With fragmented information and complex behavior, capturing true brand insights is harder than ever. Surveys often say “health first,” yet real choices show “price and taste first,” leading to misjudgments.

In the face of a reality where data is accurate, behaviors are fragmented, and motivations remain hidden, how can brands reconstruct their insight framework? By integrating results, behaviors, and psychology, how can brands identify false needs and uncover underlying motivations, reconnect with human nature, and ultimately strengthen decision-making capability and ROI?

Data can show what consumers click or buy, but it does not guarantee trust or cultural resonance. In the emotion-driven food and beverage industry, people seek not just products but also lifestyles and identities.

KitKat, though a British chocolate, built a unique path in Japan by linking its name to Kitto Katsu (“sure to win”), becoming a good-luck charm during exams. With gift boxes, regional editions, seasonal specials, and 400+ flavors, it evolved into both a collectible and a cultural symbol woven into daily rituals.

This raises key questions: How can brands identify and amplify cultural touchpoints? How can cultural meaning be translated into products and content? And how can they avoid missteps while building lasting cultural resonance?

(Source: KitKat Japan)

Kraft Heinz North America’s CMO notes that in today’s flood of information, consumers feel emotionally detached. To stand out, brands must act as a “harbor” offering stability and hope. The competition ahead is less about function or price, and more about who can win emotional resonance.

Saturnbird’s coffee capsules are photographed and shared as lifestyle symbols; Coca-Cola’s “Share a Coke” bottles spark identity recognition through names; Ben & Jerry’s ties consumption to values like peace and sustainability.

So, how can brands use visual language, content, and values to move beyond features, forging emotional bonds that shift users from simply “choosing” to truly “identifying” with the brand?

As "consumer insights" are repeatedly mentioned and gradually become a safe but hollow buzzword, marketers may need a more honest conversation that does not shy away from real-world friction:

 - When insights enter the decision room, are they truly the starting point of decisions, or merely used afterward to justify outcomes?

 - When insights conflict with growth targets, resource constraints, or personal judgment, how do brands actually make trade-offs?

 - And which insights, seemingly right in direction, fail to be executed due to timing, organizational, or cost constraints?

This panel brings together consultants and leading brands to discuss both methodology and frontline practice. Focusing on how insights are generated, evaluated, prioritized, and executed, the session will explore a critical question: in an increasingly uncertain business environment, how can consumer insights genuinely support key decisions and be translated into sustainable growth capabilities?

In the era of short video and social media, content is the main battlefield for brand growth. Yet many still follow the old “produce, post, wait” logic, resulting in short-lived, low-efficiency work. An effective system should be productized—modular, multi-platform, and reusable.

Coca-Cola’s Share a Coke created a global template; McDonald’s built modular “Hash Brown at Breakfast” assets; Saturnbird unified its story under “Sustainable Coffee Living”; Eastroc activated modules like “hard work” and “late-night hustle.” Each turned content into repeatable growth assets—extending lifecycle, broadening reach, maximizing ROI.

In a culture chasing virality, how can brands build a sustainable content system that transforms one idea into a long-term, reusable asset?

In a fast-moving creative landscape, brands are often caught in a cycle where attention peaks quickly and disappears just as fast. Yet brands that truly commit to long term personality building are rarely those making bigger marketing moves. Instead, they focus on turning small, but punchy creative ideas into lasting assets — ideas that become memories, transcending the familiarity of everyday life so relationships between people and brands flourish long term.

 - At a music festival, we Unusual Service reframed marshmallows as “emotional remedies”. Through role play, culinary doctors delivered playful diagnoses and prescribed marshmallow treatments such as heartbreak menders or scurvy busters, replacing transaction with care and building emotional connection.

 - To mark the launch of a new book, one brand translated mischievous storytelling into a multi-sensory chocolate experience, turning narrative twists into unpredictable flavour moments and words into mouthfeel, allowing the story to move off the page and into the body.

 - Addressing a real frustration for their target audience in shared living environments, Domino’s transformed disposable pizza packaging into a reusable security device, shifting the brand from a one-off consumption moment to a lasting presence in the home.

 - To celebrate both a historical and cultural holiday a pizza brand wanted to transform a savoury cult classic into a portable brand artefact that travelled beyond the meal occasion, keeping the flavour “on the lips” in both a literal and cultural sense. Come and try it for yourself. Also you’ll have the chance to blind taste test some familiar flavour in an unfamiliar form. Curiosity required.

