What'cha Drinkin'? with Jeffrey Wu
Editor's note: Automated speech-to-text transcription, edited lightly for clarity.
Emily Koenig Hapka:
Well, hello and welcome to What’cha Drinkin’? My name is Emily Koenig Hapka and I'm the digital content editor at Quirk’s. We began this series to help everyone who is social distancing in the marketing research and insights industry stay social. Today I have the absolute pleasure of speaking with Jeffrey Wu. Jeff is a principal scientist at MARS Wrigley within Global Sensory and Research and Development. How are you doing Jeff?
Jeffery Wu:
Good afternoon, Emily. So glad to hear your voice actually see your face. That's more important too.
Emily Koenig Hapka:
So, we connected about four years ago on a really cool series that you had an idea on with end client researchers that we called Coffee Chats, I believe, and that was really fun. So, I think it's fitting that we are now talking over coffee on Zoom. Do you want to tell me what you’re drinking? I guess I shouldn't assume you're drinking coffee at this point.
Jeffery Wu:
I am drinking coffee and to be quite honest, I'm actually drinking Hawaiian coffee. I have been getting Hawaiian coffee for my friends and this year I decided that it's time for Jeff to indulge. By the way Emily, I have to say thank you very much. To turn the Coffee Break series from writing to online, now we're doing real coffee sharing.
Emily Koenig Hapka:
Thanks. Yeah, it's fun. I'm also drinking coffee so we are truly doing a Coffee Break.
Jeffery Wu:
What are you drinking?
Emily Koenig Hapka:
I am drinking, it's a Guatemalan coffee roasted here in Minnesota. It is a medium roast and it's called City Girl. I have the little container right here so I would remember. Their goal is empowering women in the coffee industry, so –
Jeffery Wu:
That is very cool.
Emily Koenig Hapka:
Yeah, I buy it at Target so it's not from anywhere fancy, but I really enjoy it.
Jeffery Wu:
Oh, I will definitely keep my eyes on that. And by the way, Emily, this is the reason that you can make the Coffee Break real because it always makes the conversation so much easier.
Emily Koenig Hapka:
Oh, thank you. Yeah, coffee helps.
Jeffery Wu:
Absolutely. Oh my God, I'm, I'm finger crossed that we will get through COVID-19 then we can get to the Quirk’s event in person.
Emily Koenig Hapka:
Yes, I am so hopeful and I would love to see you again. I know it's been a few years since we've seen each other in person, but it's been wonderful staying connected and I really appreciate that.
Jeffery Wu:
Yeah, isn't that amazing how many locations the Quirk’s event is already at? We have Brooklyn, we have Chicago. Would you remind me that any other city that Quirk’s is also planning or have already gone to?
Emily Koenig Hapka:
Yep. We were in Orange County a few years ago and we are still in London so we are getting people over in the U.K. and Europe. I was not in attendance this year in London, I decided to stay home and not go quite as far since I have a two-year-old. But yeah, our team was there and it sounded like a really great event.
Jeffery Wu:
I'll absolutely cheer you when you're in Chicago.
Emily Koenig Hapka:
Yes, yes, of course. And just speaking about the insights community how are you feeling working from home and that connection to both your peers at MARS Wrigley, but also the community at large? What does that conversation looking like for you and how is that internal feeling going?
Jeffery Wu:
It's so interesting. I'm probably like everyone else that's trying to figure out and navigate this somewhat unforeseen event and also that started to discover a completely different side of ways of working myself. What I appreciate is that human beings are, generally speaking, so adaptive to our environment that if something happened, we always have a way to find a way out. That is what I'm most impressed by and working from home really allows us to discover different technology. To be quite honest, we're in the inside field, we're trying to interact with people, get people's opinion and this gets us to think about how we do things. If we traditionally use offline tools and how can we do more online tools? On the other hand, it's also how to stay up to speed with the change of the situation and the change of mind. Myself, honestly speaking, I'm so proud to be in the inside community and after COVID-19 started to impact everyone, you just see this community started to put things in action, collecting data.
There are so many companies that are doing all these, switching from one format of investigating consumers and the society changes to another format and I think it's amazing. I have so many webinar sign-ups these days that I only wish I always tried to make the app question, is there a recording? Cause that will help my memory for sure. On the other hand, it's such an unexpected event, to come up with this so unique way to make the connection. I really appreciate it. This is such an honor for me on a Tuesday in April.
