Tom Johnson on lessons from establishing and growing client-side insights functions

In this episode of Now That's Significant, a market research podcast, host Michael Howard interviews Tom Johnson, Senior Director of Consumer Insight and Analytics at Jack in the Box and Del Taco, about his journey in market research and the importance of aligning insights with business goals.

Tom, with 25 years of experience on both the agency and client side, shares valuable lessons learned from building the consumer insights function at Del Taco from the ground up and navigating the complexities of a merger with Jack in the Box.

Here are five key takeaways from the episode:

Passion for insights can stem from inspiring mentors: Tom's journey began with a college professor who ignited his interest in market research, highlighting the impact mentors can have on shaping careers.

Understanding the full impact of insights requires client-side experience: Tom transitioned to the client side to gain a deeper understanding of how insights are used to drive business decisions.

Cross-functional collaboration is essential for maximizing impact: Building relationships with stakeholders across different departments allows consumer insights to influence a wider range of decisions.

Strategic prioritization is crucial for managing research budgets: A "barbell strategy," balancing high-impact strategic research with efficient, tactical research, helps optimize resource allocation.

Adapting to evolving consumer behavior is key for success: Understanding the nuances of consumer behavior in a changing economic and social landscape is crucial for developing effective strategies.

Tune in to this episode to learn more about Tom Johnson's insights on building a successful consumer insights function and navigating the challenges of the fast-food industry.

***

Infotools Harmoni is a fit-for-purpose market research analysis, visualization, and reporting platform that gives the world’s leading brands the tools they need to better understand their consumers, customers, organization, and market.

www.infotools.com

Established in 1990, we work with some of the world’s top brands around the world, including Coca-Cola, Orange, Samsung, and Mondelēz.

Our powerful cloud-based platform, Harmoni, is purpose-built for market research. From data processing to investigation, dashboards to collaboration, Harmoni is a true "data-to-decision-making" solution for in-house corporate insights teams and agencies.

While we don't facilitate market research surveys, provide sample, or collect data, we make it easy for market researchers to find and share compelling insights that go over-and-above what stakeholders want, inspiring them to act decisively.

One of the most powerful features of Harmoni is Discover, a time-tested, time-saving, and investigative approach to data analysis. Using automated analyses to reveal patterns and trends, Discover minimizes potential research bias by removing the need for requesting and manually analyzing scores of cumbersome crosstabs – often seeing what you can’t.

Discover helps you easily find what differentiates groups that matter to you, uncover what makes them unique, and deliver data points that are interesting, relevant, and statistically significant, plus see things others can’t. Add to all this an impending GenAI feature, and you have an extremely powerful, future-proofed tool.