In this interactive session, the UK-based Unusual Service team will share their long term perspective, offering brands inspiration for fun, concrete creative actions that do not just generate attention, but stay, are used, and become part of everyday life.

 * Includes a tasting session where we reimagine the format of convenience food.

In 2025, China’s consumer market is shifting from scale driven growth to value driven growth. Yet many new products still fade quickly after launch, and the success rate of innovation continues to decline. While almost all growth opportunities point to innovation, brands are increasingly trapped in a paradox of working harder while earning less amid homogeneous competition.

Although 85 percent of CEOs view innovation as a core strategy, only 10 percent are satisfied with their company’s innovation performance. In response to this gap, Mintel will draw on industry cases to unpack why innovation is becoming harder in the FMCG sector, examine the key challenges brands face, and explore how to drive more effective innovation through consumer insights and data, anticipate consumer trends, and identify market opportunities with real growth potential.

With traffic plateauing and decision paths lengthening, brands often see exposure without conversion. Success lies not in visibility but in presence within the right scenario: usage defines value, consumption builds memory, and transaction triggers action. In Chongqing–Chengdu Lawson stores, Bushuaila turned outlets “brand blue” to echo Lawson, linking post-heat hydration, immersive cooling, and shelf placement to drive instant conversion. How can brands design such scenario loops so every encounter feels natural, precise, and seamlessly part of daily life?

Data is everywhere, yet turning it into real business value remains difficult. Despite heavy investment in data infrastructure, many organizations still struggle to activate data and translate insights into action—especially in the food and beverage industry, where unstructured data dominates and customer journeys are highly fragmented.

In this session, the Global Head of Digital Commerce Marketing at Mondelez will share how the company uses its dCommerce practices to embed data and analytics into everyday business operations. Through examples of precision marketing, continuous optimization, and strategic big bets, the session will explore how data is structured and activated, how it supports decision-making and optimization loops, and how these capabilities ultimately drive sustainable digital growth.

AI in F&B has moved from trials to scale. Leaders show gains in R&D, supply and personalization, yet many, esp. SMEs, still struggle to execute. 

 ○ Where are AI’s real capability limits? Which tasks are better for humans, and which should be handled by AI?

 ○ How should F&B brands of different sizes determine the right level of AI adoption?

 ○ Beyond R&D, supply, marketing, packaging, what else can AI improve?

 ○ How can AI develop “empathy” and deliver greater value by better understanding and caring for people?

Singapore has long been a key innovation and regional decision-making hub for leading global food and beverage companies such as Nestlé, Mondelēz, and PepsiCo. As AI becomes a core enterprise capability, Singapore has also emerged as an important global AI hub, with NVIDIA establishing its global AI technology center network headquarters there, and Heineken locating its first AI lab in Singapore.

This development is supported by Singapore’s long-term approach to AI talent capability building since 2017, led by AI Singapore, the national AI strategy and industry transformation initiative.

In marketing, the challenge has shifted from whether to use AI to how AI capabilities are acquired, embedded, and sustained within organizations. Many teams still rely on tools, external agencies, or a few individuals, making AI difficult to institutionalize.

In this session, Sengmeng, Director of AI Talent Development at AI Singapore and a member of the Office of the Senior Deputy President (Research & Technology) at the National University of Singapore, will share Singapore’s journey. He has worked extensively on national AI capability and capacity building, involved in global AI standards development (ISO, IEEE), and professionalising industry AI roles with sectoral champions such as Chartered AI Engineer and Certified AI Practitioners.

The session will focus on key questions for marketing leaders:

 - Which AI capabilities should be built in-house for the long term?

 - How can AI capabilities move from individual expertise to organizational capability?

 - How can clear capability standards and talent structures turn AI investment into business value?

As customer journeys lengthen and decisions grow more complex, brand growth has shifted from single-point wins to full-chain coordination.  From consumer insights and content creation to media, conversion, and loyalty activation, AI is increasingly embedded in every critical touchpoint, enabling brands to move from intuition-led decisions toward a more data-driven, measurable growth system.

Across these key moments, how can brands ensure that strategy and judgment remain human-led, while allowing AI to become a powerful collaborator that amplifies insight, sharpens decision-making, and strengthens execution?