Emily Koenig Hapka:
Well thank you so much. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your willingness to join us and continue that conversation. And has there been any resource that you have found outside of Quirk’s that is really helpful? Either a platform that you've been using to watch insights come through or something within your own company?
Jeffery Wu:
That is such an interesting question. There's so many things coming and a lot of new platforms that I never paid attention to before. I do pay attention a little bit more besides the professional curations Twitter, YouTube have so many livestreams that allow us to access things happening locally as well as the things happening internationally. And I think that is fascinating.
The quintessential standard of our industry is also stepping up, doing a lot of great things people like from Ipsos. I went into some of their presentations, learned a lot of good things and there are also smaller size companies and business trying to bring forward a lot of forward thinking. And so that's a part that I, I'm just very impressed with, the diversity of things coming in. I do find that it's becoming harder to get that spontaneous interaction happening with our colleagues, with our professionals in the field. And a lot of things working from home now have to become more intentional. It actually makes me appreciate folks who regularly have to coordinate business and especially people within small business that have to coordinate things happening every day in their work life.
Emily Koenig Hapka:
Oh absolutely. I know this has made me think a lot about how several places in the industry that work from home had become a bit more normalized prior to the pandemic. I think there will be a greater appreciation for people who normally work from home, what they are doing to reach out on a normal basis and have communication and show, hey, this is me trying to connect with you on a personal and professional level. And I think we'll all have a greater sense of appreciation for their efforts in the future.
Jeffery Wu:
Oh my God, you just remind me something that the second week in, the first thing I realized I need to appreciate is the cleaning crew in our office. My goodness, right? Oh my goodness. They have made my existence in the office so much easier and now that I'm on my own and do all the cleaning at home.
Emily Koenig Hapka:
Oh yeah. I don’t think our sink has never been so full of dishes. We've been running the dishwasher and washing dishes by hand and I'm thinking, oh I miss daycare lunches for my son when I didn't have to think of everything he ate.
Jeffery Wu:
And on the other hand, I have to say that these days I realized how close my refrigerator is to the proximity of my table. When I was in the office at the desk, it took a bit time to walk over to the community refrigerator and now my refrigerator is just a couple steps away and it's all mine. I need to do a better job in curbing appetite.
Emily Koenig Hapka:
I feel the same way. We have been making so many muffins. We baked a pie this week because my son loves to cook and mix things with us.
Jeffery Wu:
Oh Emily, if you started to run an Emily Kitchen livestream show, I'm going to sign up for that for sure. You're speaking my language. It's all about carbohydrates.
Emily Koenig Hapka:
Well I can't say the process is very pretty but maybe someone would appreciate it. Well, I do have one fun question before I let you go. We have a few random questions so I'm just going to pull one out.
Jeffery Wu:
Yeah, my luck. Let's count on you.
Emily Koenig Hapka:
So what are you binge watching right now? Are there any TV shows?
Jeffery Wu:
Oh my God. It's hard for me to pinpoint a TV show, but I'm loving watching all the British and Aussie shows. Now the problem is that sometimes I'm watching so much that I'm very confused with story characters. You would think binge watching will make it easier. It’s just such an intense moment. You suddenly notice they all play in the same show and this person, instead of after discovering that in two years, you literally discovered the same person playing two different shows, and done a phenomenal job, only within two hours.
Emily Koenig Hapka:
Fantastic. I've been delving into some older shows on Amazon and I've been having to have my phone on me to go, who are they?
Jeffery Wu:
So what do you recommend for any binge watching you come across?
Emily Koenig Hapka:
I have been watching, oh goodness, what was the show called, I don't know if I recommended it yet or not. It was put out in the nineties. It's on Amazon Prime, Little Men. It's a take on the sequel to Little Women, the novel. So that’s interesting as a TV series. I want to say Hallmark is the one who put it that out. And so, I thought it would be kind of a feel good, nothing too hard to consume while the world is in a bit of crisis. So, I'm a couple episodes in. I am thinking it's pretty sweet, in a Hallmark traditional way.
Jeffery Wu:
It's so interesting, talking about nostalgia and indulgence, I did start to watch a little bit of I Love Lucy. No matter how many times I watch it, I can always burst into a laugh.
Emily Koenig Hapka:
Well thank you so much for having some laughs with me here and for sharing a cup of coffee.
Jeffery Wu:
Thank you very much for creating such a delightful moment in COVID-19 and I appreciate a coffee break.
Emily Koenig Hapka:
Oh, thank you so much. Have a great rest of your day.
Jeffery Wu:
Cheers.
Emily Koenig Hapka:
Cheers.