Shows
Any Insights Yet? with Chris KocekWhy Data isn’t Truth: Finding Clarity in the Chaos with Tim Wilson & Valerie Kroll of facts & feelingsIn a world obsessed with big data, robust dashboards, and faster answers, what if the real insight about insights has to do with slowing down and making real connections?That’s how Tim Wilson and Valerie Kroll approach each project, working with organizations to help them rethink their approach to data analytics and consumer insights. Over the years, their facts & feelings approach has made a huge impact on a wide variety of brands, including Yoplait, Time Warner, Adobe, P&G, Purell, Marriott, Lysol, and more. Instead of more data, they suggest using less data, informed by...2025-05-011h 15
Any Insights Yet? with Chris KocekBending Reality with Greg Hahn at Mischief @ No Fixed AddressGreg Hahn has built his career on reframing questions and seeing things just a little bit differently. Actually, that’s an understatement.Before launching Mischief, Greg spent almost 20 years at some of the biggest and most celebrated agencies in the business, including Fallon and BBDO, where he led creative for brands like Timberland, Citibank, HBO, eBay, FedEx, and more. Along the way, he helped create some of the most awarded campaigns in modern advertising—work that not only racked up Cannes Lions and One Show pencils, but also embedded itself into culture in a way that...2025-04-1744 min
Any Insights Yet? with Chris KocekConnecting the Dots Between Marketing and Murder with Alina Burroughs, Forensic Expert from Crime Scene ConfidentialWhat do forensic science and marketing have in common? More than you might think. Both require an ability to analyze evidence, challenge assumptions, and uncover hidden truths that are often hiding in plain sight.Alina Burroughs, a forensic expert and star of the hit show Crime Scene Confidential, has spent years piecing together clues to solve cases, and as it turns out, many of those same techniques can also be applied to marketing. In this episode, Alina reveals how marketers and CSIs are both after the same thing - understanding motivations and finding th...2025-04-0353 min
The Analytics Power Hour#268: You Get an Insight! And YOU Get an Insight! with Chris Kocek
Do you cringe at the mere mention of the word, “insights”? What about its fancier cousin, “actionable insights”? We do, too. As a matter of fact, on this episode, we discovered that Moe has developed an uncontrollable reflex: any time she utters the word, her hands shoot up uncontrolled to form air quotes. Alas! Our podcast is an audio medium! What about those poor souls who got hired into an “Insights & Analytics” team within their company? Egad! Nonetheless, inspired by an email exchange with a listener, we took a run at the subject with Chris Kocek, CEO of Gallant Branding, wh...2025-04-011h 07
The Analytics Power Hour#268: You Get an Insight! And YOU Get an Insight! with Chris KocekDo you cringe at the mere mention of the word, "insights"? What about its fancier cousin, "actionable insights"? We do, too. As a matter of fact, on this episode, we discovered that Moe has developed an uncontrollable reflex: any time she utters the word, her hands shoot up uncontrolled to form air quotes. Alas! Our podcast is an audio medium! What about those poor souls who got hired into an "Insights & Analytics" team within their company? Egad! Nonetheless, inspired by an email exchange with a listener, we took a run at the subject with Chris Kocek, CEO of Gallant...2025-04-011h 07
Any Insights Yet? with Chris KocekFighting Invisibility & Finding Emotional Truths with John Gibson, Head of Strategy at The Martin AgencyDespite the billions of dollars spent on advertising every year, most ads go completely unnoticed. In fact, 85% of them don’t even hit the minimum threshold for attention. So how do you make it into the 15% that actually break through?John Gibson, Head of Strategy at The Martin Agency, has spent his career answering that question, helping brands fight invisibility by uncovering complex emotional truths.For Papa John’s, that meant moving beyond “better ingredients” to tap into something far more powerful—people’s deep, almost cult-like devotion to pizza. For OREO, it meant elevating a product ri...2025-03-2037 min
Any Insights Yet? with Chris KocekGoing Cowboy and Being Bluntly Honest With Gordy Sang & Brian Siedband at Quality Meats CreativeThe best work in advertising doesn’t just stand out—it challenges the status quo. And that’s exactly what Gordy Sang and Brian Siedband do with every client and every campaign at Quality Meats. Whether they’re working on a GoDaddy spot for the Big Game or a provocative box of chocolates for U by Kotex, Gordy and Brian (and their distributed team of strategists and creatives) always bring an unexpected twist to their creations, sparking conversations, and getting people to say, “I can’t believe they did that!”Their “going cowboy” approach is one of the many rea...2025-03-0635 min
Any Insights Yet? with Chris KocekTransforming Challenger Brands into Category Leaders with Mark DiMassimo & Lesley Bielby at DiGo BrandsHow do you take a challenger brand from number two and make it number one? And how do you do that with a relentless focus on positive behavior change?Those are the kinds of challenges that Mark DiMassimo and Lesley Bielby love to tackle at DiGo Brands, and over the past twenty years, they have elevated and re-energized numerous better-for-you brands, including Weight Watchers, Crunch Fitness, The Partnership to End Addiction, The Bronx Zoo, and Better Help, just to name a few.Whether they're making award-winning ads or redesigning a brand's identity from to...2024-11-1456 min
