Michelle Adams: How do you impart knowledge to an audience in a way that keeps them engaged?

Merrill Dubrow: My name is Merrill Dubrow, CEO of M/A/R/C Research. I'm a 35-year veteran of the research and insights community, and the host of our podcast, On the M/A/R/C. On the M/A/R/C is focusing on executives and thought leaders in the world, sharing their insights, strategies, and personal experiences. I promise this podcast will be filled with tough, pointed questions with real, insightful, and emotional answers. Today's guest is my good friend, Michelle Adams, founder and president at Marketing Brainology. Michelle, welcome to the On the M/A/R/C Podcast.

Michelle Adams: Thank you, Merrill. Very excited to be included in this podcast.

Merrill Dubrow: Yeah, absolutely. And as I am. As you know, I'm only doing 56 podcasts this year, one for each year that M/A/R/C Research has been in business, and ecstatic that you're going to be one of those 56 people. So thank you in advance. And I know the listeners are really going to get a lot of takeaways from you today. So, Michelle, talk to me a little bit about Marketing Brainology. I know you've been in business about eight years, just describe it, what you guys do, for the listeners.

Michelle Adams: Yes. So Marketing Brainology really came out of the fact that I came out of both the supplier side and corporate America, spending ten years at PepsiCo in marketing research. And really got a good taste of what was working and what wasn't working, and what I would want to do if I had unlimited control of all the research suppliers that were available to us. So we're really – Marketing Brainology was formed to kind of fill in some gaps. And, by that, I mean really taking the non-conscious research that we were doing at PepsiCo, using EEG, and saying, how do we make it more affordable? How do we take things that were used independent of other research methodologies and start to blend them back together, and start to use tools in the tool kit that say, I want still to understand what the shoppers and the consumers are saying to us. But I also want to understand what's going on emotionally with them. So, really, the focus of Marketing Brainology is the art and science of decision making.

Merrill Dubrow: Let's just talk about a typical project, because I – my belief is that people are a little fuzzy on neuroscience and eye tracking and even what a deliverable looks like. I think they're just a little bit unaware of what that looks like. Can you just describe a typical project? I don't – I'm not looking for client secrets to be uncovered here, but more of if you wanted to say, hey, look, for a CPG account, we did this. The sample size was this. The deliverable was this. And even talk a little bit about, Michelle, the timing because I think it can be done a lot quicker than most people think.

Michelle Adams: Absolutely. I think those are where we had – what was original in our head when we first did first projects with neuroscience using 64 sensor EEG, it was really a lot more complicated. Now, technology and the tools have changed, so we have that agility and that quick turnaround that, perhaps, we didn't have in the early days. A typical project is to help optimize, what is going to be a breakthrough message for a client, or for consumers in general. So if I have a message and I'm trying to figure out what's the clearest, most emotionally impactful message. We really help our clients help optimize the language, the words used, the imagery used, and put together, so anything from an animatic all the way to a finished video. That's one part of the business. The other part that's growing very, very quickly is the in store eye tracking and the eye tracking that we do in our lab. And it's usually done iteratively, so we'll send shoppers into stores and ask them to do what they normally would do. So they're shopping with their families, they're shopping with their spouse. And we're getting what's happening to capture the what. The why is still a one-to-one interview after they have that shopping experience. So, with our clients, what we're doing is trying to figure out what's working and not working in retail. And, as you can imagine, retailers are very concerned about, how do I compete against ecommerce? So trying to make sure that the message, the merchandising, and the packaging is all working in a way that's breaking through. And it's very, very difficult for people, for brands to stand out amongst all the other clutter. So a lot of AB testing. And that allows, coming out of phase one, for them to move into different design options. So a lot of our business is actually working with design companies and agencies and brands to help optimize new solutions for in store.

Merrill Dubrow: Let me just ask a goofy, basic question. When you're watching people shop – and I can't imagine your team watching me shop because they would need therapy after watching my decision making, for sure. But are you – are you setting up cameras in stores? Do you have a GoPro? Do you have a hidden camera? Is this like the Candid Camera show? Walk me through that.

