Jess Gaedeke (00:00)
Hi everybody, welcome to the Dig In podcast I am thrilled to be talking today with Pavi Gupta. He's VP of Insights and Analytics at Chobani. I am really looking forward to our conversation today, Pavi. Thanks for being here.

Pavi Gupta (00:11)
Thank you for the opportunity.

Jess Gaedeke (00:13)
So we're gonna start with an impromptu question. You have not seen this coming your way, so I'm gonna start with this one. When's the last time, Pavi that you laughed so hard you cried?

Pavi Gupta (00:22)
⁓ when's the last time? So, you know, as a family, have these kind of, it's a Bollywood movie. ⁓ And that's the only Bollywood movie that the boys will watch because now they only want to watch like Hollywood movies. And we keep watching these, there are three or four of those that we just keep sequencing through those. So yeah, we were watching one of these maybe like two weeks ago. And yeah, I laughed so hard that I almost cried because...

It's not like the jokes are already known, but it's like watching the boys have fun. That is funny. Yeah.

Jess Gaedeke (00:53)
Yeah, I love that.

I miss family movie night. My kids won't do that anymore. So hold on to it while you can. That's wonderful.

Well, so tell us a little bit about yourself, your background and your role today.

Pavi Gupta (01:04)
Yeah, so was born and brought up in India. My dad was in the army, so I had fun growing up, studying in 10 different schools. So almost every other year we were moving schools. So what that did very early in my life is wired me to embrace new things. And even though it's the same country, there is so much cultural differences because of language, food.

passions, everything is so different. So that wired me towards that. And therefore in my professional life, sometimes I feel like I got into a space which is all about curiosity and the inside space I started on the agency side, a company called Research International, which is now part of Kantar. And then one of my first clients was Coca-Cola, worked with them for 15 years. They took me to different places in the world and eventually we landed in the US.

And then I joined Johnson and Johnson. I was with their vision business unit for about six years. And then we got to like the Midwest, Chicago land area because I joined SC Johnson, which is in RAC in Wisconsin. And recently I took on a role at Chobani, which is in New York. So kind of right now I'm between, you know, Chicago and New York going back and forth and looking to see, you know, how we move and all of that.

Jess Gaedeke (02:18)
a tremendous background. And I forgot that you started on the agency side. And I think I see that in you a lot. I think you have a lot of empathy for your partners on this side, the dark side of the business, we like to say. ⁓ well, wonderful. Well, let's dig into some of that background, Pavi, because you have a really interesting story from your time at J &J. And our listeners crave inspiration from other leaders. And one of the best ways to inspire is to tell a story. I cannot wait to dig into this story because it is about the

division care division that you worked with and specifically in a really interesting time in the contact lens category, which as you know, I have a lot of personal investment in. So go back to the beginning. What was the context at the time of that category as well as how J &J was thinking about that part of the portfolio kind of set the stage for us.

Pavi Gupta (03:04)
so again, J&J is a leader in this category and space. So I was fortunate to work with them. It was a very different experience coming from Coca-Cola, which is all about

you know, the product and the happiness in the bottle, you know, and so it's more about the image that you build and everything associated with those memories. And contact lenses is much more about a functional delivery because, you know, like you need vision correction. But what's unique about contact lenses, it kind of plays in the sweet spot between kind of completely medical versus consumer, right? Because

Do you need vision correction or not? That is not a choice. That's the card you've been dealt with. You and I have been dealt with that card saying we need vision correction. Now, what do you choose to do with it? It's a consumer choice. So that's the mix, right? So the doctor will diagnose you, say, hey, you need vision correction. OK, so I became a category or a potential category user not because of a choice. But

will address that situation, could

go with glasses, I could go to contact lenses, I could go for a lasik surgery, or I could just squint and try to make sense out of everything in the world, but maybe that's not good enough. anyway, so those are still the choices you make, right? ⁓ And, and J&J had a really, really good business. This was an acquisition they did in the 80s. It's based out of Jacksonville, Florida. So they also are kind of, you know, away from the mothership in New Jersey. So this is like a

