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Dig In is your go to source for insights innovation. It's for anyone with a genuine interest in fostering brand and product growth, exploring groundbreaking innovations, and embracing the dynamic world of expanding businesses and brands.
Jess Gaedeke (00:11)
Hi everybody. Welcome to the dig in podcast. I have been looking forward to this conversation for
I don't know, many, many moons. I am so blessed to be joined today by Doug Healy. He is head of Consumer Insights North America, Kraft Heinz, as if he needs that introduction. the man, the myth, Doug, thanks for being here.
Douglas Healy (00:28)
No, I realize there was a myth. had a mythology, but I'm excited. I'm excited to learn more about it. Maybe that's not what this podcast is for, but we dig deep. But thank you. That's very kind of you. I am equally as excited chat with you. I know we haven't done it on a podcast before, but every single time and I get together, have some great conversations. I'm excited to get this one going.
Jess Gaedeke (00:48)
to get it recorded this time. let's get going with an impromptu question. You haven't seen this one coming, what's the last thing you got weirdly obsessed with?
Douglas Healy (00:56)
boy. will say what I did was I became obsessed last year.
like I went on a hike. went to the Grand Canyon. I became obsessed. a kind of midlife crisis. Me and a couple of the boys were like, we're going to go do something of dangerous, right? Which is recommend you don't do it, but it's hiking you know, the base of the Grand Canyon, which of course is the top down and then back up in a single day. And it was...
Jess Gaedeke (01:01)
Are ready?
Douglas Healy (01:21)
became obsessed with training for it, for pushing myself, like gonna do it. we ended up doing it. like the whole goal of this was to push ourselves to the limit, And did. I barely made it. It was nighttime, it was pitch black, my body was breaking.
I was holding poles like for so long that my hands started cramping and I couldn't actually hold poles anymore because they were just like stuck like this. thought they were gonna have to leave me. Because we ended up being 22 miles day and it's 4,500 feet then you go up and it's, I'll tell you, it's one of those things where because it's so steep.
Jess Gaedeke (01:50)
yourself.
Douglas Healy (02:02)
and it's so high, you just don't feel like you're making any progress. it's a magical, beautiful, incredible experience for six hours. And then it was wild, but we did it we did it and it was amazing. And then we did a couple more days with much more mild hikes at kind of and stuff like that, but just really became obsessed with like.
Jess Gaedeke (02:20)
Yeah.
Douglas Healy (02:24)
myself and pushing my body. I have found that I can be very, make excuses for not doing things. And then I find, the whole time I was just making excuses. I had never run before and then I decided to run a marathon. Cause I'd always told myself I'm too big to run a marathon. Turns out, no, I just needed to train for
Jess Gaedeke (02:39)
love that. I'm so glad I asked that question because we wouldn't have unearthed that story. just note for me. So I married into a hiking family, which I'm not a our first courtship times with Mike, we'd go on hikes. And I'd be like, I'd have to stop. And then I'd cry. I'm like, I can't do this. We need a break.
Douglas Healy (02:47)
⁓ nice.
Jess Gaedeke (02:57)
before reporting to you and then his mom would tell stories about hiking the Grand Canyon stuff. no, you just have to sit aside and cry for a little bit and I'm like what are you guys doing? Why are we doing something that is bringing you to tears? This is ridiculous. So we're still together. He did make me hike my ring, my engagement ring, but other than that he kind of leaves me alone now. so
Douglas Healy (03:18)
the last quick before we get into it was my biggest mistake was I didn't eat enough I was like, well, I don't want to have that much in my system while I'm doing something this intense. And my friends like brought sandwiches. I'm like, you're not going to eat a sandwich while you're doing this. That's insane. And then halfway through I'm like, I need a sandwich so bad. learned.
Jess Gaedeke (03:33)
Ha ha.
is all important So now we'll get down to business. Tell us about yourself. us your intro, your background and where you are now.
