TMRE Live

Snack Attack: How Human + AI Collaboration Sparked an Explosion of Innovation

October 29 | 1:55pm

What happens when a snack brand teams up with AI to reimagine product innovation? In this dynamic session, you’ll hear the inside story of how TH Foods and Crunchmaster partnered with C+R Research to revolutionize their approach to new product development using AI-powered shopper personas, proven ideation frameworks, human concept testing and simulated buyer feedback.

Faced with the challenge of creating breakthrough snack ideas for two key retailer partners, the team used a custom panel of AI personas trained on real consumer data and retailer insights. Prompted by an experienced ideation facilitator, these personas generated over 900 product concepts in just hours—ideas that were then refined, tested, and optimized through a hybrid human + AI process. From flavor trends to scripting sell-in conversations, this case study reveals how AI can be woven into different phases of an innovation process to accelerate creativity, reduce costs, and boost confidence in go-to-market strategies.

Key Takeaways:

• Reimagine your innovation process: Learn how AI personas can be tailored to reflect real shopper attitudes and behaviors.
• Accelerate ideation without sacrificing quality: Discover how structured prompting can generate hundreds of viable product ideas in hours.
• Bridge the gap between insight and action: See how AI tools can provide coaching for sell-in conversations and help refine concepts for retail success.
• Avoid common pitfalls: Hear lessons learned about AI sycophancy, prompt design, and the importance of human judgment in AI-assisted workflows.

Speakers:

• Paul Metz, Chief Executive Officer, C+R Research
• Maddie Boepple, Senior Marketing Manager of Innovation, TH Foods

Custom Research Meets Cutting-Edge Tech

October 29 | 2:30 pm

This joint session with C+R Research and Recollective isn’t just about sharing a success story—it’s exploring what’s next in qualitative research. Together, we’ll showcase how the combination of custom research expertise and flexible technology has opened new possibilities for scaling insights without sacrificing depth.

You’ll hear how C+R tackled challenges like managing up to 50,000 participants, engaging them reliably and ensuring segmentation at scale. You’ll see how Recollective Connect and integrated tools helped transform those hurdles into opportunities for efficiency, flexibility and deeper brand connections. Most importantly, this session looks ahead. From migrating existing panels into communities to harnessing AI for faster, smarter analysis, you’ll learn how today’s innovations are setting the stage for the next era of qualitative research—one that’s agile, scalable and built around people.

Key Takeaways:

• Scaling with confidence: How large participant communities (50,000+) can be built, managed and engaged without losing quality
• Future-ready insights: Why migrating traditional panels into communities creates new opportunities for connection and discovery
• AI as an accelerator: Practical ways AI is helping researchers analyze faster, uncover hidden themes at scale and extend human analysis
• Vision ahead: Where participant engagement and qualitative research are headed in the next 3-5 years

Speakers:

• Cailun Glick, Senior Qualitative Research Director
• Laura Pulito, VP, Research at Recollective