It's a jewel in J &J's crown. It's a great business. They have very sound signs,

amazing people over there. the category was kind of like the business was doing well, but the category was not really growing dramatically, right? So it was kind of a mature category. been around, of course, in markets where you did not have that level of penetration, there was growth, but mature markets, Western world, most of the developed countries.

it was pretty stagnant. had as many people come in but also leaving. So it wasn't as if you were growing. So that was the business context.

we were trying to understand

the, we called it the barriers and motivations to getting into lenses as a category. Why do people decide that they want to or they did not want to? I think many times as marketers,

We gravitate towards more, let's go after the fuel, the motivation. And sometimes we don't balance enough to understand the barriers. ⁓ In this case, we knew that with contact lenses, barriers are also a big thing because it's about getting into that habit of using them every day. There is a ritual in using contact lenses. And that means to build that ritual, you need to build habits. And to build habits, you need to address what are the barriers that are stopping you from making those habits, right?

So that's the kind of work we were

did something very interesting. We, you know, like we call it back in the day in Coke, we used to have this group called as the igniter

And essentially this was a group that talked about like insights can come from anywhere and you can have normal insights. Okay, this is the category who consumes doesn't consume what's going on. You could have deep insights. Let me go to deep consumers or deep rejectors or let me go to anthropologists.

and talk to them about what's going on. Or you could have what we call as weird insights. And the weird space came from you start observing or understanding categories that have nothing to do with the category of interest that you are in. And that can sometimes, there's like a lateral thought that comes and then you're like, okay, this applies to my category as well. So let me bring that to life. So as we were doing this, one of the weird immersions we did was,

We were in Florida. as you know, Florida has a lot of fun things like alligators and snakes. So there's an alligator farm in St. Augustine. And one of the weird ideas was, you know, can we do an immersion with the alligator farm? And you would say like, alligator farm and alligators, nothing to do with contact lenses. But see, you roll the dice every time you are a winner in the weird immersions, okay, every time. So this time I'll tell you how we were a winner.

Jess Gaedeke (06:51)
Sure.

You

Pavi Gupta (07:10)
So the alligator farm person came to us and at the venue and he got a baby alligator with

And

baby alligator was cute but still scary.

got this baby alligator and you know,

were discussing, used to like sit in small groups and we were discussing with them on the table and you had the baby alligator sitting in front of you on the table and some people were brave. They would just like, you know, try to pet or touch the alligator and I didn't have the courage and there were other people who were

and so we came on that insight and the insight was what we described it as irrational fear.

Jess Gaedeke (07:46)
Mm.

Pavi Gupta (07:46)
Right?

So this was irrational fear. The alligator, other people touch, nothing happened. The alligator's mouth is taped up. They're not going to bite. It's a baby

They are cute. Babies are cute. And even a baby alligator is cute. But you still have the irrational

of, don't want to do this. So it's irrational. It's not rational. And the analog was with contact lenses that, you know, there is, actually created a word for it. We call it pocophobia. I don't know if that like Oxford dictionary.

included that or not. But there is this insight around people having pochophobia because they feel you need to put your lenses in their eyes and they feel they're going to gouge their eyes. They feel they're going to poke their eyes and it's going to be bad and they just can't get themselves to do it. And so that was it. And we were like, that is irrational fear, because it doesn't really like, like there is no case, there's no medical evidence of that happening. And it's not as if people actually intentionally gouge their eyes and it's super safe.

the number of people using contact lens, number of times in a day, number of people or eyes that it has touched and hands it has touched and with no incidents at all, right? So it's completely irrational. And then we said, okay, how do we activate against this insight? Because that is one of the barriers towards

Jess Gaedeke (08:50)
Right.

Pavi Gupta (08:59)
then that led to a campaign

And in the campaign idea, like actually as we were doing more work as follow-up, we figured that

consumers in their minds who had never actually touched a contact lens used to feel like contact lenses are very hard. They would be made of glass and therefore they would, when I put them in the eye, like it's going to feel and that's why it might poke my eye or it might hurt my eye. And so in the group discussion itself, we handed them some real contact lenses to play with.