Any Insights Yet? with Chris KocekReframing Risk & Doing Scary Stuff with Andy Pearson, VP of Creative at Liquid DeathWhat is risk?For most people, a risky situation is one where you’re exposed to danger.Put another way, it’s the possibility of something bad happening.But for Andy Pearson, VP of Creative at Liquid Death, the definition of risk takes an interesting detour. For Andy, the real danger is not that something bad will happen, but that nothing will happen at all.No reaction. No learning. No breakthroughs.Just a boring piece of creative, dead on arrival, completely ignored.That’s why, over the course...2024-10-3136 min
Any Insights Yet? with Chris KocekLooking for Anomalies & Opportunities in AI Focus Groups with Ed Cotton, Chief Strategist & Brand ConsultantWhy should strategists do focus groups with real humans if AI-enabled synthetic focus groups can yield an equally powerful aha moment at a fraction of the cost?That’s one of several challenging questions I explore with Ed Cotton, brand consultant and former chief strategy officer from Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners (BSSP).For the past 25 years, Ed has been at the helm of strategic planning in NYC, leading strategy for a wide variety of brands, including Amazon, Apple, BMW-MINI, Chipotle, EA, LG, Nestle, Nike-Converse, Unilever, and Wal-Mart.In today’s fast-moving marketing environments, wher...2024-10-1729 min
Any Insights Yet? with Chris KocekWhy Context is Everything with Tim Malefyt, Business Anthropologist and Clinical Professor at Fordham Gabelli School of BusinessTim Malefyt has an amazing ability to make the familiar strange.He does this by doing deep, ethnographic research, helping brands uncover hidden consumer truths through a combination of carefully constructed activities and thoughtful conversation. As a business anthropologist, Tim’s research methodologies and key findings have helped re-energize a number of big name brands across multiple categories, including Campbell’s, Gillette, FedEx, HBO, Revlon, PepsiCo, Cadillac, Crayola, and New Balance.For Tim, context is everything. If you want to understand a person’s behavior, you have to talk to them in the r...2024-10-0344 min
Any Insights Yet? with Chris KocekThinking Inside The Box More Creatively with Dan Cohen, Executive Creative Director at Saatchi New YorkDan Cohen loves a good challenge.Tell him he can’t say something in a campaign headline and he’ll find a creative way around it, to the delight of clients and customers alike.Over the past thirty years, Dan’s creative, collaborative approach has helped a wide variety of brands in commoditized categories, including Bounty (paper towels), Charmin (toilet paper), Pampers (diapers), Pepto-Bismol (digestion), and Puffs (facial tissue).He’s also worked on the other side of the advertising spectrum, re-energizing luxury brands like Rolex, DeBeers, and Bentley. No matter what he’s...2024-09-1945 min
Any Insights Yet? with Chris KocekHow to Add Magic To Your Next Campaign with Magician-Strategist Mike Jacobson from America’s Got TalentA great magic trick, like a great creative briefing, begins long before everyone gathers in a room.To the general public, Mike Jacobson may be best known for his magic show performance on America’s Got Talent in 2023, but for the past decade in the business and advertising world, Mike has brought his unique methods to strategic briefings and creative campaigns for a wide range of clients, including Oreo, Subway, Comedy Central, Paramount, and other MTV Networks.Some of my favorite aha moments talking with Mike include:The surprising overlaps between magic, mentalism, and ma...2024-09-0542 min
Any Insights Yet? with Chris KocekHow to Make the Invisible Visible With Sascha Mayer, Co-Founder at MamavaSascha Mayer knows what it’s like to be invisible. Like so many new moms nursing their children, if she wanted to nurse or pump when she was away from home, her options were often limited to a bathroom stall, an unattended room, or a parked car.But it was around Labor Day weekend in 2006 that an article in the New York Times and a confluence of other events inspired a question that would change her life’s trajectory.“Why are these women who are so visible to me so invisible to everyone else?”2024-08-2250 min
Any Insights Yet? with Chris KocekEasy ways to Cut the Crap and Build Something Great With Alex M H Smith, Author of No Bullsh*t StrategyThere are a lot of strategy documents in the world. Briefs. Decks. White papers. Books. According to Alex M H Smith, most of them are full of shit. Impenetrable, calcified, piled-high bullsh*t.That’s because, despite all their words and charts and graphs, these so-called strategies fail to inspire action.And that’s what Alex wants to change in the world of strategy. With his book (No Bullsh*t Strategy) and his consultancy (BasicArts.org), Alex is on a mission to help brands differentiate themselves through bold, decisive action.Some of my favo...2024-08-0835 min
