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Perspectives from Sarah DaVanzo, VP, Consumer & Market Insight & Foresight, L’Oréal Group

QRCA continues to conduct and record interviews with thought leaders in the qualitative research industry. These podcasts shed light on subjects of great interest

QRCA continues to conduct and record interviews with thought leaders in the qualitative research industry. These podcasts shed light on subjects of great interest to those whose work involves qualitative research. Podcasts of these interviews are available at the QRCA website (qrca.org) under the Publications link as streaming audio.

Sarah DaVanzo works at the intersection of innovation, marketing, branding, trends, and culture. In her current role within the L’Oréal Group (USA), she has developed agile innovation methods to help brands sync with trends, anticipate change, improve relevance, and design for the future.

In this podcast, Luminaries Editor Kay Corry Aubrey talked with Sarah about her work, the importance of curiosity, and the methods she uses to detect trends that have led to a 73% futures prediction accuracy rate. Sarah suggests that we need to demystify AI. “I like to say AI is artificial ignorance—

it’s not that smart. It’s basically taking in huge amounts of data links or data oceans and looking for patterns and trying to learn from those patterns. But humans have to train it still, so it’s years, hours, and so much human interaction to train AI into what to look for and what to see.”

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