Douglas Healy (03:41)
thank you. I have been in Insights. This is my 26th year and I'll start all the way back to undergrad. I went to college to play football up in a lower middle class family and parents were professionals. My mom was a server. She went to night school to become an admin. My dad was a veteran who went in IT. I still have to say like the jobs I thought existed were doctor lawyer and
person and fire person. I went to school to play football and maybe be a doctor and like that didn't work out. I ended with a history degree, long story short. And so I graduated, people were like, you're gonna go be a teacher. I don't wanna do that. And I had a friend, Julie Johnson, who had to give all the things in the world to. And she was like, hey, we have this internship, this company that...
I just started working for Health Focus International, was a research and wellness and ran by Linda Gilbert at the time. She was my first mentor. Again, I have to give incredible props of them. And loved function of insights is this unique blend of and science and psychology
influence, and in the end, you also get specific strategic outcomes and business growth, right? And so me, it's really this kind of polymath function of, able to explore so many different areas of just my interest. know, so I loved it. I worked at Health Focus for about eight years, and then I worked for Barilla.
what was great about Barilla was it was a family-owned business. They loved to do insights and research. So we had a small team and a huge budget. So I did a ton of work then from there, to PepsiCo in 2010, worked at Quaker for seven at Gatorade for seven years. I say all that, I know it's a long-winded bit of story, super passionate what we do.
love the function. I think we can have such incredible impact. a really strong point of view about when insights is bad it's good, we need to do to get a seat at the table, fact that we need to be business growth drivers. We should be in the C-suite with everybody else. We need to have that point of view and it all starts with the mindset. I was at PepsiCo and I looked at I wanted my to be.
role that came up at Kraft Heinz was exactly where, hey, have this strong point of view. Heinz had gone through a lot of changes. been coming in as Global Insights VP and starting to shift some things.
And it was like, Hey, do you want to lead a North American team, set the agenda and you know, these takes that you have, can we apply them to a bigger team and can we raise the function up? was exactly what I wanted to do. I am. And like, very proud of the impact that we're making. We're continuing to grow. a lot of things happening here.
Jess Gaedeke (06:18)
we're going to dig into a lot of what you just said, especially point of view and your hot take on some of the nuances of the insights industry. But we're going to get to that in part two. We're going to start with a story. And I cannot wait to hear you tell this story I also worked on the Quaker brand in my sort of my career. So I'm well familiar with the brand as story that you're going to tell, I think really paints the picture of
you know, what a heritage brand means and some of the opportunities and some of the assumptions that are made about heritage brands. So I can't wait to unpack this. Let's dig back to that point in time when you were working on the Quaker brand. What was the context at the time? What were people kind of asking you guys to do with the brand?
Douglas Healy (06:54)
so within PepsiCo is a little bit of a unique animal, right? It's a health and wellness business in a world of like soft drinks snacks, things like that. so there was this constant push of like, how do we take it to the next level? How do we grow? And so we had some great come into the organization. And what would happen is every single time we'd have a new leader,
would be, well, the problem with Quaker is the a brand that people love. Like we had a leader come in and say, to make Quaker people love. did some research and we found was more loved than any other food brand out there, any. And then people didn't even believe it. They're like, okay, well, what about in the broad world? we had to do more and found out the Quaker brand is more loved than Apple, Google and people.
stunned, why not the must be Man, Which as Larry. Yeah, it's less interesting. It turns out it was just like the name of a project. Like somebody.
Jess Gaedeke (07:43)
why Larry? Who came up with that?
Douglas Healy (07:51)
called a project, Project Larry, and then it got associated with him. And then because it was kind of quirky and funny, it stuck internally. I'm pretty sure his formal name is Quaker Man, but I don't work for the company anymore. So I don't have to abide by the rules. but yeah, so those who don't know the Quaker Man is literally a Quaker, Dressed in old garb, you know, has white hair, older man, a bigger build. so leaders would come in and
Jess Gaedeke (08:05)
Yeah,
Douglas Healy (08:17)
Consistently, would be like relates to the Quaker man, it's old, like we need to be modern, we need to be more relatable to nowadays. again, this would happen every single time a new leader came in. so every single time we would do the work. And it turns out that not only is Larry the Quaker man, not the is.
one of the single greatest distinctive assets in food marketing today. Quaker Man for purity, wellness. Like is a breakfast business and reliability. Like all of these things are just natural in the subconscious consumer. yet every time people were like, well, young people don't want to see this older person. And it's like,
Jess Gaedeke (08:49)
Reliability.