And contact lenses are very squishy. They're like made of like, most of them is water actually, it's silicon with water, right? So they're extremely hydrated. And so

very soft and squishy. And some people might have remembered old times, contact lenses used to be reasonably hard. And now,

times have changed, the technology is so much

And

like when people start like touching and feeling, and the campaign was called Touch Me, it's like, okay, touch me and you'll be surprised. And you were surprised.

Then we started doing candid cameras and like, of course, take the consent and build that into the campaign. And that was the entire story around addressing this barrier,

Jess Gaedeke (10:02)
Right.

Pavi Gupta (10:05)
know, which came from the insight around irrational fear.

Jess Gaedeke (10:08)
Yeah,

my gosh. Okay, so let's go back to the alligator farm because I was

sure where that was going to go. And I am excited to learn where it went. But that idea of irrational fear and that sort of coming out of this experiential

Pavi Gupta (10:15)
You

Jess Gaedeke (10:24)
that your team had. Do you think if that session would have been, I don't know, at Walt Disney World and you've done something totally different that you would have arrived at a different insight?

kind of talk a little bit about

you know, was that just a fortuitous experiential outcome or

there thinking going into it, let's do it at an alligator farm because we want to see how uncomfortable people can be.

Pavi Gupta (10:46)
Yeah, so

I think it's a mix, right? I think there is some element of serendipity in terms of like how you set it up and that particular incident or instance or something happens and then you have this,

wow, that's the insight, right? And again, many times I say like insights are hiding in plain sight. It says that you never took time out to like really think what was happening. Everything's happening kind of in the moment and motion and you don't like sometimes think so deeply about it. So

doing these kind of immersions and doing this deeper, that is the part which is the organized part of it. It is intentionally slowing yourself down. It is intentionally observing your settings. It's intentionally trying to make sense of what are people doing and the psychology or the psyche of consumers and human beings. So that's the intentional part. The fortuitous part is like, yeah, this was an alligator farm we hit on that inside. Like, what if we did something else? And then we would have it. So what you do is,

you do multiple immersions. You just don't do

Right? So you try to hedge your bets and you say, what are the different type of weird immersions you could do?

Jess Gaedeke (11:44)
Right.

Pavi Gupta (11:49)
And so

in this very example, we did another one was with a smart home builder. And you're like, okay, how does a smart home builder relate to contact lenses? You know, and then we came on another insight and I could like, could do another podcast on it, but the headline on it was, you know, what we call a signs of agitation.

So the smart home

said, hey, have like, because this is high value that I sell and I have a sales team and I want to keep an eye on what's going on. And then I look for signs of agitation where I feel my sale is not going through. And that's when I know I need to step in and that signs of agitation is true. Everybody eventually drops out of contact lenses, but it doesn't happen overnight. You don't wake up one morning and say, I'm done. I'm not wearing these again.

Jess Gaedeke (12:22)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Pavi Gupta (12:34)
Like, yes, it eventually does, but there is like, there are signs of agitation. You have one bad moment and another one and another, and then you give up. And so that was the insight to say, like, can we capture those signs of agitation early? Then you can address them because by the time then it becomes a dam and the dam breaks and then you're done. Like then you're done. You're out of the category. By the way, not only are you out of the category, the likelihood of your kids going into the category goes down dramatically because then as a parent,

Jess Gaedeke (12:49)
Right.

Right.

Yeah, that's a really good point.

Pavi Gupta (13:02)
You know, this like we

statistically probe that like then as a parent, you're like, I'm not going to let my kid into it because from my experience, this was not a good experience. So it's not only for that person, but it's also for the future generations or the negative word of mouth that that's going to create.

Jess Gaedeke (13:11)
Bye.

Right, wow, okay, that's really, really compelling. And then I was thinking about this irrational fear and how then you went to activate against that. And I imagine in categories where the product experience just does have such a physical and almost a visceral type of reaction,

do you think about developing things like creative and things that you can actually kind of communicate and demonstrate to the consumer?

that it actually will be a positive sensory experience.

do you do that in a conceptual way?

