Paul Thomas

International Insight Director and Global Head of Shopper Insight at Beam Suntory

"Just be yourself, sir. Whatever happens, they can't take that away from you"

My mission is to make consumer planning and insight the lifeblood of every business I work for and to imbue that attitude into my teams and my agencies. I am not your typical researcher.   I strive to see insights making a difference and making sure the business makes the right, profitable decisions.

I have been privileged in my career to work on amazing brands from Kinder Surprise to Ferrero Rocher, from Johnnie Walker to Tanqueray and from Guinness to Peroni.  I have always prided myself on making a measurable, and commercial, impact through the insight work my team and I deliver.

Across insights and innovation, I bring a broad range of skills and experiences, both agency and clientside - I have a particular passion for ad hoc advertising, packaging and innovation insight work.  

I am comfortable across quant and qual, and pride myself in delivering great insight, quickly and at a good cost - and making my agency partners part of the team with me.  

International Insight Director and Global Head of Shopper Insight

Leading Insights in our EMEA region and Global Shopper Insight lead - managing a team of 4 directly and 10 indirectly.

Key highlights:

* Implementing P2P and Touchpoint understanding across channels (and omnichannel) within our core businesses - allowing markets to select the most effective TPs and BHs to develop the right messaging for our TPs
*  Leading our future of drinking work - leading implications for the business to 2030 as well as innovation opportunities
*  Establishing agile research solutions to enable more research in the region - both testing and exploration
*  Leading our global moderation strategy - developing a cluster approach to markets across product, serve, comms and innovation
*  Developing menu and serve guidelines for our key on-trade partners
*  Embedding and leading global tools within the region, such as brand tracking and consumer immersion tools
*  Member of the Marketing and Insight Leadership team
* Developing POSM testing protocols to ensure maximum ROI

Excited to announce I'll be joining Imperial Brands PLC as Global Consumer & Shopper Insight Director, for their combustible portfolio.

New category, new brands, new geographies and new people represent a great new opportunity for me and I'm excited to get going.

My mission is to make consumer planning and insight the lifeblood of every business I work for and to imbue that attitude into my teams and my agencies. I am not your typical researcher.   I strive to see insights making a difference and making sure the business makes the right, profitable decisions.

I have been privileged in my career to work on amazing brands from Kinder Surprise to Ferrero Rocher, from Johnnie Walker to Tanqueray and from Guinness to Peroni.  I have always prided myself on making a measurable, and commercial, impact through the insight work my team and I deliver.

Across insights and innovation, I bring a broad range of skills and experiences, both agency and clientside - I have a particular passion for ad hoc advertising, packaging and innovation insight work.  

I am comfortable across quant and qual, and pride myself in delivering great insight, quickly and at a good cost - and making my agency partners part of the team with me.  

Imperial Brands PLC

Global Insight Director, Head of Insight, Innovator, Podcast supremo, Conference speaker, Great shirts, Better Insights, People Leader Mark Ritson MBA, Marketing Institute for Real Growth

Who is a woman who’s made an impact on your career? #IWD26

Let me name two!

My Mum - who taught me to value high standards and hard work and who sacrificed her own career to look after me and my brother. Looking after me to this day mid-divorce and still kicking @ss today in her local Co-Op at 75 and able to outwalk me and my younger brother on any hike. Her sacrifices allowed me to go to University, to live at home until I worked out what I wanted to do etc. Today, she'd run the world - she was born in an era where brilliant women were held back. An absolute machine - who still can beat me at Scrabble online, annoyingly. (I'm aware this photo doesn't help those who think I've got a big head!)

Work-wise, I'll always go back to the incredible Susan Purcell who shaped me into something half decent. Everything I hold dear now (strong recommendations, making impact, engaging presentations), I owe it to the dynamo which is Susan.

A phenomenal business woman who balanced being an amazing mum (to her daughters and dogs!) and a caring daughter
A brilliant friend - though can't be trusted after too much wine
High standards despite low height
To this day is teaching the future generations at Ipsos

Working with Susan at Ipsos was the best thing which happened in my career and I've had any success, I owe it to her. And by God, we had some fun too.
____

Senior Director - Innovation - Ipsos

How can we get the alcohol industry back in growth again? 🍻 🍸 💹 Part three!

Let meeeeeeeeeeee entertain you!!!

Do you remember COVID?  Bleurgh, I wish I didn't have to - redundancy and the ticking time bomb of my marriage starting to fall apart.  But what I do remember is that alcohol and Netflix was pretty much all there was to do.

