People to Watch 2016: Sam Brewster, Dr Pepper Snapple Group

Sam Brewster’s ambition has always followed one rule: where can he make the most impact? Brewster, senior manager of shopper insights at Dr Pepper Snapple Group, has made his mark with research customized by retailer in a department that is relatively new at the company.“You really can’t do anything in a company unless you have a really deep understanding of consumers and shoppers that buy your product,” Brewster says. “Without that, nothing else is possible.”Brewster says he was immediately drawn to market research as a marketing major at Miami University. His first job was with Nielsen, working with its BASES analytical tools and advising Procter & Gamble on new product testing. He liked it for the exposure to a huge company but was frustrated because of the limits of that exposure. He wanted to more directly affect a company’s success, and when a manufacturer’s side job opportunity came, he jumped.Brewster started in 2012 with consumer insights at Dr. Pepper Snapple Group. “The insights team really gave me everything I was missing in the last role, and made me aware of how much influence someone in insights can actually have in the business rather than playing a small role testing products and passing off decision-making – really being in the room and part of the decision-making and the strategic direction, having a lot of influence all the way up the chain throughout marketing innovation, etc.,” Brewster says.“I got to work on just about all of the 50-some brands we have at Dr Pepper. I got involved in a lot of advertising work, packaging work and innovation. I was really drawn to the shopper side of the business because I wanted to be closer to what’s really happening in the business.”In fewer than two years, Brewster became manager of shopper insights, and fewer than two years after that, senior manager. He says the shopper insight team’s goal is to have a direct impact on sales in the short and long term, and since he wanted to have a more actionable piece of the business and to see his work affecting sales right away, he made the move from consumer insights.“I owe that transition to my current managers,” he says. “They’ve had the biggest effect on my development, because they’ve looked out for me and had this unwavering belief in me. They felt I’d be a good fit on the shopper insights team we are trying to build, and they really just put me in a position to succeed. They’re giving me a chance to work on projects I’m really passionate about and take on things maybe someone my age wouldn’t be trusted with somewhere else.”Brewster’s team does shopper research retailer to retailer, using the retailer’s actual shopper traffic. The team then makes suggestions on changes that can boost sales. “That gives our research studies more credibility and makes sure they’re actionable because research is not worth the money unless there are specific actions a retailer can take based on the research,” he says. “We ask that everything we do is actionable, something they can take away right away and do.”He’s happy with a recent project that helped convenience retailers better sort their product mix in the cooler and strategize bundling based on food and beverage pairings. The team showed how much incremental revenue was to be had with the proper assortment based on a retailer’s unique shoppers.He says the largest convenience retailers can do similar research in-house, but there are many more smaller players. “Regional players aren’t able to do as much research as they want and their partners don’t always customize their research,” Brewster says. “I wanted to give them results from their shoppers and that makes it credible and new. A lot of the people in the industry have been there a long time and just kind of assumed they knew everything there is to know about this channel. Dynamics are changing, so we need to constantly monitor what’s happening in the channel and what the shoppers are looking for all the time.“Nothing happens without a deep understanding of the shopper.”

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