Pavi Gupta (13:46)
Yeah, that's a very tough one, Jess. Yeah, it's a really tough one.

again, there was in this particular case, we used like empathy voice of the consumer, right? To kind of build, by the way, one of the other themes that we addressed this again with the youngsters, the barriers are even higher, right? And then the youngsters.

they are not like the teenagers or, know, pretties, they are not able to learn from adults how to put the contact lenses in and

Because again, it's like an adult teaching and they're like, you don't understand my life. My hands are tiny. You know, I don't have the same motor skills that you do. Like they don't say that, but that those end up being barriers for them. don't relate that well. And then someone hit on the idea. think there was some influencer doing

I don't know, was it Lego or one of the metal toys? And it was actually kids talking about their experience of, and so that was another nugget we got from there. And then we applied that here and we said like, hey, let's look out. And sure enough, there were some influencers like younger teens who actually were putting their content out to help teens with grooming or like tips and all of that. And so we did like a segment on contact lens because

Kids will listen to kids better. They will relate better. So I think that could be one way to address it, which you try to kind of say,

mirror neuron system and have them relate to, you know, who's the person saying it and they can relate to that. They can put themselves in their shoes and then they can do that. That could be one kind of a workaround. The other pieces, again, we also built what was called as the AccuView experience, which was like built an entire program around the experience elements, right?

And that's when you say, how do you build an ecosystem? And how do you recognize

the entire experience of the product is an important thing? It really matters.

And how do you amplify the good moments? And how do you address them when they have problems?

Jess Gaedeke (15:35)
Wow. That's so interesting. I think that that brand connection is just so important. And of course, you and I have probably more extreme examples in terms of our, you know, our necessity to

you know,

lenses or eyewear. But for me,

That's my survival item. So when I think about if I'm on a desert island, that's what I'm bringing with me because I simply can't live without it.

fact, when the pandemic hit and there is a lot of worry about supply chain and implications to getting some of the things we relied on,

I stocked up big time. And I just remember my optometrist going, it's going to be okay. And I was like, no, this is the one thing I just can't live without. So

is interesting how each of us kind of form those connections with those brands and those categories over time.

Pavi Gupta (16:11)
Yeah.

Jess Gaedeke (16:13)
But that's my survival item. telling you, if I ever get sent on one of those shows, probably

Pavi Gupta (16:19)
I

Jess Gaedeke (16:19)
taking this.

Pavi Gupta (16:20)
can now make sense about that tiny blip in Canada in the months of the pandemic, that went up.

Jess Gaedeke (16:26)
yeah,

a, well, tremendous story, you know, a wonderful example from your background in terms of a category that you had a

rich understanding that played out. And what's your biggest takeaway from that sort of category, lens experience at J &J?

Pavi Gupta (16:40)
Yeah, I mean, it was fascinating as we did all this work. I

was really blessed to have a very solid team, very good at what they do. A lot of the things I'm saying was done by them, not by me, so not trying to take the credit away. But the intelligence that we built, the insights that we built was tremendous. It was terrific and it took us a long way. ⁓ But interestingly, we got a leader, a new leader who came in. And when this new leader came in and I was like,

Hey, I would love to take you through everything that we've done. We are so

not humble, but so proud of what we've done because we believe we've really cracked the code on how the category can grow. And we took him through everything and he looked at that and you know, and it was an hour after the conversation and he looked at me and I was like, how was this? And he was like, yeah, it's

And I was like, really? Like, okay, like this is brilliant. This is amazing work. So I went through like a complete grief cycle on that. And then

you know, grudging acceptance of like, well, he said, okay, he did not say this is useless, right? And it's like, okay, let's try to, you know, un-peel the onion a little bit. Like, why is this okay? Why is it not amazing? And so then we start talking to, I started talking to him to get more understanding. And he said like, hey, don't get me wrong. The work is outstanding, but you're doing this very traditional. You're still doing surveys and focus groups and, I have nothing against it. It's

But.

consumers are talking, they're sharing, they're posting, they're tweeting. He called it the digital exhaust, know, that's there. Why are you not tapping into that? Maybe you can do these things faster, smarter, better, you know, and that's when my kind of horizon started opening out to like initially as a very insights and analytics person, we were very like, or at least I was guilty of being close to that. Like, no, no, no, social listening. No, no, no, that's very skewed. It's only part of, it's not random.