Michelle Adams: Very good questions. There was a day where we installed cameras in stores. That methodology's still out there. It is available as an accessory to a study, if we wanted to go that route. It's usually very expensive. So we're sending people through, we happen to use the Tobii eye tracking glasses. We send shoppers through. We get them set up in their cars, so they put the glasses on. They walk in without our assistance, so we are not participating in that shopping trip at all until, perhaps, at the very end, if there's a specific question or a specific area of the store where we have questions about. So they are shopping. It's recording audio and visual. So I'll give you one example. We working with a large, large furniture company, very similar to Nebraska Furniture Mart. The owner of the company wanted to know how people are utilizing different sections in his store. And he was replicating that store into different geographies. So this baseline information helped him to understand what was working and not working before they continue to build out additional stores.

Merrill Dubrow: Wow, that's fascinating, really, really fascinating. So, listen, you've had the business a little over eight years now, right? As every business, lots of twists and turns. I'm sure there are things that you thought of back in the day in 2012, 2013, wow, I know we're going to go after this type of revenue and build this type of product. And twists and turns later, years later, you built something different. What's been something that you built in the past year or so that's really gravitated to clients? That are really help and using and integrating in their business to move their business forward? Anything jump out of what you guys have done?

Michelle Adams: Yeah. I think it's taking – so we – you talked about sample size earlier. Our sample sizes are around 30. But one of the things that has grown is this idea of, I need quick information to make decisions with my executives and within companies. So they're in the middle of a large discussion that has huge financial implications on a Tuesday, say, in the boardroom. Literally, we're being challenged and asked to go out there with shoppers into situations as quick as a day or two later. We're not taking 30 in that quick turnaround. We're trying to get – we call it an exploratory study. And we're trying to get some baseline information because they're going to make a decision one way or the other, with or without consumer and shopper information. So these insights are quick, iterative, and then we can go back out with those same shoppers once we resolved whatever that big issue was and came up with a solution that we think is viable. So, I think, that business challenge, that business speed is a reality. I felt it when I was at PepsiCo. I wished I had a quick turnaround solution. But this idea that the shoppers are here to solve problems that we currently have in the business, and they might stay with us for an entire project that goes for months. So, I think, it's a different way of looking at sample, it's a different way at looking at – they're more consumer advisors than they are fresh sample every time.

Merrill Dubrow: We're going to switch gears a little bit, to your days, to your decade at Pepsi. Remember those days at PepsiCo? It probably seems like a long time ago, right?

Michelle Adams: No, it actually seems pretty short period of time ago.

Merrill Dubrow: Wow. OK.

Michelle Adams: Hard to believe it's been eight years, but mainly because we work with so many PepsiCo folks. So the people maybe – the company, they're not all working for PepsiCo now, but we're working with a lot of friends that [INAUDIBLE sounds like – were originally] from PepsiCo.

Merrill Dubrow: Well, let's talk about that because, back in the day, we would all say – and my friends and I would have discussions, oh my God, that girl was the "it girl", right, in quotes. Some would say, I would say and stress that, back in the day, PepsiCo and Frito-Lay was really one of the it places to work. And, from this aspect, it had probably one of the biggest research budgets around. It had the smartest folks. It had budgets for innovation. And it was really, I think, a great spring board for starting your career. So I think it was one of the it places to work. What were some of the big takeaways for you that really helped shape your career, Michelle, from that experience?

Michelle Adams: Yeah, well, let me step back before that because you weren't the CEO of M/A/R/C Research, but one of the best decisions I made leaving health care research, working for the federal government, was to go to M/A/R/C Research. So I was there for two and a half years before going to PepsiCo. And that was an interesting twist of fate because I was receiving an offer, HR from PepsiCo had called me, or from Frito-Lay, had called me and said that an offer would be here the next day. And, then, Frito-Lay was put on a hiring freeze and they had no flexibility to extend that offer that was coming. So I went to M/A/R/C Research, which was a great fit for me to learn the marketing research side of the business versus the research business. And there's a different vocabulary, so that experience at M/A/R/C actually was instrumental in my success at Frito-Lay because I could learn the business portion of it. I could understand the marketing research vocabulary, which is different. And, then, once I got to PepsiCo, it was really about understanding business. And the number one thing marketing researchers can do is understand how to drive the business. What makes you successful is to understand margins, to understand the business, to understand the implications of pricing strategy. So the more I understood the business, the more I was successful. And, at the end of the day, companies are trying to drive sales, profitable sales. And everything that we do in marketing research should have that goal in mind because there's things that consumers and shoppers want ideally, so they'll always tell you they hate it when you force them to buy three products for five bucks versus buying one product. So the single pricing versus multiple pricings. But you play that out in marketing research or you play that out in a sales strategy, and you're going to sell more, sometimes, when you do exactly what the shopper says, I don't want you to do. But it's just human behavior. We gravitate to the bundle, to the sales. And, so, understanding those differences and the nuances of the business is really what becomes key for a marketing research person in any line of business.