Douglas Healy (09:02)
actually do, Like, this is where insights can be bad, right? ask young people if they care about the Quaker man, they'll say no. if you show young people images of the Quaker man, mind goes to wholesomeness and purity. you don't have to have updated version of the Quaker man either. You don't have to trim his chins. You don't have to make it like have a modern haircut. Like it is the classic connection.
the roots of the brand. And I'll say this all goes to like, while it started in Quaker, had the privilege of working on a number of like heritage brands, classic brands, be it Gatorade, at Kraft Heinz, right? We're named after two of them. consistently what I hear from people literally was having this discussion yesterday about one of our businesses of, do consumers care we invented cream cheese?
Yes, they do. 100%. And it's one of those things, if you ask a bad question, you'll get a bad answer. If you go ask consumers, do you care that they'll know? Who cares? if you tell the story as a Gatorade, we would do this all the time. We had leadership telling us, Z does not care that Gatorade invented sports drinks for athletes. Does not care, do not waste the time telling that story. And then we did the work, and of course they do. one of those things where,
you have an origin story, when you created a category, when you the story of how invented and cheese as a comfort, easy, affordable food for completely changes the mindset of corporates something humanized and meaningful and purposeful. so of my colleagues,
Lindsay Klint, who I've with on Quaker, on Gatorade, now here at Kraft Heinz conference planners are listening, we're going to put together a presentation on this and the power of heritage brands. And, know, one the last things I'll say on this is wary of things like modernizing the brand. And what I mean by that is we say, and I say we as like marketers, when we say we need to modernize the brand, what we
mean is we need to make our brand relevant. And so in order to make your brand relevant, need to understand the drivers of the category, you need to understand how your brand achieves versus those things versus not, don't make allow yourself to be surprised by the power of your story. the other problem with modernizing the brand if you a brief and you go to a designer, then you say, the word modern,
Jess Gaedeke (11:24)
of that.
Douglas Healy (11:32)
something different to a designer than it does to us. Like again, because we mean designer is very specific, like modern design is a very specific element of design. And now suddenly you have a heritage brand that's going to the edges of the bell curve as it pertains to like how the brand comes to life, is we're huge heritage brands. We exist in the middle. We need to have broader appeal. so this isn't a problem with
design agencies, there's a problem with us and how we communicate. And so it's just be very careful about the words you use. And again, allow yourself embrace your heritage, understand the parts of it that are really powerful use it to your advantage.
Jess Gaedeke (12:10)
Yeah, are so many parts of what you just described that I could go into rabbit holes. But one that you just is be careful with the words you use and also tied to, if you ask a crappy question, you're going to get a crappy I mean, how many times I've seen research. So I've done a lot of pack design research in my career. A lot of points of view on it. And if you ask a consumer, is the personality of this pack design irreverent? It's like, what the fuck do you think the
Douglas Healy (12:36)
Hahaha
Jess Gaedeke (12:38)
They don't sit around and use that type of terminology talking about brands, can ⁓ react to things and also explain what makes them feel and like if want to hang out with that brand. There's so many cool ways that you can get at that same concept, but please, insights people, design people, don't expect the consumer to use our language. They just don't.
Douglas Healy (12:45)
Yeah.
you're so correct. I'm going to sound judgmental, but like I said, it's it's more that I'm just very passionate about what we do and doing it right. And I think for us to take that seat at the leadership table, have to do things the right way. it can just be very easy design a survey that answers the question that someone's you know, our, our BU president was asking, is our packaging irreverent? Right.
job is to take question and understand what they really need, in the end, growth. It's growth. We need to translate everything to dollars. We need to translate. So yes, they're asking this question, that doesn't mean now we have to become obsessed with irreverency. the other thing too is think about what's the best way to understand from a consumer perspective to your point.