Alcohol for many people became their source of entertainment - home cocktail making, Zoom parties, the boom of pink gin as a way of making attractive drinks at home, drinking to pass the time.  Many people had more money than ever before (not all) and fewer avenues to spend it on... I was at an IWSR conference a few years back and they described alcohol as becoming the main discretionary spend for most households...

We are long past COVID now - with a million activities we can undertake.  From health and wellness to travel to gastronomy and for an increasing number of consumers the rise in permissibility of cannabis and other naughty things I won't say....

Alcohol has got more and more expensive - and has more and more competition for what I call SHARE OF ENTERTAINMENT.  We all in our minds have a budget for how much we are willing to spend on entertainment...

If I have 6 pints of Guinness in London, that costs me nearly £50.  I could go to the cinema, go for a meal, smoke something I shouldn't, buy a new PS5 game.... and on top of that it directly impacts other things I might be spending on (gym membership, healthier food)

Alcohol has to look beyond its category definition to see what it's up against - and JUSTIFY its price point.  Just getting p*ssed isn't good enough any more, especially for younger potential drinkers.

That's why the Devonshire in London does so well (thanks for dinner Phil Barden by the way) or the rise in gaming pubs (e.g. Boom Battle Bar - axe throwing, indoor golf, Augmented Reality darts etc).  Similarly venues with great live music or food.  Distillery tourism is up - because it's interesting and fun!  But does your brand deliver the same in the Dog & Duck?

Fewer and fewer people can afford to go out and justify that money on alcohol as it isn't entertaining enough...

What does the industry do about it?  Invest in activations, re-engage the on-trade, spend more on events, music, relevant partnership.  Make sure that the moments you have with alcohol are the best moments of your week.  Start virality, create word of mouth!

Don't just invest in digital media and pictures of bottles and glasses - that's not very entertaining is it?

MD of DECODE marketing ltd. Author of 'Decoded. The Science Behind Why We Buy'. Fellow of The Marketing Society

How can we get the alcohol industry back in growth again? 🍻 🍸 💹 Part four!

Time to talk about the category which probably has more articles written about it than bottles actually sold - the wonderful world of Low and No alcohol (especially in Spirits)

No and low is not the future of alcohol - it is a small incremental upside with good margins which offers choice to consumers.    In beer, it can go a lot a further even up to 15% of category sales if you look at Germany, Spain, Eastern European markets where Radlers, FABs etc have existed for a long time.  Lower entry point, better liquids and great work from the likes of Lucky Saint to bring humour and desirability into the category. There are new flavoured low/no offers coming out from Heineken/Peroni which will succeed.

I am aware of health trends, Gen Z choices, the changing face of sociability....

So why so cynical?  Because for spirits and wine companies, it has become a huge distraction (maybe even beer to some extent)

Gordon's Pink Gin is ca. 10-15x size the TOTAL no and low spirit category in the UK.  One single alcoholic SKU is bigger than the whole category.  Take that in.  The growth is double digit but is NOTHING compared to when a category really takes off - look at Hard Seltzer took off (when it  hit $4 billion in USA, it was still growing in treble digits!)

I saw stats that the sales of Stella 4 pack in Tesco is more than the whole NAB industry in the UK...

The on-trade still hasn't gone for it,  a few listings only, because they rely on £ROS as their  true metric.

Let's talk spirits. 

It's  hard to make spirits and alcohol does so much to deliver that flavour.  It's complex to make 0% spirits because the main flavour carrier isn't there.  It's why very few of them get close to the taste or mouthfeel.

But hang on?  You're charging me the same as the bottle of full strength?  When water and Coca Cola exist?  

And you're just calling them 'Zero', and adding a blue or silver line to your bottle? They feel like a lesser choice psychologically but you're asking me to pay the same... In this economic climate?!

For spirit brands, I'd argue no and low in full bottles has been a huge distraction - meanwhile we see precious little other quality innovation.  Companies feel good talking about No and Low, marketers feel like they're saving the world, whilst the main category declines.

So how about we stop saying 'No and Low is the future', 'Alcohol is dying', 'Gen Z don't drink' and we fight for the category. 

How should spirit companies deal with no/low:

1.  RTD
2.  Serve strategy
3.  If you want to go 0% full spirit, use fractional pack sizes to lower cost of entry
4. Make them fun and engaging
5.  Accept them as a small upside in your portfolio 

Don't fiddle whilst Rome burns - No and Low are part of the future but a tiny part compared to full strength, good old fashioned alcohol.  We are seeing thousands of people losing their jobs because alcohol is in decline.  Fix it.

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