, no, actually a wide range. So Cantor Marketplace is a platform through which clients can self-serve if they want or receive fully serviced tools, and we have tools across sort of the creative suite. So Link, which you know obviously Cantor is very famous for our link advertising testing that sits on the Marketplace platform wide range of media evaluation tools, of innovation tools, a wide range of tools and brand evaluation, which obviously brand is probably the thing we're most famous for really. But all of those tools sit on the marketplace platform. And what is interesting? Because, yes, on the one hand side, it does open up a different price point level for smaller businesses to access Kantar's IP. But actually as well, like we work with very large clients to help them, like, achieve high volumes of tests at a very competitive price and build sort of databases and thinking across meta-analyses and things like that as well.

Amy Cashman: 19:08

So actually, and that's probably you know, part of the reason the platform has been so very successful is because it really does offer that bread, no matter what size of client you are. And the other thing that it offers big clients is global consistency as well. So, for example, if you're a global client and you would prefer that you have some sort of protocol arrangement where you want all of your advertising tested in one way which then enables you to build databases and learnings across markets. Then something like giving your business access to the marketplace platform, be that like a custom built enterprise level type platform for you or the standard platform. Then you are able to sort of facilitate that in a more straightforward way as well. So there's lots of benefits it offers big businesses as well as small businesses actually.

Henry Piney: 19:56

So that's interesting. I was wondering how you think about what comes next in terms of product development. I mean, do you evaluate that internally? Is it a question of what clients are asking you to do? How do you think about that whole type of area?

Amy Cashman: 20:09

Yeah, I mean that again is something that I think has changed a lot since we've changed ownership structures.

Amy Cashman: 20:15

So we now have a formal process called catalyst, which is our formal process for product development and um, the ideas that go into catalyst are rooted in, like, deep market understanding about the position of cantar, the position of competitors, where client needs are evolving, all the things, the things we would go to clients and suggest they were doing if they were developing new products, really, and we develop our ideas through there.

Amy Cashman: 20:39

But we're also agile in the way we listen to where the market's going and we make adaptations as we're going along. And so, for example, we have client advisory boards that meet in a number of different cities around the world where we're very open and we share the product roadmap. We we share it and get feedback on it and um, and we make tweaks on that as we go along as well. So it's a it's a mixture of different things, but definitely having had a more formal process in place has been helpful in terms of concentrating efforts, resources and thinking behind. You know, fewer better bigger ideas probably than lots of little ideas that you know may or may not have opportunity value yeah, and then how do you fund that type of thing?

Henry Piney: 21:24

is there a set r&d budget that's a percentage of something or other, like you know, revenue or gross profit or whatever it happens to be that's sitting there as a pool that you you can on an annual basis? Or is it a bit more ad hoc and you create a business case for each initiative?

Amy Cashman: 21:41

I mean it's more the former in terms of we have a chief product officer, we have a product organisation. They are the main, you know, owners of that budget and the determination of how it is spent, um. But you know, particularly in a big market like the uk, we obviously come up with ideas and we're talking to clients a lot. So we will sometimes um test things out ourselves, try things out which I will just sort of decide whether I think that's a sensible thing for us to, to attempt from a financial perspective, um, and sometimes as well, we've got one idea, for example, which did really well and actually has now gone into the capitalist process. So hopefully we'll benefit the wider organization in time too.

Henry Piney: 22:20

So, yeah, I think it's not only the product organization that can do that, but it's certainly, you know, they are the key people who are driving that work Got it, and that seems like a really good balance as well, whereby people can be kind of bubbling up ideas but then it goes into an evaluation process. So it's actually well thought through and reasoned, rather than just necessarily having a powerful advocate for a particular idea who can push it through, whereas another idea may not have such influential people kind of behind it yeah, exactly, I think that's.

Amy Cashman: 22:55

That's exactly sort of nailed why that's a like a really important process, time and place actually yeah, well, you could probably tell I've seen that in different organizations the more negative.

Henry Piney: 23:07

so there are also a couple of recent announcements that caught my attention, so I was hoping we could. I mean so in terms of the brand growth program. I saw you had an Ignition event which looked really great, and then you'd also mentioned as well there's another kind of new event kind of coming out, I think, in a couple of weeks time, so I was wondering if you could touch on those.