One of the things I tell people, especially more junior insights folks is like, worst way to understand why someone did something is to ask them, right? we justify what we do. It's just the natural human behavior of like, make choices and then we justify later why we did those things are ways to ask around the question that you're really trying to ask. creative, be thoughtful. This is somewhere where I think
Jess Gaedeke (13:51)
Mm-hmm.
Douglas Healy (14:07)
of my superpowers comes from the fact that I didn't have a formal background, that I have a liberal arts degree, I'm rather naive to like how things should done. And so it's more of like, I didn't have it trained in me to do things a specific way. it's like, okay, well, this isn't working. What if we try things a different way? And just been very successful. Like I rely on the literal and find ways to become reliant on signals.
take you to the real space of how consumers are reacting.
Jess Gaedeke (14:36)
absolutely. Well, let's go there next because I know you do have so many passionate points of view. when you, when you get on a rant, is just, it's a sight to see and it's, it is inspiring and I learned something every So just go on a rant. Like what is happening with the role of insights in this industry?
Douglas Healy (14:43)
you
Jess Gaedeke (14:52)
what is going on with how technology is going to advance or change that, just rant.
Douglas Healy (14:57)
thank you for that freedom. what I'll say is, I worry about from the insights function, and this is broadly,
I really think we're doing incredible harm to ourselves. I think we're commoditizing our function. I think there's a reason why insights teams are like a third to a quarter of the size they were years ago. and it has so much to do with and things coming in, we're allowing the wrong people to speak the industry,
a lot of entrepreneurship. There's a lot of like new tools that are available to us allow us to do things we could never do before. But in the end, they are tools us to drive the business. Our job was never deliver data. unfortunately, there's a lot of entrepreneurs who are selling new tools, which are data-based, who are speaking to the CEOs and the leaders and the executives of the companies that we work for. And it's telling them, Insights is a data function.
I have this tool that takes care of that for you. You don't need to have that anymore. again, I'm not saying there isn't usefulness in these tools, the framing of it. Cause the implication is insights is a data delivery function.
so now that we have this tool, it's automated. You don't have to do it. so we're seeing these slashes. in the meantime, one of the things that we're doing here is showing, well, actually, no, are growth drivers. We are strategists. data is the tool. It is not what we do. It's how we do what we experts in understanding how to You know, of my many, many pet peeves is insights is not voice of the consumer.
You want voice of the consumer, go on the internet or whatever, go read a review, like who gives a shit? our job is to translate needs of the consumers in a way that allows us to strategize to solve the problems of the consumer to serve the needs of the business. Cause the consumer is going to tell you they want everything and they want it as cheap as possible and they want it now. We have to figure out.
the right way to do all that. And so I think we really need to take ownership. I think we need to look at ourselves like companies that are sponsoring our conferences and the companies that are, you know, stage talking about their tools are the same ones that are a lot of losses in the people function. Let me be clear. I'm not here to say like insights should be the way it was 15 years ago. There are but where are the voices?
to show impact of the strategy and leadership the real output that we can do. I think we need to be louder with that. I think we need to focus more on translating data into dollars, right? again, I'm not naive. We're using these tools and we're doing these things. And I'll tell you right now, like we have conversations internally that your role is delivering data, is delivering reports,
know, hey, marketing asked for this. And so I gave it to them. job is going to be done by AI or it will be in India in the next three or four so your value is as a strategist, time to bring it. And so I've always sort of lived that way, but it's just, see the function kind of struggling with it right now. And I think need to turn a corner to help bring it back up.
Jess Gaedeke (18:05)
Yeah. And without naming names, but the types of companies that you say are taking the stage and preaching this message and are in the ear of the executives of the client side. What types of companies are you referring I guess, can you elaborate on what that profile is again without naming names? But I am just curious like who you're talking about.