It doesn't meet kosher definitions of what randomness spells for, but it's not about one versus the other. It's about how do you bring this in? And that's when I built this philosophy, which I define myself, both personally and professionally, I call it power of

And it's like every nugget, every piece of work, every way in which you try to understand what's going on is another piece of the jigsaw.

And you put this all together to get the beautiful tapestry of what's actually happening behind the scenes as far as the consumer decision-making process is concerned. And then there you could

we have the luxury of doing that every time? No, you'll never have the luxury of doing that every time. Then you need to calibrate that with what's the risk that the business is going to take with the decision you will take. And if the decision has very low risk,

then yes, maybe you can go with a single trick pony. It's like this was it, this is the inside, we'll just do this. But if the risk is very big, you're buying a plant, you're setting up, you're hiring people, you're getting into a new line of business, very big risk. Then you say, let me make sure I put the full, I solve the jigsaw before I kind of make that risk, right? So that's how you would do this.

Jess Gaedeke (19:46)
Yeah, well, and that ties to, think, one of the passionate points of view that you've talked about is the role of insights within these organizations and just the importance of what you just said of tapping into, based on the risk level, different data sources, different perspectives to sort of layer that understanding and build the conviction around getting behind a decision as a business. So

are some of the ways that you think insights professionals can further

and really be that

No pun intended, Pavi. I didn't mean to say vision there, but I did. ⁓ How can they lead that future and make the most out of this important discipline?

Pavi Gupta (20:21)
Yeah, and again, it's a journey and there's many tricks to kind of continue that progression and continue to get better at it. But

key aspect that I have focused on with my teams has been let's flip the switch in our own mind. When do we think the project has ended versus actually started? So typically when you had a brief and you had some work to be done, you took the brief from your stakeholder.

You decided what was the research approach. I mean, you first saw whether you needed research in the first place or not. And if you did, then you decided what was the research approach, who's the partner, and how do you deliver it? Once you deliver it, many times you feel that's it, it's done, my job is done. And you socialized it, you didn't just send an email, you socialized it, then you feel your job is done. And that was one of the pieces I've been like working with my teams to say, guys, that's when we need to think about our work is actually starting.

Because we are on the client side, we are on the commercial aspect. We are in the business of the business. We are not in the business of insights. So just delivering the insight is still a means to an end. How do we deliver the end? So we need to champion that insight. We need to start thinking about what's the so what, what's the now what, what are you going to do with this? And so that unlock can be one way in which I think the insights organizations and people can continue to develop and evolve because you will add greater value.

sooner or later, someone might question, is like, hey, I got this insight. Maybe I could have got it straight from the

What's the role you played here? Well, I orchestrated, I got it at a lower cost. I made sure all the things were met. OK, that is some value, but is that the real value? And that's where you say, well, my real value is I'm going to champion this insight. And I'm going to champion it and go and knock every door that I need to and kind of either I call it like the IP.

or actually

that word, the IP, the inspire and provoke, you know, the organization to actually change the way they will actually take or embrace this insight and act on it.

Jess Gaedeke (22:16)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, no, I think that's so critical because so many insights kind of we call it die on the digital shelf, right? You deliver a great report or a great program, but how does it live and breathe and evolve within the org? What are some of the more creative ways that you tend to socialize insights in your experience

maybe what's what you think is coming, especially with more

enabled solutions?

