PepsiCo Building Out Pepviz Data Science Practice
Just over a year after bringing its Pepviz data science practice to retailers, PepsiCo remains bullish on its potential to add value to operators across all retail spaces.
The company’s proprietary insights framework leverages predictive analytics to support retailers lacking reliable historical data, at times developing custom collaborations to fit specific needs. It now covers 110 million households and more than 500,000 retail outlets, Kate Garner, PepsiCo SVP marketing, demand accelerator, tells CGT, and PepsiCo is heading into the new year with a particular focus on the shifting value paradigm at retail.
By standing up an insights platform for its retail partners, PepsiCo has the ability to provide granularity surrounding its specific items that the retailer may otherwise lack.
In an example of such granularity success, PepsiCo partnered this year with a regional C-store chain underserving its Hispanic community, and identified an opportunity to reach the shopper segment through better targeting and a more appealing product assortment. By leveraging Pepviz data, they found three-quarters of Hispanic shoppers are served by less than one-third of the retailer’s most valuable stores.
The retailer then executed a plan across many of its C-store locations with the highest mix of Hispanic shoppers to deliver targeted marketing, offering a digital mobile promotion for 20-ounce Pepsi Mango, a product found to over-index with Hispanic shoppers.
The promotion resulted in reaching more than 2 million Hispanic shoppers, with dollar sales increasing 7% for 20-ounce carbonated soft drinks and more than 9% for salty snacks.
This has ultimately created further opportunity to implement store clustering capabilities, Garner says.
“As we prepare to partner together for 2023, we are looking at the optimal ways to classify their entire chain on multiple consumer attributes to create the most relevant experience for their shopper,” she says. “This future work is a true indicator of success as we continue to test and grow together with our partners.”
Shifting Consumer Behavior
Core to the success of the Pepviz framework is its ability to help PepsiCo identify shifting consumer behavior trends across channels, in turn enabling retail partners to better understand shoppers, their preferred products, and the ideal methods for both digital and in-store engagement.
For example, they’ve recorded quick trips growing across all channels as consumers clamor for grab-and-go options and same-day consumption items.
“Quick trips touch all retailers and are not exclusive to C-stores,” Garner notes, “meaning the competition to capture these consumers is strong.”
This past year, the company has also focused Pepviz research around how shoppers are engaging with online and in-store purchase decisions, as well as the type of marketing touchpoints retailers should consider to appeal to shoppers who grow even more tech-savvy by the day.
Moving forward, they’ll continue to lean-in on insights that can help retailers better understand how new technology is changing omnichannel shopper behavior and disrupting the traditional in-store shopping journey.
As part of its efforts to provide further value, PepsiCo has been building out its public-facing support, developing thought leadership for the Pepviz.com website, which Garner says has recorded a 10% increase in traffic this year. Some retail partners that have leveraged Pepviz have subsequently sought partnerships on new projects as well.
“Since the start of Pepviz, we’ve worked to remain agile, scale with the industry, and stay on top of the latest consumer behavior trends,” Garner stresses. “We are continuing to drive success for our partners through our data-rich insights and analytics and are always looking for opportunities to expand and drive sustainable growth where it makes sense.”
As PepsiCo moves into the new year, the company is honing in on the shifting needs of consumers stemming from economic pressures, as well as the changing roles that retail channels play in their lives. Agility will be key for both suppliers and retailers to adapt to these changing needs and preferences, Garner notes — a capability the consumer goods industry has fortunately gained in the past few years.
“Fast and accurate data will be key, and retailers need to understand the driving factors behind each consumer segments’ shopping behavior and how to seamlessly cater to their unique paths to purchase.”