Douglas Healy (18:24)
some of these profiles are like well here's DIY tools and you have DIY tools and if you can intern like and again this this is of the irony of it is DIY tools actually require more work from us that that's like the ironic flip but like they're kind of sold as Here are ways that you can get insights faster or AI companies that can consolidate all your information.
is often seen as a roadblock in the process. it's like now we have to go do research, to wait for insights results and the project has to stall, which is untrue. Let me be very clear, a project roadmap can take to three years and the fact that we take six weeks to make sure that what we're doing is the right thing to do is a
roadblock, it's a necessary step in the process. But again, it's how we frame up these things. And so can come in and be like, ⁓ innovation process is too long. Well, what if you had ideas in the upfront generated by AI, you could get to market faster. And it's like, the problem isn't ideation.
problem isn't that we don't have enough ideas. The problem is commercializing. The problem is making them. There's a lot of smart people that come up with ideas very so I believe a lot of it is that we're presenting the wrong problems to solve. And so we're saying the problem with insights is that it goes too fast and it costs too much money.
here's a tool that you can do quickly. And if you can do it quickly, you probably only need one person. You don't need four people. You have these tools. Like they can do a lot of the work for them. I disagree. I think it's people not understanding the work that goes into the work that we do. then in the end, still just have ideas. always had ideas. We literally have hundreds of them at a time. And so it's...
what we think the real problems to solve are when it comes to things like innovation and brand building and then creating tools help us do it. Like one solution I truly believe, talked about this at shows before is,
while agility is often framed at how quickly you can do research, which is true, there's also an agility that comes from doing big projects. So I do a big 3000 sample size study.
Well guess what? I can answer a question I didn't know that I had like six months from now, I can answer a question I didn't know that I have with the data that I have available to it. And it's all contained within the same data set. So instead of asking one off questions to answer very specific things, I'm getting big information, right? And I think a lot of the conversation around technology has focused so much on the speed we're actually giving up a lot of quality of insights.
as we're trying to balance these things
If that makes sense.
Jess Gaedeke (20:59)
Yeah,
absolutely. Could not agree more. We really try to always keep the, it's not just faster, but it's smarter. It should always be in the spirit of, we getting a better insight? Are we identifying a better growth driver for our clients? And then, you know, this is really implicit in everything you've been saying, but that magical power of storytelling, that is one of the greatest assets of insight professionals.
Douglas Healy (21:21)
Yeah.
Jess Gaedeke (21:23)
We had a client just recently say, the job starts when you guys give us the deliverable. mean, that's when my job starts. I have to go socialize and deploy and make sure that it's driving the right actionability. And it's just so true. So I'm just curious if you could give me another one of those problems to solve that you think the industry is sort of not putting enough emphasis on. What's something else that we should be talking about more?
Douglas Healy (21:44)
yeah, so one of the things I talked about before in terms of like what are some other areas that we need to focus on is I think insights has become very diagnostic heavy. It always has been, right? Diagnostics are important. have to, again, understand the drivers of what drives success, almost to the point where missing the bigger picture of like in the end, we sell units of things for dollars.
And so when we make recommendations, they should be based on that. And it is a very long-winded way of saying, how do we get to volume estimates faster? How do we get to dollar estimates faster? How do we translate what we learned about what a consumer said about how they feel about our product? And how do you monetize that? I think that's one of the missing pieces for insights to become part of the right? Because in the end, you're talking about the P &L, you're talking about growth, you're talking about hitting our numbers.
so, we did this work and we understand the of the Quaker man to consumers. Okay, can we turn that into, no, the real power is if you put this older man that stands for these things, a potential valuation of X percent every year that we can count on. because we're gonna raise these equities and these drivers. so I say a lot to say, let's focus more on like,
reports, fewer deliverables, ultimate thing, which is think that's a huge area. The other thing I'll quickly add on to is, you know, I rant upon rant and soapbox upon soapbox,
One of the themes we have for our team this year is learning mindset. And some of these fast turn tool, like how can you make sure these tools are in service of a learning mindset, continued growth, and not just answering one question, not being so focused on the short term. these are areas where that's where real leadership will come through. And I think where our impact will be felt.
Jess Gaedeke (23:40)
love that. I love that ethos. And I know that's something you constantly reinforce with your teams is that learning mindset. a beautiful
The thing that I...
really value so much about you Doug is that you talk, tell it like it is, but you also know that you're open to other perspectives, right? Like you're not a person that believes you know everything. You just are very convicted in what your opinions are. And I just think that's great. And I think that we need more people that can be vocal and share that perspective in the industry.