Merrill Dubrow: You know, it's interesting, full disclosure to all the listeners, I did not ask Michelle to stress her time at M/A/R/C Research. And I never did have a chance to work with you. It's funny because, back in the day, when I was an interviewer, I always thought the it companies, there were three of them that jumped out at me, Michelle. One was Yankelovich Clancy Shulman in Westport, Connecticut, and then there was Walker. For some reason, I always thought Walker in Indianapolis was such a polished company. And the third one was M/A/R/C, which was funny, I thought that in the '80s, and it's interesting that I ended up here. So who were some of the mentors along your way? Because you know so many people in the industry and a lot of people have helped you. And I know you stay in touch with a lot of people, but who were some of the mentors that helped you during your career?

Michelle Adams: The one thing – and I think we've had this conversation about mentors and the reverse mentors and the importance of multiple mentors. I would say that, for me, multiple mentors along the way helped me, not necessarily reflective of their level within that corporation. I found some of my best mentors are still some of my close friends because they – Amelia Strobel, I'll give her a huge shout-out. She's very successful at Mars Corporation now and has been. But what I loved about Amelia and still do, is that she was there to provide guidance and advice and to share her own experiences. She was my first boss when I came to Frito-Lay. And I admire her to this day because of her willingness to put us first and to see that we became successful, and that we were equipped with understanding all of the road bumps that happen in corporate America. And, frankly, there's a lot of political waves, that there's political changes in leadership and things that you really have to navigate around. So I give a huge shout-out. Kelley Styring, I mean, what a pleasure to have Kelley Styring as one of the directors at the time when I came to Frito-Lay. I also diversified by mentors to people in sales, so Anne Fink, who's still very successful at PepsiCo, leading the food service vending business. I had numerous people who gave me guidance on when to leave corporate America, because that's a scary thing too. How do you navigate a path? How do you build a bridge? So people that come into your lives providing guidance. I still appreciate Lisa Kingston [ph], and she's independent contractor and has been, but the advice she provided around how to navigate with kids. So how do you navigate corporate America, and do you have to stay in corporate America and raise a family and try to have all those challenges of work life balance. So people ahead of me who were making choices, who have remained close friends. Cathy Allin provided a lot of guidance as the CEO of Decision Insight on the challenges of being a business owner.

Merrill Dubrow: Yeah, that's some interesting stuff. I mean, look, you've had the pleasure of working with some amazing, talented people. I mean, if this was a game show and Steve Harvey said, OK, name all the people that you worked with at Frito-Lay that even I know, I mean, think about Dave Gunther [ph], Robert Atencio, Pat Masker, Jack Mark – I mean, the list is not small of all the talented folks. And I think it's amazing, and I think there was so many learnings from each of them, I'm sure. I want to switch gears because I go to a lot of conferences, and I've had the pleasure of seeing you on stage. And I'm always jazzed up and excited when I know you're going to be a keynote presenter or you're on the conference agenda, because I find you as a very dynamic presenter. Were you born that way, Michelle, or did you kind of hone in your craft over the years?

Michelle Adams: Merrill, that's interesting that you say that, coming from you.

Merrill Dubrow: Thanks.

Michelle Adams: I laugh about this, but I grew up in cheerleading. And cheerleading puts you out there in front of large groups of people. I just, I love large captive audiences. I will have to say, I was a cheerleader and a dancer growing up, and once you leave that, how am I going to have a place and be able to interact with large groups? And, so, when I was with the federal government, I spoke all the time on a variety of topics. If I told you what some of my topics were, you would laugh. But I became an expert on end stage renal disease.

Merrill Dubrow: Wow.

Michelle Adams: And I remember speaking on youth use of smokeless tobacco or cigars. So I think the topic is not what – that is important because, as marketing researchers, our expertise goes across categories, goes across industries. What you have to hone – and I'm back in school with the National Speakers Association, really trying to hone the skill of, how do you impart knowledge to an audience in a way that keeps them engaged? And, now, I have the additional pressure of understanding emotion and understanding how the brain works. So I feel like the challenge is even higher to keep a group of people engaged for more than a few minutes because it's getting more and more challenging to impart knowledge, and keeping them engaged in a way that makes them feel like they can step back in and interact back and forth. And I know you keep your audiences engaged, so I put you up there as one of my role models of people that are able to keep a group going for a long period of time because there's so many things they can do sitting in that audience instead of participating in the content that you're communicating.