Amy Cashman: 23:27

Yeah, sure. So we have an event, a big client event. We had one last october and we've had it again this um april and we're going to have another one in october called ignite. And what we do at ignite is we bring together kantar, thought leadership and learnings, but we also invite um guest speakers and clients to come along and talk about learnings to really benefit our clients, and and they're really popular events we have no problem filling them out with sort of several hundred clients. Um, then we have a wide range of speakers. Last October we had Mark Ritson, for example.

Amy Cashman: 24:02

This April we had Helen Edwards, who's been working with us on a number of pieces around how to spot marginal trends that will become mainstream over time, and wonderful clients who come and give their time too. For example, the one in April we had the marketing director of Guinness come with the Marketing Week editor, russell Parsons, and talk about how Guinness has become such a successful brand and won Marketing Brand of the Year and things like that, and that's a really powerful story too, because we partner very closely with Diageo and so we're all very proud of the progress that those kind of brands make when we're involved in those stories. So the Ignite events. Yeah, they're our way of, I think, in a way giving back to our clients as well, like bringing together that thought leadership, and we know clients come along and they really enjoy it. They get the chance to network with other clients. So, yeah, those have been a great addition actually to what we've been doing from a marketing perspective over the last couple of years.

Henry Piney: 24:57

Yeah, they sound really really great.

Amy Cashman: 25:17

I was also wondering how you address some of the pushback which maybe is lessened in recent years. But around this, you know the range of services and products we provide and we actually have a marketing effectiveness practice in the uk where we bring together all of those things. Is the way those things impact, be it the campaign lay down, be it the the creative quality, be it the brand strength at the point? Um, you know when campaigns start, those sorts of things. So we see it as obviously, on one level, being a case-by-case basis. It's down to how your brand's performing its size, all of those different aspects. But we have a lot of learnings from what we've done over the years, so we produce a lot of thought leadership in this area, which we hope is helpful to clients when they're making the case for why it's important to keep brand investment, particularly in times like this, when times are, you know, financial times are a challenge.

Amy Cashman: 26:02

But we do things like with Marketing Week. We produce the Language of Effectiveness report, where we use quite quantitative data to lay out how we believe brands can make themselves more effective from a marketing perspective. But we also, through our data assets, we have a lot of opportunity to make those proof points too. So, for example, brand Z, which has been running for over 15 years, is a gigantic database of brand equity evaluation from across the globe, across categories. We've got really good evidence about how the brands that perform well on those measures are driving superior stock market returns. So we have a lot of evidence through those sorts of channels.

Amy Cashman: 26:41

We also have done quite a lot of work as well tying brand equity data to world panel shopping behavior. So there again, you're coming at it from understanding how people feel about a brand and how it's perceived, but then how that's actually translating into behavior in the store as well. So we've done a lot of work for clients quantifying things like, for example, if you were to improve this element of your, of your brand perception or this particular aspect, we believe it will bring you this extra amount of sales. And to the point we were talking about the beginning around how insights businesses get more impact. You know, tying a number to something in my experience is is one of the key ways you can do that, because you know that that takes it away from being sort of a more ethereal concept about brand to being actually a commercial construct of like, if you improve this element of the brand.

Henry Piney: 27:29

This much more money will will come into your coffers, which is, at the end of the day, what everyone's interested in yeah, well, I can certainly see within by tying it to something like stock market valuation you know that very, very kind of quantifiable. And then, in terms of the world shopper panel data, have you actually been able to kind of tie the breadcrumbs together to show that a brand lift at a certain level equates to greater sale?

Amy Cashman: 27:58

Yeah, absolutely.

Amy Cashman: 27:59

We do that for a number of clients.

Amy Cashman: 28:01

We use it in pitches when we're talking about brand equity, things like that.

Amy Cashman: 28:05

And actually what we're very excited about at Kantar I would honestly say probably the most exciting thing we've done as Kantar actually is something we're launching on the 14th of May called the Blueprint for Brand Growth, and what we've done with that is we've taken the last year and we've evaluated around 6.5 million so billion, billion, let's get that right data points um across brand z, across our attitudinal data sets, across uh, behavioral data sets and world panel and we've built like a framework for marketeers of how we believe brands grow, that we can evidence through all of those data points and really help brands think about how they need to elevate three particular areas predisposing more people and being more present and finding new space and, most importantly of all, giving people a diagnosis of how they can do that and where their brand stands on that.

