We talk to Gabriela McCoy, Director of Portfolio Strategic Insights and Analytics Bacardi North America about how research and insights have helped the company achieve outstanding results in a turbulent year where the COVID-19 pandemic has shut down most of the opportunities to socialize and have fun.
McCoy underlines how important it is for insight professionals to be more human centric as so many decisions are transaction driven and pivot around data and building algorithms to quantify and categorize people to get insights.
“At Bacardi we have chosen a more human focused attitude, as peoples’ lives tend to be unpredictable, messy and uniquely imperfect, and the more we lean into human input when developing and creating our products, the greater the chance we have of getting human output.
“I’ve worked for a wide range of companies and one of the coolest things about working with Bacardi is it is really about putting our drinkers first. We have taken a conscious decision to not allow facts and data to be the only thing that dictates how we develop our relationship with our drinkers. We prefer to think of them as humans not as consumers, because if you call someone a ‘consumer’, you are essentially thinking of that person as a transaction or a shopper for your brand. This leads to more standardized ads and communications rather than inspiring and personal creatives.”
Humans not consumers
When thinking about Bacardi, many people might not realise that it is the world’s largest privately held spirits company, which owns iconic brands, including Bacardí rum, Patrón tequila, Bombay Sapphire gin, Grey Goose vodka, Dewar’s and William Lawson’s whiskies, Martini & Rossi vermouths and sparkling wines.
Each brand will have its own devotees and drinking habits, so if humans replace consumers and connections replace transactions, how does this help develop an exceptional creative communication for a brand like Dewar’s, one of Bacardi’s whisky brands?
McCoy comments “Instead of talking about ‘consumers’ and looking at big data sets to come up with a five-year growth plan, we might instead, for example, start thinking about a creating a person who drinks whisky, who might be a multicultural female of around 41 years old, who shops the liquor channels and searches for discounts when looking for whisky brands. Her name is Emily, and some days it’s hard to make ends meet, but the one thing that helps her on difficult days is having time with her girlfriends and indulging in a whisky sour and unwinding. Why does Emily drink whisky? It makes her feel tough on the outside and homey on the inside. So we will get a more provocative and playful creative for Dewar’s with this approach, which is much more inspiring than just thinking about spreadsheets and consumers.”
Deeper connections
Many companies use big data and analytics to measure and quantify changes in customer behavior to guide business decisions but McCoy believes that insight professionals must go far beyond that to understand human behavior and attitudes. She highlights that human input is needed for creative and product development and to drive effective communications. So does this mean more focus groups? According to McCoy not really.
“Focus groups are really observing people in a constructed situation, and just like looking at lions in a cage, it’s not the same reality as in the wild. We prefer to do one on ones to connect with people and understand how someone might celebrate with a Bacardi or a gin and tonic or get ready to have drinks during the Super Bowl. Or we could go with a moderator and hang out with people and observe how they interact with one another, why they choose a certain Ready-to-Drink (RTD) above another and try to understand why that RTD is better in that particular setting, and this is much more immersive than being in a focus group.
“We also interact with people in a different way. For instance, instead of asking a participant to talk about their favorite brand, we might ask them to tell us what they would say in an obituary for that brand if it were to pass away. You get much richer insights when you approach qualitative research differently.
“When the social psychologist Robert Merton came up with a method for focus groups, it was actually called focus interviewing. It was about understanding the context in which people were living via one-to-one relationships. Things have evolved since then, but we are returning to his methodology to develop a deep connection with people in trying to understand how they see the world, and brands.”
Staying close
Bacardi differentiates between on premise (bars and restaurants) and off premise moments (where people go to stores to buy drinks and spirits). Pre COVID, people had lots opportunities to get together to share a cocktail and most Bacardi ads will feature a party-like atmosphere of people having fun together.
McCoy says that the pandemic has not stopped people socializing. “These days, friends are connecting virtually at home and enjoying Zoom happy hours. People have a natural inclination to get together and still want to enjoy their cocktails but then at home. This trend had already started before COVID, for example with colleagues toasting a small work victory with cocktails online, so people are still finding ways to connect even when on premise social opportunities have closed down.
“A year ago, nobody could have ever imagined the situation where we are today but what has helped us at Bacardi is that we are very close to our drinkers. We started a weekly newsletter when the pandemic began (we are now on our 38th edition), monitoring on a weekly basis what’s happening with COVID, how the business is performing, how our clientele is being impacted, and most importantly how are humans behaving and interacting when it comes to drinking occasions.”
Her team has gone from trying to understanding humans on a monthly or quarterly basis to a weekly basis, and this has helped the company to be very flexible in making quick and critical decisions. The newsletter goes to all the key stakeholders, global business leaders, PR teams and decisions makers, and has been instrumental in helping the company build up its e-commerce space whereas pre COVID-19, online shopping was not that important to the company. This weekly monitoring has enabled the team to stay very close to the business and highlight emerging trends on a weekly basis.
“We saw a huge change in online sales – what we would normally sell online over week, we would sell in a day. This was not just Bacardi rum but over our entire portfolio. We developed our online platform together with our ecommerce partners and saw huge growth, which allowed us to stay ahead of our competitors. Had we waited a month we would have missed a huge opportunity. When we compared our online sales by June, sales had already surpassed the online sales for the entire previous year.
“When change is happening at warp speed, we prefer to find the quick wins and keep our decision makers and partners closely informed. It has forced us to work in a much more agile way and to adapt to new developments as they happen, and this has been instrumental to creating a 300 to 500 percent growth in ecommerce sales across our portfolio.”
Looking ahead to 2021
McCoy says her team will probably steer away from focus groups and move instead towards connecting with people one on one to better understand humans in their complexity.
She also feels that a key consequence of COVID-19 is that companies will lead with more humanity and empathy in the future, as it is clear that everyone is dealing with similar stresses. People might have upset children at home, be lonely or struggling with health issues. She praises Bacardi, which is a family-owned company, for leading with empathy, noting that the leadership team have been very understanding of the challenges and helping to motivate people to move quickly.
“For instance, I’m a single mum with two young boys, and sometimes have to be a home teacher as well as a full-time employee. We are all working from home and have established a mum’s room online to share our vulnerability and challenges. Empathy and humanity are superpowers and as researchers, we are also charged with understanding the challenges that people are dealing with.
“One of the coolest things we did with Bacardi rum is to appreciate our super fans who are naturally advocating the brand. We wanted to understand how they act and talk about our brand and what it means during the pandemic. So, one of the spots for TV was a group of real-life room mates who love Bacardi; we gave them a camera, the tools, the makeup, and props and taught them over video calls how to create their own room mates spot during lockdown. It shows you can take the party away, but people will still find ways to connect with one another.
“People will always want to have fun and there is a sense of resilience in moments that matter whether it is having a lovely cocktail when you are connecting with yourself, or connecting real time with your friends or family, people will always find moments that matter to celebrate. “