Merrill Dubrow: Well, you're very kind. When I present on stage, Michelle – and we've talked about this – I have a lot of Merrillisms, one is my 20/60/20 theory, which 20 percent of the people, no matter what I say, they're going to love. 20 percent of the people, no matter what I say, they don't care. You just want a million dollars. They're checking out and posting on Instagram, they're thinking about their date over the weekend, they're thinking about dinner, whatever. But I'm trying to reach that 60 percent of the people and bring them to the top box because they haven't made up their mind. And if you can do that and give them a takeaway, I think it's huge. But you've done something that I never had, which was a TED Talk. Do you have a takeaway from that? Because I'm sure there's a lot of listeners who haven't done that, have a desire to do that, and just anything that you could say about that experience that could help them?

Michelle Adams: Well, I did have a personal goal to do a TED Talk, and I think I did it in 2014 at SMU. But I will say it was the most frightening thing I've ever done, and I'll tell you why. It's all in the psyche. When you're building up TEDxs, so I had watched everybody's TEDx, ever since TED became a thing. And, so, I really had put so much weight on what a big thing that was. So you step out on stage, the same stage that you're used to, I mean, SMU, my goodness, I was a professor there for eight years adjunct at night, so I was used to being on that campus, used to being in front of audiences. When you step on that red circle, it messes with your mind. So the other kind of beginner mistake that I made is I invited my closest friends and family and they were sitting in the front two rows. So, now, flashback to high school. I ran for president of our class and had to give a speech in the middle of the gymnasium, a memorized speech. And nothing's more terrifying than that. Well, TEDx is a little different because you do have to memorize for the most part and restricted to under ten minutes. So, and there's really no slides. So I will say the TEDx experience is whole different experience than what we do every day when we're speaking at conferences. It is a challenge for me to go back and do it better next time, and learned a lot of things out of it, that it was – it's a great – I think pushing our boundaries and challenging us to do things that are scary is really good.

Merrill Dubrow: Yeah. And, I think, as people are going to be listening to those comments, Michelle, there are so many takeaways. Number one, you have amazing self-awareness, that here are the takeaways, here's what I need to do better the next time. And I think that's amazing, not to mention that you can say, hey, you know what? I'm in touch with my emotions and it was scary. And it was scary to have my friends and family in the front two rows. So good for you. So today's a good day, I've been given a few wishes and I'm going to pass on one of those wishes to you. You get a do-over. You've had an amazing career, you really have, one that a lot of people would look up to, a lot that would be jealous of, and a lot that clearly would love to mirror and have your exact career. But I'm giving you a do-over today, you get to zig when you zagged, you get to make a decision. You need to – you can go to the right when you should have gone to the left. What's your do-over? Last question today, what is that one do-over?

Michelle Adams: I will say – and this came from one of the CMOs, Jaya Kumar, at Frito-Lay who gave me this guidance, is build the bridge first. So I should have, would have, if given a do-over, done some things while still working for PepsiCo that prepared me for the launch of a company. So things like setting up an LLC, setting up your website, knowing your logo, getting any kind of trademark. Those things should be done before you make the leap. So it was like I was doing a bit of a jump off a mountain, but there were some things that would have made that a little bit smoother and happen faster. So I think having sitting through trainings, there's so many webinars. There's so, many Small Business Administration has a lot of training. I'm sitting through some of those trainings now still because there's a lot to know as a business owner that you don't know when you work for corporate America. So, whatever your destination is, you don't have to switch overnight. You can gradually think it through. I admire people that reach out to me who want to start a small business or they want to do something different, who get advice. Because I'm out there still doing that as our company's expanding and learning what the growth curve looks like and navigating those things that are still sticky or difficult as a business owner to navigate. And, so, nothing better than to learn from people who are already in those shoes. So I think being continuous learners, asking for advice, seeking advice, those are things that I would completely recommend somebody do. And I wish I had done a little bit more of that before I started a business from scratch.

Merrill Dubrow: Michelle, fantastic job. You've been listening to Michelle Adams. This is the On the M/A/R/C Podcast. My name is Merrill Dubrow. Have a great day.