MRMW NA 2019 Conference Series – Justin Coates - Eastman Chemical Company

Welcome to the MRMW NA 2019 Conference Series. Recorded live in Cincinnati, this series is bringing interviews straight to you from exhibitors and speakers at this year’s event. In this interview, host Jamin Brazil interviews Justin Coates, Consumer Insights Leader at Eastman Chemical Company. Contact Justin Online: LinkedIn Eastman Chemical Company [00:00] In this interview with Justin Coates of Eastman Chemical Company, he talks about some of the challenges of Eastman in bringing in the insights function to their everyday work flows and decision-making processes.  This is a really interesting subject, and hope you dive deep into it. It’s a short episode, but it’s packed full of what, I think, is one of the more important themes inside of market research. We saw with the acquisition of Qualtrics by SAP of $8 billion and insane multiplier, but I actually believe that we are at the beginning of this J-curve of almost all successful companies ultimately investing in consumer insights and that they will play a key role in the decision-making processes.  And, as that takes hold inside of the companies, not just new companies, but established firms like Eastman, over 100 years old, are going to be looking at employing whether it’s surveys or qualitative or whatever inside their everyday decision-making processes, which, again, is all greenfield opportunity for us. Enjoy. [01:06]   Justin Coates, Eastman Chemical Company, right?  Been around a long, long time. [01:14]   Yes, almost a 100 years.   [01:16]   That’s insane.  Congratulations.  You’ve done a great job over the last 100 years.  You don’t look it. [01:21]   Thank you.  I know. I look great for a 100.  A lot of Botox. [01:24] [laughter]  It’s like that Star Trek episode.  Anyway, so, you gave the last speech today, which is always the toughest, by the way. [01:34] It is the toughest.  Everyone wants to go, and there are free drinks, I hear. [01:39]    I’ve heard that too. [01:39] We’re here doing this, but this still...  Yeah, that’s always a rough spot. [01:45]   Yeah, no kidding.  So, maybe just give our listeners a quick overview of what you’ve talked about.     [01:51] Sure.  So, essentially, I’ve been doing consumer research for 13-14 years mostly in the textile industry but came to Eastman to kind of build a consumer research function for a chemical company that doesn’t sell to consumers but needs to understand what they want, where their needs are to really create products and materials that will eventually make their way to consumers.  So, my journey over the last two years is building buy-in within the company, within different businesses that this stuff matters, and they need to invest in it, and invest in my area so we can kind of help them solve their business problems and do front-end innovation and really reposition ourselves in front of our customers. [02:34] So, relatively new division inside of Eastman.