Pavi Gupta (22:43)
Yeah, so I think one piece that I definitely try or have tried, and again, it's proportionate to the business decision. So if it's like that important

is I call it like experiencing insights, right? So if you just show the insights as a data point or a verbatim or whatever, it has some say, but it doesn't have that level of feel. Can you bring it to life in more ways? Can it be a video rather than a quote? know, or better still, can we actually take?

our stakeholders to help them to experience like, hey, nobody's buying this category on the shelf or on the aisle. Can we do a shop along to actually help them see why that's going on? Now, this is a little bit risky because when you take the stakeholders along, that one sample size could actually define what they feel and then they might begin to like what they saw versus what the data is showing.

Jess Gaedeke (23:30)
We're

Pavi Gupta (23:36)
But if you do this conscientiously, you set it up in the right way, you set up the context, you explain people the pros and cons of this approach, it can be very, very powerful. And then of course, visualization plays a huge role. So instead of just sending numbers, you say, can I do an infographic? Can I make it more pictorial? Can I make it easy? And people are like, I think the pandemic was the moment for visualization after John Hopkins started publishing what's going on. And everybody was in this area of like,

Hey, can we get more visualized,

the data be more visual and talk to us and make it easier because people are usually a lot of people are intimidated by a lot of tables and a lot of numbers. You know, so that's another way. And then I think the AI world is super exciting, right? I don't know what's out there, but like something like a notebook LM. I don't know if you've played with

but you know, you and I probably didn't need to record.

Jess Gaedeke (24:26)
Yes, absolutely. I have a clear hobby.

I think that the voice on that sounds a little bit too close to my voice. So I'm either copying a very generic podcast sounding voice

Pavi Gupta (24:38)
Yes, but

like imagine the power of that, right? Imagine the power that you feed in

a system, what your learnings are, and it converts it into a podcast, just as an idea. And then you give the podcast to all your executives who are on their daily commute before they have the session, and they listen to a 15, 20 minute podcast talking about the big ahas. Wow, amazing. But you know, the thing with AI also is

AI is amazing that it comes up with new ideas. But I also think with AI, also equally quickly, the fatigue comes. So that's the watch out. Because then you can do it two times, three times, four times, five. But then they'll be like, OK, this is boring. So then they need something new. So you need to continue to think. I

friend who works

Apple.

luckily, I got to spend some time, and she demoed the

VR

glasses for me. And as we were doing that, and I was like, imagining and like, she, she, she has very keen insight and, she was like, yeah, one of the use cases for you, Pavi you are in this space could be, we could visualize data for you in a VR, you know, and then that could be the way you could

see,

like people could actually say, I want to go in and actually drill more into this versus that. And again, I haven't seen too many of those come to light, but

I can imagine that those kind of exciting things can be, you know, the minority report could be real, you know, in terms of where this goes. Yeah.

Jess Gaedeke (25:59)
Absolutely. Yeah.

And it goes back to what you said, experience insights. Well, that'd a cool way to do that, right? I love that. ⁓ so much to come. I'm very optimistic for it. So we're going to go into the final dig. This is all about you as a person. Feel free to take off the professional hat for just a moment if you want. What's the last product or service you bought on impulse?

Pavi Gupta (26:19)
The last product or service I bought on impulse

the latest iPhone for my wife.

was buying one for my son and he needed one and he was waiting for one. Poor thing, he was on, I

10 for too long. And we told him, hey, when you go to college, we'll get you a new one. And then he went to college, but the new iPhone hadn't come. So we're like, hey, it makes sense. Just wait for one more month. So he was ready.

So, and then he started like, hey, when are you ordering mine? And so as I was ordering for him,

wife hadn't even like said that she wanted an upgrade and she had a 14. It's not like, it's not a very old version, but yeah, I just decided to buy two instead of one.

Jess Gaedeke (27:01)
Okay, was there a BOGO or you just went for it? You just added to cart?