Amy Cashman: 28:56

So the blueprint is really exciting because it's the first time as kantar, everybody in kantar will have the same perspective on how brands grow, evidence through our data over time, and that will serve to tie together even closer the way that we show up as Kantar across World Panel and all the other parts of the business and Amy.

Henry Piney: 29:15

so what were the three big sections that was predisposing people, which I imagine is around intent and favorable brand impressions and that type of thing. And then what were the next two pieces of it?

Amy Cashman: 29:28

Yeah, well, actually I should have started from the top.

Amy Cashman: 29:29

So the overarching point is that we believe that, you know, brands need to be more meaningfully different to more people, and meaningful difference and salience are the key metrics that we we look for in in our brand equity framework to really understand the performance of brands and then the way that we help clients build that is through the growth accelerators.

Amy Cashman: 29:50

So, as you say, predispose more people is about basically weight weighing the odds in your favor, that the, and so that can be about advertising, but it can be about other things too, to basically, at the point of purchase that you will be, the person will be more predisposed to purchase you. The second is being more present, and that is also obviously about physical availability, but it's also about, you know, communications too, to a degree, and generating that mental availability. And the find is the final one is around finding new space which is really helping clients, and that could take different forms, different categories, new SKUs, new markets, like even quite sort of blue sky, thinking about where a brand could go. But as a route to growth, particularly for big brands, it's particularly critical.

Henry Piney: 30:38

Yeah, yeah, it seems very sensible and it builds off, doesn't it? I guess some of the academic work as well, around concepts of mental availability and what's a mental share of space.

Amy Cashman: 30:48

Yeah, absolutely.

Henry Piney: 30:49

I also wanted to touch, if I could, just on Lift Plus, because I looked it up and it looks really impressive. I wasn't totally sure how it works there were a lot of acronyms kind of in there how it works. There were a lot of acronyms kind of in there.

Amy Cashman: 31:04

Yeah, well, actually, and one of the things I probably was a bit remiss, not to mention when we talked about product development, was we have built a lot of our own things.

Amy Cashman: 31:10

We've also bought a number of things for us to help us, you know, build out our already impressive product portfolio. I would say obviously, but add things to it. So Lyft Plus is a tool that came through the acquisition of a company called memo 2, here based in the netherlands, and um using permission-based um panels, we are able to track an individual's exposure to all elements of a campaign, and that that can be through audio, um, it can be through location, but it basically elevates the kind of cross-media measurement that's possible through being able to use that kind of technique. And obviously it was a Dutch company. They've been very present and very successful in the Dutch market for a number of years, but we're now rolling that out into other markets and I was very excited that the UK was chosen as one of those markets this year and Hannah, who runs our media team, has done a brilliant job of really launching the product and we've already got clients signed up to it and things. So we're very excited about the opportunities with Lift Plus.

Henry Piney: 32:14

Yeah, that does make sense Because I was wondering how Lift Plus got into the retail and out of home question.

Amy Cashman: 32:21

But I imagine that's because of the location tracking exactly, and the permission based um element of it, so you know there's no element of big brother about it. The people who are part of our lift plus panel understand that is the kind of activity we'll be using their phones for, so we're able to understand that in quite a lot of detail fantastic.

Henry Piney: 32:41

Um, if it's okay, I wanted to switch gears, uh, and zoom out on your career a little bit. I mean, you've had an amazing career through kantar, so, starting at the beginning, I guess why did you get into the insights world? But then why have you stuck with it as well?

Amy Cashman: 32:54

yeah, um, well, the reason I'm going to. So I was always a bit torn between, like um, maths and science and social science. At school For my A-levels I did German chemistry and maths, thinking I might be a German chemical engineer. But actually when I did A-level German so like 92 to 94, the wall had just come down in Germany and there was lots of change in Germany, obviously, and I actually found the social aspect of what I was studying in my A-level German fascinating, and so I decided to go on to do social science at university and I did quite a quantitative social science degree. So I did statistical methods every year and things, and obviously, having done maths and chemistry at A-level, I'm quite comfortable with numbers. It's not something that phases me.