Douglas Healy (24:07)
I appreciate it. will. of the reasons I believe strongly in the things I do is because I'm constantly questioning the things I believe. Right. But truly, I'm a very self-conscious, self-loathing, a lot of times sort of person. And when I have a strong take, it's
Truly, I have hammered myself over and over. Like even in this conversation I'm having right now, we're discussing things and I'm like, do I really, that true? And I'm like, yes, no, it is. been through this a lot of times and yeah, I think, know, one of those ironies of life is I do think strength and confidence for me, I guess, from.
questioning because how can you know if you don't challenge yourself? how do you know what you feel or believe? know and things change over time and if you're not constantly questioning yourself, I think of the things I look out for my career is whenever I hear somebody say like look I've been doing this a long time. I think I know what good looks like. I'm like person's toast because you know, I mean the world's always changing and it's like.
Jess Gaedeke (25:05)
see that from above.
Douglas Healy (25:09)
can be right and then wrong two weeks from now. And you just have to allow yourself the ability. There's actually a book on this, Super Forecasters. Highly recommend. mean, the book's gotta be almost 20 years old now. it's like, who are the best at predicting what was gonna come next, the trait unified the people who are best at predicting things was their willingness to change their priors.
That's it. You have new information and therefore I'm going to adjust what I believe. That's the number one quality in being able to see forward. And number two was intelligence and it was like three times less important. Right? It's just, you have to be willing to new information in your life and let that, that flow.
Jess Gaedeke (25:53)
What a great lesson. I'm glad you're able to surface that. it's, you know, an oldie but goodie that book. So I'm glad you mentioned that too. We're going to move to the final dig. This is all about sort of you as an individual out there in the free to take off your professional hat if you wish. the last product you bought on impulse?
Douglas Healy (26:10)
got a pair of I ordered through the sneakers app. They're black skateboarding shoes with like neon little stripes on them that popped up. I couldn't help myself and previous to that I impulse bought my daughter's they had kpop demon hunter vans came up on my Instagram feed so I had to one from my my younger daughter and then for my older daughter I got the classic black and white.
Instagram knows me too well. buy a lot on impulse. Like I said, I'm a person without moderation. And so it's like, I see something and I go get it.
Jess Gaedeke (26:41)
You are a sneakerhead, right? Like you'd consider yourself one.
Douglas Healy (26:45)
I don't only because I know real sneaker heads who like them in like special contained. Like I love shoes. I love like really like like Jordan ones and things like that. So I have a number of good not good enough to call myself a sneaker head.
Jess Gaedeke (27:00)
Okay, I mean, that's an important differentiation and you can get there, Doug. I believe in you. The answer of this next question might be sneakers, but you'll have to think outside the box here. So what's a category or a brand that you could rationalize any price point for? You just have to have it in your life.
Douglas Healy (27:04)
Hahaha
Bourbon has become one. So me and your colleague, a genuine for Bourbons. That's one where it's like, know, I'm kind of the idiot consumer is like, ⁓ this one's more expensive. I got to try that one. so it's more around new. But yeah, I would say there's so stuff in that area that it's like...
I don't care how much it costs. The other thing is Disney, which maybe isn't my choice, but it's where Disney had family. My wife is actually flying there just for three nights with her friend tonight. it's.
Jess Gaedeke (27:51)
Now Disney for you, because you're in Chicago,
so Disney for you, is that Florida or is it Anaheim?
Douglas Healy (27:56)
We've done both. up, I was born in LA, so I have a lot of heart for Disneyland, primarily go to Florida as a family.
Jess Gaedeke (28:00)
that. ⁓
yeah. those are two interesting things to combine in that response. Bourbon and Disney. I'm not sure how Disney would feel about that combination, makes sense. Totally makes I cannot wait to hear how you answer this one. So brands have distinct personalities. We know that very well. What's a brand that you would date and a brand that you would marry? And it's your choice. They could be different brands.
