Insights to Innovation: SCIP Wisconsin Chapter Meeting with Paul Banas of Kraft Foods

On September 15th, Paul Banas, Senior Category Insights Manager for Kraft Foods, shares how the digital space can be a great resource for generating insights that can be leveraged in the innovation process, at the shared SCIP/PDMA chapter meeting in Pewaukee, Wisconsin.

Pewaukee, WI, August 17, 2011 --(PR.com)-- Innovation can be a tough business, even in the best economic times. And nowadays, with consumers watching every penny, the hurdles facing each new innovation in the marketplace are only getting higher.

The challenge is to make sure to generate upfront a clear understanding of the lives and challenges facing the company’s consumers, and insights into the context in which its products exist in their lives. Specifically, what are consumer pain points or unmet needs? What are they passionate about? What are the product barriers, the usage occasions, and the emerging trends surrounding the intersection of the firm’s customers’ day-to-day lives and its product categories?

These type of "fuzzy front end" insights have typically been expensive to research and time consuming to analyze. However, with the vast amount of conversations that are happening 24/7 in the digital space, innovators now have a way to tap into the thoughts and emotions of consumers by mining the social media space for foundational insights for new product innovation. Paul Banas will demonstrate how the digital space can be a great resource for innovators, different techniques for generating insights that lead to innovation, and how these insights can be levered in the innovation process.

Held at the Country Springs Hotel (Pewaukee, Wisconsin) on Thursday, September 14 from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm, this is a joint meeting of the Wisconsin chapters of the Product Development and Management Association (PDMA) and Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP). Cost is $35 for a member, $45 for a non-member, and includes a sandwich bar and beverages. For additional information please contact John Hink, SCIP Wisconsin Chapter chair john.hink(at)Fiserv.com or Robyn Reals rreals(at) scip.org.

About the Speaker

Paul Banas is Senior Category Insights manager for Kraft Foods’ Oscan Mayer division. He is an experienced marketing research professional, with over 18 years of researching and developing consumer insights, focused mainly on the consumer packaged goods industry. In his current role Paul champions efforts to increase the role of digital as a critical part of the future of marketing research-especially in the areas of social media listening, social media tracking and measurement, and digital advertising analytics. He is also Co-Chair of the Social Media Council for the Advertising Research Foundation, which is focused on sharing best practices for companies to activate in the social media space by becoming chief storytellers of their brands and by improving the consumer understanding and metrics used to evaluate the impact of these efforts.

About Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP)

With members in over 70 countries, SCIP (formerly the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals) is a 3000-member global nonprofit membership organization for everyone involved in creating and managing strategic and competitive intelligence. Education and training have been a critical component of SCIP’s member services since the Society’ founding in 1986. Many SCIP members have backgrounds in market research, strategic analysis, market intelligence, information sciences or science and technology intelligence.

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Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals
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703 739 0696
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