Coco Wu currently serves as Associate Strategy Director, APAC at Huxly by MMR, where she specializes in cultural insight and innovation strategy, supporting brand growth and product innovation projects across the food, beverage, and FMCG sectors.
With over a decade of experience across the Asia-Pacific region, she brings deep expertise in cross-cultural research and commercial strategy, with strong familiarity across China, Japan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia. Through her work, she has helped brands uncover the deeper cultural drivers behind consumer behaviour and translate complex insights into clear, actionable innovation and brand strategies through systematic cultural and sensory research approaches.
At a time when competition in the food and beverage industry is shifting from product differentiation to broader experience and cultural relevance, Wu continues to advance the application of semiotic and sensory research in innovation. Her work helps brands build more resilient product experiences and brand expressions that can succeed across multiple markets.
The F&B industry competition has shifted from product-level differences to a battle for "Cultural Identity and Sensory Experience." Today, formulas and packaging alone cannot drive long-term growth. Focusing on the logic of "From Culture to Senses," this session explores how to use sensory and semiotic research to decode the cultural drivers of consumer behavior in the Asia-Pacific and China. It bridges the gap between cross-market insights and actionable local innovation.
Highlighting the global expansion challenges of Chinese brands, the speaker will discuss how to leverage sensory experiences and multi-market perspectives to create resilient, forward-looking innovation strategies while staying rooted in cultural identity.