Amy Cashman: 33:40

And it was towards the end of my degree I saw a job advert for research internationals graduate training program and I just read it and I honestly, henry, I just remember thinking, my god, that's like. That sounds like the perfect job, like it's numbers, but it's like understanding people and why they do things. Um, so I applied to research international. I applied to another smaller German company called Infotest Burke and by the time they'd offered me the job, research International offered me an interview. So I thought, well, you know, you know at that point it's where you're keen to get inside.

Amy Cashman: 34:10

Took the job with Infotest Burke and, and then that got bought by NFO, who got bought by TNS, who got bought by Kantar, who then got bought by Bain, and somehow I'm still here, but I've never, ever regretted the decision. I mean, in fact, my friends tease me sometimes. They're like, oh my God, you love your job so much and I'm like, well, yeah, I do, I absolutely love the industry, very passionate about the industry, passionate about why it's a great place to be and a great place to build your career. So, yeah, that's kind of how it all came about.

Henry Piney: 34:39

Yeah, I mean, it sounds like a perfect fit in many ways. And then moving through the organization, so what qualities would you say it takes to stick with it and prosper, particularly when you've had so many changes and there have been acquisitions and, as you say, the business kind of reshaped over the last five years?

Amy Cashman: 34:58

Yeah, absolutely, and, funnily enough, I've been thinking about this quite a lot recently, because last October was the 25th anniversary of me starting work, so I've obviously given it quite a lot of thought. And I think adaptability is really important because, you know, I remember the first time like the leadership changed through an acquisition and I remember thinking, oh, you know, I, I know that person who's leading the business really well, and now it's somebody different. I need to impress them, I need to, like, build a relationship with them and and it's that ability to adapt to different situations and different types of leadership styles, different company cultures. I think that's really important. I think relationship building more generally, particularly in a big company, is really important and um, just building connections and building relationships that way you can be mutually um helpful to other people is is really important.

Henry Piney: 35:50

Um, and I would also just say being open to change, because the industry's changed so much and um acquisitions bring lots of change, and I think the people who thrive in that situation the ones that go into it with an open mind, personally, yeah, I think it's very good advice I mean, someone gave me some good advice, I thought which is when you get these changes whether it's a new ceo or an acquisition or whatever it might be inevitably they are going to want to shake things up, and you should. And you should either decide to get on board with the program and that you're going to embrace it or, if you're not, go somewhere else.

Amy Cashman: 36:25

I know, but don't sit there and grumble. No, that's very much my view. Or if you think there's, you know, make constructive suggestions yourself about how things could be better and try and be part of that change. So yeah, I think that's fairly sound advice personally.

Henry Piney: 36:41

Yeah, what advice would you give to young graduates if you went back, say, 25 years or so? You were considering this. Now we pitch forward 25 years. What advice would you give to them about coming into the insights world and what they should consider?

Amy Cashman: 37:03

Yeah Well, one piece of advice I would really give is really take the time to understand how businesses make money and really understand, like the commercial performance of businesses, what their drivers are, particularly your clients businesses, because for me that is what differentiates really good research.

Amy Cashman: 37:14

So the ones who are not just doing the research for the sake of it, but they're doing it genuinely help the growth of their clients business and then, as you get more senior as well, like really spend the time understanding how your business makes money. Like you know, I have a very good understanding of the things in Kantar that will make us more money and the areas where we struggle more and those sorts of things are important too as you get more senior. So I think that would be one thing I would really stress. And the second thing I would say is really be open to opportunities, a little bit what we talked about before, but, like, some of the best opportunities I've had in my career have come sort of at you know, not when I was expecting them or not, with clients that I was expecting to really enjoy working on or types of work, but they've really stretched me and helped me grow. So I would just really stay open-minded when opportunities are presented to you as well yes, totally agreed on fantastic advice.

Henry Piney: 38:06

I'm conscious of time, amy, and you've been very generous with your time, so, if it's all right, I might wrap up by doing a quick far round, and so a few slightly cheeky questions in here, but I hope they're all right. What have you changed your mind about recently?

Amy Cashman: 38:21

Oh well, funnily enough fruit actually yes fruit.