Any Insights Yet? with Chris KocekPutting “What If” At the Center of the Creative Brief with Shobha Sairam, Chief Strategy Officer at 22 Squared IncFor over two decades, Shobha Sairam has worked on a wide variety of brands at a number of agencies around the world, including Leo Burnett, Mother, Deutsch, and The Community among others. Most recently, Shobha has led strategy at 22 Squared Inc, based out of New York, where she and her team have breathed new life into brands like Baskin Robbins, Party City, Publix, and Toyota. Over the years, Shobha’s research for different brands has exposed her to a variety of sensitive and challenging subjects, including sexual wellness, banking, and the American Dream, and her proc...2024-07-2544 min
Any Insights Yet? with Chris KocekHow Honor and Vengeance Can Grow Your Brand with Brent Vartan at Bullish Inc.Most ad agencies have clients. That’s not exactly the case with Bullish Inc. Started in 2015 by Michael Duda and Brent Vartan, the co-founders of Bullish asked a provocative “what if” question that re-envisioned what an agency could be to help maximize a new brand’s success.Their question: “What if we invested in early stage brands by providing actual money along with world-class strategic and creative services?”That question and their counterintuitive approach to brand-building has led to some impressive results for brands like Warby Parker, Harry’s, Casper, Peloton, Hu, Care/of, Nom Nom, an...2024-07-1135 min
Any Insights Yet? with Chris KocekTransforming Clients and Customers Into True Believers with Seth Gaffney & Marika Wiggan at PreacherCuriosity, conviction, and a desire to get out of one’s comfort zone - these are just a few of the characteristics that Seth Gaffney and Marika Wiggan look for in strategic candidates at Preacher, and it’s this non-traditional approach to finding talent and building campaigns that has led to Preacher’s continued success, winning them Small Agency of the Year for four of the last five years.Some of my favorite aha moments from our conversation include:Discovering the very different ways Seth and Marika broke into the world of advertisingScrappy techniques for learning about...2024-06-2054 min
Any Insights Yet? with Chris KocekAny Insights Yet? TrailerIntroducing Any Insights Yet? with Chris Kocek.2024-05-3001 min
Customer Service Revolution154: Time to Have Some InsightsThere’s a future where captivating presentations and innovative branding strategies set your business apart. On this episode of The Customer Service Revolution, John and guest Chris Kocek, CEO of Gallant Branding, share the secrets to delivering presentations that will engage your team and ignite a shared vision that eclipses price wars. Chris brings his wealth of knowledge to the table, revealing how strategic branding and deep insights are crucial to reshaping your business and leading the charge in industry innovation. We decode the success stories of disruptors like Airbnb and Netflix, tracing their path fr...2024-05-0145 min
Fastlane Founders and Legacy with Jason Barnard: Personal Branding, AI Strategies, and SEO Insights for Visionary CEOsHow to Incorporate Insights in Your Branding Campaigns (Chris Kocek and Jason Barnard)Chris Kocek talks with Jason Barnard about how to incorporate insights in your branding campaigns.
This episode was recorded live on video February 6th 2024.2024-03-2100 min
Build a Better Agency PodcastGetting insightful about agency insights for better brainstorming with Chris KocekWhat exactly makes an insight versus just an observation? What are the different types out there? How the heck do we uncover them? This week, we’re getting insightful about insights and laying out the key characteristics of strong agency insights — like inspiring action and reframing problems. Chris Kocek will share his favorite techniques for generating insights during brainstorming sessions, like continually asking “why” like a toddler until you reach some real gold. With agencies feeling more and more pressure these days to stay competitive and continuously innovate, it’s important to know what really gets...2024-02-1242 min
The Business Storytelling Podcast649: Insights in business: How to connect the dots - a chat with Chris KocekChris Kocek, author of "Any Insights Yet?: Connect the Dots. Create New Categories. Transform Your Business" joins me on Episode 649 of "The Business Storytelling Show" to discuss his book, including the "insight-building process in a way that can help any business leader or marketing practitioner get to higher ground."
Join us. Grab a copy of his book here: https://amzn.to/3UbQTPo2024-01-3123 min
The Marketing Book Podcast469 Any Insights Yet? by Chris KocekAny Insights Yet?: Connect the Dots. Create New Categories. Transform Your Business. by Chris Kocek ABOUT THE BOOK: Insights are like unicorns: mysterious and elusive, powerful yet elegant. They are the quintessential a-ha moment that all businesses are after, and yet very few people can agree on what an insight is or how they got one. Any Insights Yet? demystifies the insight-building process in a way that can help any business leader or marketing practitioner get to higher ground. Packed with real-world examples from leading brands and award-winning campaigns, Any Insights Ye...2024-01-051h 15
JUST BrandingS04.EP18 - Best of Season 4 (2023)Welcome to the special ‘Best of 2023’ episode of ‘JUST Branding,’ where we dive into the most insightful and transformative ideas in branding and marketing from the year.
