Our Thinking

Productive Creativity in CPG Innovation – Testing to Validate, not Create
Why do poor performing ideas go through rounds and rounds of iterative testing, wasting time and money? Phil Norminton, VP of Insights & Partnerships explains how using objective data and relevant stimulus makes creativity productive.
17 - Mar - 23
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22 - Jan - 21
Big Data
Foresight & Prediction: The CPG Leader’s View
  Foresight pioneers.   Recently, we were lucky enough to host an exceptionally insightful event where we brought together a group of 25 senior leaders from the CPG industry who shared their experiences, best practises and learnings in the field of progressive consumer insights and marketing.
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15 - Dec - 20
Big Data
How Colgate leverages AI and Big Data
What are large CPG brands doing to differentiate their consumer intelligence so they can innovate more effectively?
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04 - Nov - 20
Uncategorised
What can we learn from PepsiCo’s ‘Chief Forecaster’?
Are you still waiting until products show up on the shelf to understand the market and take action? ‘Chief Forecaster’, Stephan Gans, from PepsiCo explains how that was the industry norm until recently.
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23 - Oct - 20
Data science
How Data Science and Behavioural Economics are changing the research world
Stop asking questions and start getting answers
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21 - Aug - 20
You can kiss the lipstick index goodbye: Our lip care trend predictions for 2021
Lipstick out, moisturiser in Back in August, the famous ‘lipstick index’, a phrase coined by Leonard Lauder signifying the resilience of cosmetics during times of economic turmoil due to consumers turning to makeup as an affordable indulgence, was substituted by the ‘moisturising index’.
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20 - Aug - 20
CPG insight and innovation is flying blind
Break the COVID research paralysis and get your 2021+ innovation pipeline back on track.   Covid-19: A perfect storm for Insight and Innovation teams   We Brits tend to be rather good at weather metaphors. In the early days of Covid-19, we likened the confusion, uncertainty and sense of darkness that many of us were feeling to being caught in a storm.
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20 - Aug - 20
How to separate the trend signal from the Covid noise
Black Swan’s new Covid Classifier explained   The pitfalls of analysing consumer behaviour in a pandemic
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20 - Aug - 20
Cut through the uncertainty and unpredictability of Covid-19
Well, this is embarrassing…   I started Black Swan Data because I believed AI applied to big data could help global CPG brands with one of their biggest challenges – uncertainty.
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07 - Aug - 20
Black Swan and Connected Traveller Services
Hello, We recently removed the Fethr logo from our website and we’ve had a number of enquiries regarding our Aviation business so I wanted to provide a quick explanation.
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06 - Aug - 20
Consumer Behaviour
What’s for dinner tonight? Our trend predictions in Foods and Meals
What's for dinner tonight? Tomorrow? In 2021 and beyond? Our Foods and Meals trend predictions will tell you.
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11 - Jun - 20
8 Years of Trends in 8 Weeks with Mondelez SnackFutures
What a long time eight weeks can be. It’s enough time to lose a stone in weight on the NHS weight loss plan, to gain four pounds in weight if you are a new born baby, or to work up to running for 28 minutes at a time, on the Couch to 5K programme.
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21 - May - 20
Navigating the Storm with Colgate-Palmolive’s Cherie Leonard
A week may be a long time in politics, but a fortnight can feel like a lifetime in lockdown. Based on our fortnightly COVID-19 reports, which cover both broad societal and category specific topics, it seems that two weeks is the cycle time for change. In this, our third fortnightly webinar, the overriding observation is how consumers are changing from thinking about life after the virus, to finding ways to adapt and live through it.
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