Amy Cashman: 38:26

So after I had my kids I did Weight Watchers for a period to lose the weight and things and I got from that assumption that fruit wasn't as good for you because you had to have quite points to use that, whereas vegetables you didn't. But I've recently done this Zoe um like food program where they they track your blood sugar and all those sorts of things, and I've realized actually fruit is my friend so and which is great because I love it. So I'm very pleased to have changed my mind about that one um yeah, well, good to hear it.

Henry Piney: 38:55

I'm a fruit fan too keep going with it, henry, that's my advice now, I usually ask this the other way around as well for clients. But from agencies perspective, or your agency perspective, what makes a good client?

Amy Cashman: 39:10

oh um. Openness to share their agendas, their objectives, openness to share the details of how the business is performing and what they need to work on, and genuine partnership and appreciation. Like you know, we know sometimes clients need to ask us to do things at the last minute. Just showing appreciation for that, not taking it for granted. You know general things that I think build human relationships, but definitely the openness the more information you give your agency, the more you will get back.

Amy Cashman: 39:47

Fantastic openness like you'll get more out the more you information you give your agency, the more you will get back.

Henry Piney: 39:50

Fantastic and, I imagine, a bad client, which I won't ask you is the inverse. Should we just leave it at that? Yes, so what personal traits of yours would you like your children to inherit, and are there any they should avoid?

Amy Cashman: 39:57

your well? You know it's a bit of a joke in our family that I didn't. I had three children and none of them are ginger. Ha know, it's a bit of a joke in our family that I didn't. I had three children and none of them are ginger haired, so that's a bit disappointing. I'm waiting for a ginger haired grandchild at some point, but I would say it would be good if they could. I'm a very calm person generally. I've always had that feedback through my career and I think that's quite important in an industry that's very up and down. Like you know, supplying clients is a very up and down business at times and staying calm, I think, and staying sort of glass half full is really important. Um, I'm hoping I can already see one of my sons has inherited my impatience, so I do apologize to him for that, but that's probably the one. That's not not my best skill, so, um, yeah, avoiding that probably okay, and what's your favorite book or recent book?

Amy Cashman: 40:41

it doesn't actually have to be a book, it could be a piece of media oh well, no, actually I've really got back into reading since COVID, um, and I make myself a list of all the books I've read each year and then every year I try and read one more. So I've been really doing lots of reading recently and, like, from a non-fiction perspective, I really like Lucy Worsley's books about famous people, so her Agatha Christie book is fascinating. Her Queen Victoria book is excellent as well. I would really recommend those. And from like a more fiction side of things, I've got quite a lot into a number of different sort of serialized books, like where you've got, you know, five in the set. So I got into the Cazalet Chronicles, which is a five book set. That was fascinating. Elizabeth Howard and I'm in the middle of the Neapolitan Quartet I think it's called at the moment the Elena Ferrante books I'm on just finished book three of that, so would recommend that as well well, I'm glad you got through this.

Henry Piney: 41:34

My wife really likes the Neapolitan Quartet but, I, but I struggled with it, I have to confess yeah, I think the first book is a bit slower.

Amy Cashman: 41:42

You get to like halfway through the first book I think.

Henry Piney: 41:44

From that point onwards it sort of um, yeah, accelerates okay, final question what do you think or hope you'll be doing personally in five years time?

Amy Cashman: 41:53

well, I've just recently um started doing more sort of extracurricular things outside of work, in terms of like being involved with advising smaller companies, and just recently become trustee to a charity, and I started thinking, in five years actually, my twins will be placed to leaving home and my younger one will be older as well and hopefully have a bit more time outside of you know, just being work and being a mum to perhaps invest a bit more time in those sorts of things, because I do find that really valuable and really enjoyable.

Henry Piney: 42:24

Amy, thank you so much. It's been a real pleasure meeting you and I've learned a lot.

Amy Cashman: 42:29

Oh good, you're welcome. Thanks.

Henry Piney: 42:33

Okay, I've missed it. Wouldn't you all like to work for at least with Amy? She really seems to have achieved that balance that perhaps we all strive for between being strategic but also across the detail, while being financially astute but also empathetic. Thanks so much to Amy for the interview and her valuable perspective. Thank you to Insight Platforms for both setting the interview up and for hosting, and to you for listening. See you next time.