Pavi Gupta (27:04)
⁓

Yeah, definitely, you know, the program helped me because like, you know,

my service provider, they said like, hey, if you do this, and, you know, here are the benefits if you trade it in, it's a zero cost. So definitely that played a role in the rational thinking. But then there's also an emotional side of it, because I know, like she's already,

the middle one going to college and like she's like, I can see that. So like, okay, let's just, let's just add some flavor. And like, we bought her like the orange, you know, so it's like the new

color and like just something smart like it's not going to replace her missing a son but something you know something to kind of yeah that connection of both of them got it at the same time yeah yeah

Jess Gaedeke (27:38)
Yeah, you know, yeah, close. Yeah, definitely. Oh

man, that feels like an ad that you just kind of developed on your own. That's pretty good. What's a category or a brand that you could rationalize any price point for? You just have to have it in your life.

Pavi Gupta (27:55)
think

iPhone or the iPhone ecosystem is one which I shouldn't say that because then they're going to take prices up.

But once you get into the ecosystem, it's like my sister's family is an Android family and our family is an iPhone family. And both of us look at each other and then pity each other. It's like you don't know what you're not getting. ⁓

Jess Gaedeke (28:16)
Yeah,

Pavi Gupta (28:20)
But I think once you're into it, yes.

Jess Gaedeke (28:20)
it makes the family group chats true. Yeah, yeah, you're kind of pot-committed. get that. I saying it makes the family group chats kind of interesting too when you know you're on different systems.

is one of my favorites to ask. Brands have distinct personalities. What's a brand that you would date and a brand that you would marry?

Pavi Gupta (28:37)
Yeah, so I'll stick to this example category. OK, so I would love to date an Android phone. OK, why? Because like I just feel the technology and everything the features they offer are,

Jess Gaedeke (28:43)
Just a joke.

Pavi Gupta (28:50)
you know, more out there

Apple for all its power and might like sometimes isn't like you know some of the features take longer to come into Apple, so I do feel like I want to be promiscuous sometimes. There's like I wish.

The other day my sister and they were taking a picture. said smile and it just took the selfie and I'm

that is so simple, but so cool. Versus then you're struggling to just click it. Versus when you smile, it just takes a picture. So yeah, I might want to flirt with an

but yeah, I would still not give up on the Apple ecosystem because I value my privacy too much.

And I don't want people who are monetizing my data to be reading more into my life than they should. And so I buy into that, the Apple privacy

Jess Gaedeke (29:35)
Yeah,

well that's got your commitment and that makes a lot of sense. Who's an industry leader that you'd love to hear from on this podcast?

Pavi Gupta (29:43)
Yeah, so the leader I talked to you about, his name is Swami. He's the guy

who challenged me to rethink how I should think about insights and the power of and evolution came in my mind thanks to him. So yeah, he's amazing. I think he would have so much value. He is so curious and so encouraging of our profession and our function.

that that's the kind of leader I would love to, I'm sure people would love to listen to his voice here.

Jess Gaedeke (30:13)
That's wonderful. And then that leads me to my final question, because it sounds like you've had a lot

of inspiration across the years. What keeps you inspired at work every day?

Pavi Gupta (30:22)
I think what keeps me inspired is this entire thing around curiosity.

Because I feel what happens is almost nature conspires against you because biologically you are wired to conserve your energy and the brain uses maximum amount of your energy. So I think over the years, the evolutionary biology has wired us to not think so much and just do things on

And all of us were kids. And when we were kids, we were all extremely curious. So somewhere along the journey, we lost our curiousness. And that's the piece I feel most inspired about when I go to work and, you know, and then I have people and teams and can I spark that, re-spark the curiosity in them again, whether it's through an interesting nugget, a piece of thing that we saw, an analog, you know, or something else that competition's doing.

or something that we did or something that our consumers talking to us about. And if I can get a few of my stakeholders and colleagues to get more curious, yeah, that keeps me going.

Jess Gaedeke (31:25)
Yeah, I love it. Well, you have sparked that curiosity in me, Pavi. It truly is always inspiring to talk to you. So thank you for taking time. Alligator Farms, contact lenses, it's all part of the journey. I love it.

Thanks for telling me.

Pavi Gupta (31:37)
Thank you. Thank you, Jess.