Insights Unlocked Podcast Episode Summary

Episode Title: Why Shopper Behavior is Changing and What Brands Can Do
Guest: Devorah Rogers, Chief Strategy Officer at Alter Agents
Release Date: July 14, 2025

In this insightful episode of Insights Unlocked, host Nathan Isaacs and co-host Bobby Meixner engage in a compelling conversation with Devorah Rogers, Chief Strategy Officer at Alter Agents and co-author of Influencing Shopper Decisions. Devorah delves deep into the evolving landscape of shopper behavior, elucidating why traditional loyalty programs are no longer sufficient and how brands can adapt to connect meaningfully with today's consumers.

1. Devorah Rogers: From Storytelling to Consumer Research

Background and Journey
Devorah shares her unique career trajectory, transitioning from storytelling in radio and television to becoming a pivotal figure in consumer research.
“I worked in radio and television... when we decided that we needed to start doing research. And all of a sudden, literally kind of overnight, I became a researcher.” [02:01]

Blending Storytelling with Research
Her ability to intertwine storytelling with behavioral science has been instrumental in transforming outdated marketing models, enabling brands to better understand and engage with modern shoppers.

2. Shoppers Start Fresh: Rethinking Loyalty

The Myth of Constant Loyalty
Devorah challenges the notion that shoppers remain loyal indefinitely, emphasizing that consumers often "start fresh" with each purchase decision.
“Consumers have so many choices and they are so aware... brands have to operate as if each time they're earning it anew.” [05:14]

Case Study: The Milk Category
She illustrates this point with the milk industry, where shifting consumer preferences—from traditional milk to alternatives and back—demonstrate the volatility of brand loyalty.
“I stopped buying Horizon because there were other brands I liked better. And then Horizon came out with a new product... and suddenly that's all I buy.” [05:14]

3. Behavioral Segmentation: Loyalists, Defectors, and More

Understanding Consumer Diversity
Devorah introduces a model categorizing consumers into loyalists, defectors, ambivalent, and impulse shoppers, highlighting the necessity for brands to recognize and address these varying behaviors.
“Loyalists versus potential explorers versus potential defectors... brands have to remember that that doesn't last.” [05:45]

Tailoring Brand Experiences
She underscores the importance of converting exploratory customers into loyalists and continuously refreshing the audience to maintain engagement.
“I have to begin converting some of them to loyalists. I have to begin looking for other ways to continually refresh that audience.” [05:45]

4. Brand Narcissism: Moving Beyond Self-Centered Metrics

Critique of Traditional Brand Tracking
Devorah critiques conventional brand tracking methods as inherently narcissistic, as they often fail to capture what truly matters to consumers.
“The dirty secret of research is that most people are unhappy with their brand trackers. They are inherently narcissistic.” [07:54]

Alternative Approaches to Measuring Relevance and Trust
She advocates for research mechanisms that delve deeper into consumer lives and challenges brands to understand the real issues affecting their audience.
“Brands are completely missing that in many cases. That's just one example of a category where if you didn't do the research, you wouldn't know that the main issue is not price or even quality.” [08:11]

5. Reimagining the Purchase Funnel

Limitations of the Traditional Funnel
Devorah points out that fewer than 5% of shoppers follow a linear purchase journey, rendering traditional purchase funnels obsolete.
“Less than 5% of people do the exact same thing in the exact same order.” [10:56]

Embracing a Dynamic Journey
She suggests replacing the rigid funnel model with a more nuanced understanding of the fragmented and dynamic shopper journey, emphasizing the importance of identifying unconventional touchpoints like podcasts and influencers.
“It's a little bit more of a nuanced conversation... you don't have to get it all perfect.” [11:24]

6. Obsessive Customer Listening: Embedding Human Insight

Cultural Shift Towards Continuous Listening
Devorah emphasizes the necessity for brands to adopt a cultural shift that prioritizes continuous customer listening and humility in addressing consumer needs.
“It starts with a cultural shift... we won't know what to do. And to be really humble in the face of consumer and shopper needs and viewpoints.” [14:22]

Integrating Research into Core Competencies
She warns against relying solely on early success or luck, advocating for sustained consumer insight integration to maintain relevance.
“The only way to keep the luck going is to stay close to consumers because they change constantly.” [15:33]

7. The Role of AI in Retail and Customer Feedback

AI as a Tool, Not a Replacement
While acknowledging the transformative potential of AI in sorting and analyzing vast amounts of qualitative data, Devorah insists on the irreplaceable value of human interaction in research.
“We don't want to interview computers, robots... we want to interview people.” [17:35]

Enhancing Research Efficiency
She highlights how AI can assist in identifying high-level themes and speeding up the research process, allowing human researchers to focus on deeper insights.
“AI can really assist in finding high level themes... but for us, we're going to stay centered in humans being the ones that we talk to and talk with.” [17:59]

8. Conclusion: Staying Connected with Shoppers

Final Thoughts from Devorah
Devorah reiterates the importance of building strategies grounded in genuine consumer insights and maintaining an adaptive approach to ever-changing shopper behaviors.

Connecting with Devorah Rogers
Listeners interested in learning more about Devorah's work and insights can follow her on LinkedIn at @alteragents.com or explore her book, Influencing Shopper Decisions, available wherever books are sold.

Listen and Subscribe
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