Douglas Healy (28:24)
brand that I would date would probably be Sub Pop, which is for those that don't know, it is a record label based out of Seattle. They did a lot of like the early grunge stuff. So yeah, I do have kind of
in the scene and music and the kind irreverence mixed with kind of the punk mentalities represents. and Mary much harder.
I'm taking it too literally, but like brands can.
piss me off in a way no, this is over.
Jess Gaedeke (29:02)
Well, how about the opposite? What's a brand that you have divorced?
Douglas Healy (29:06)
did at one time I dumped Nike. was when I was in college because I was committed to Nike and then their football cleats kept falling apart on me. And then I tried on Adidas one time and I'm like, I can't believe I've been wearing Nike shoes this long, they were the most uncomfortable things ever. And then finally I put on Adidas and it was like, but I came back. we got remarried.
Jess Gaedeke (29:29)
you
how complex this question has become to you. I think you're gonna be thinking about this one like over the weekend. It's gonna be...
Douglas Healy (29:37)
No, I truly am.
I'm not crazy brand loyal because I find brands change very often. And so it's like when I was younger, I was very big into Banana Republic. And then I feel like they decided on a weird aesthetic for a few years. And it was like, I don't know why we're doing this. I'm out.
Jess Gaedeke (29:56)
Yeah.
Douglas Healy (29:57)
things
like that where I couldn't do it.
Jess Gaedeke (30:00)
Yeah, you know, I think that's fair. We evolve as humans throughout our lives and brands are going to come in and out for those reasons and many others. There you go.
Douglas Healy (30:07)
I would marry, I would marry dig. That would be the brand I would be married to. mean, consistent,
always there for me, knows how to like talk me through my problems. know, bringing me solutions, not more issues. what a life, what a life.
Jess Gaedeke (30:22)
Beautiful. Thank you for submitting that answer, Doug. It does really mean a So who's an industry leader you think I should interview on this podcast? As you mentioned, we've talked with Risa. We love, love, Risa. what are some other leaders you think I should, have great points of view that should be heard here?
Douglas Healy (30:39)
I mean, I'm a sucker for a lot of people that I've worked with in the past. like Andrea Bingham is currently in a role like Gatorade. think she's wonderful. So someone who works for, you know, a competitor of yours, I guess, who I think would be interesting be Chuck Murphy, who owns Murphy Research.
He's someone who worked at Lieberman and then went and obviously started his own company. And I think he just has an interesting perspective as someone with a company similar to DIG, huge, but like right-sized strategic insights company about the future of the industry. He always brings some wonderful perspectives.
Jess Gaedeke (31:21)
Well, I'd love to meet him. So thank you for mentioning Final question for me, Doug. What keeps you inspired at work? Is it the industry? Is it the people? Is it the challenges you get to solve? And is it some combination of those
Douglas Healy (31:34)
Yeah, it's a combination of the thing. Look, no job is worth the right people. And like the difference, I'll say here at Kraft Heinz, like look, the CPG industry is struggling, know, food and Bev is struggling. And every day here, I love the people I work with and the people I connect with. I love seeing the output. I love seeing...
strategy documents that are being presented to leadership, which that's all like, can see the insights work. I can see how it's been embedded. And it's like, that payoff is so special. And there's still like, still something special about like, when an ad you've been working on for six months comes on air and you're like, holy crap, we did that. Right? I think we need to take the time to step away. This is something I encourage my team because
I think as an industry, we're very bad at just moving on to the next project. the time and give yourself the credit and celebrate wins. And so truly for me, it's the connections with people and succeeding together.
You know, we have quarterly meetings. still do quarterly Chicago Insights, if anyone's in Chicago, by the way. We do with like people we used to work with, like every quarter we bring them all back together and those connections we're going to stick with, you know, forever. we work so hard. It's not worth it if you don't love who you're doing it with.
Jess Gaedeke (32:56)
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Well, thank you for being one of those partners that we really do enjoy working with, everything that you bring to the industry and to our relationship. And ⁓
Not at all.
Douglas Healy (33:06)
But thank you
so much. This has been wonderful.
Jess Gaedeke (33:08)
Yeah, thanks, Doug.