👉 Learn more: https://justcreative.com/podcast
This episode is a curated journey through the minds of industry leaders, innovators, and rebels, each offering unique perspectives on branding’s evolving landscape.
We kick off with the most popular episode of the season, Episode 1, which just happened to be our own. In it, we discuss the intricacies of becoming a brand consultant and our own personal journeys.
Episode 8 t...2024-01-011h 04
JUST BrandingS04.EP16 - Any Insights Yet? w/ Chris KocekTune in as we explore the transformative role of insights in branding and marketing with subject matter expert, Chris Kocek.
Our conversation begins with Kocek sharing his journey and the motivation behind his new book, "Any Insights Yet?”, which aims to revolutionize our understanding of insights in business.
Kocek delves into the essence of what constitutes a true insight, differentiating it from mere observations, data, and trends. He emphasizes the rarity and power of genuine insights, providing examples to illustrate his points.
Our discussion further explores effective strategies for uncovering insights, including helpful data...2023-12-0444 min
Greenbook Podcast86 — Thinking in Paradoxes: Disruptive Insights with Chris KocekCould embracing contradictions be the missing puzzle piece in your insight-building journey?This week's episode features an enlightening conversation between Karen and Chris Kocek, the author of "Any Insights Yet?". They explore the unconventional methods of insight-building highlighted in his book, focusing on the need to challenge traditional research approaches, embrace discomfort, and adopt divergent thinking. Chris sheds light on the collaborative aspect of discovering insights, the power of storytelling in making complex ideas accessible, and the importance of questioning entrenched norms and language. This discussion not only emphasizes the subjective nature of insights but also stresses...2023-11-2044 min
The Retail Perch97. Interview with Chris Kocek of Gallant BrandingIn the latest installment of The Retail Perch, your hosts Gary and, filling in for Shekar, co host Stephanie, have the pleasure of welcoming a Chris Kocek. Chris, the author of "Any Insights Yet?" and the visionary Founder & CEO of Gallant Branding, takes us on an intriguing journey through his transition from the world of advertising to the realm of strategy. Join us as Chris delves into the art of defining insights, explores the impact of AI tools on this crucial facet, and covers a myriad of other thought-provoking topics.2023-10-3035 min
On Brand with Nick WestergaardBranding for a Better World with Chris KocekChris Kocek is the founder and CEO of Gallant Branding and the author of the new book Any Insights Yet? His work helps brands looking to make a difference in the world make sense of all of the data and insights at their fingertips. We discussed all of this and more this week on the On Brand podcast.About Chris KocekChris Kocek is the founder and CEO of Gallant Branding, a creative branding firm in Austin, Texas focused on building brands for a better world. Over the past 10 years, Gallant has...2023-10-0928 min
On Branding PodcastThe Insight Building Process Demystified with Chris KocekIn the 90th episode of the On Branding Podcast, Arek Dvornechuck interviews Chris Kocek, and they talk about the insight building process.
Podcast page: https://www.ebaqdesign.com/podcast
2023-09-2511 min
What is Innovation?Innovation is a new way of seeing the world :: Chris KocekChris Kocek, Founder and CEO of Gallant Branding defines innovation as a fresh perspective on the world and a novel way to frame questions. This conversation explores how perceptions shape innovation and delves into the synergy between qualitative and quantitative approaches in the insight-driven innovation space. More about our guest:His company, Gallant Branding, a creative branding firm in Austin, Texas focused on building brands for a better world. Over the past 10 years, Gallant has helped dozens of companies with brand overhauls, new product launches, and data-driven campaigns, resulting in triple digit growth and national re...2023-09-1330 min
Journalism.co.uk podcastHow to generate insights, with Chris KocekIdeas are two a penny. But the right information will maximise the efficiency of your editorial meetings and help you discover new stories2023-09-0700 min
The Bob Lonsberry Show on 570 WSYR5pm: Christopher Lajewski, Center Director, Montezuma Audubon Center & Alison Kocek Inaugural Finger Lakes Bird FestChris and Alison join Bob to discuss an exciting bird festival you don't want to miss, at the end of March!2020-02-2629 min
Entrepreneur Podcast NetworkAd campaigns that are effective with Chris KocekChris Kocek, the Founder & CEO of Gallant, a strategy and design studio dedicated to building brands for a better world joins Enterprise Radio. He also is the author of the new book "The Practical Pocket Guide to Account Planning."2013-10-1910 min