Yum! Brands, Chief Data Officer: We Were on a Normal Gravity-Driven Path, Covid Placed Us on Launch Monitor

Cameron Davies, Chief Data Officer at Yum! Brands, talks with Mitchell Roberts, Director of Product Marketing at Triple Blind, about what data strategy means to him and how the term strategy varies depending on the specific domain.

He talked about his 20-year career at Disney and how he had visited all of the Disney parks around the world. Davies said one of his favorite rides from all of the Disney parks is the Rock 'n Roller Coaster at Disney's Hollywood Studios in Orlando, Florida. He believes the ride is one-of-a-kind because it uses an electromagnetic linear motor to accelerate the car. The ride takes you up a hill, and using normal gravity acceleration, it takes you from a standstill to 60 miles per hour in three seconds into two vertical loops and a corkscrew.

The ride is enjoyable, but it is also unique, and he believes that this is what COVID did to the industry in terms of digitization. The industry was on a normal gravity-led path and was moving down the acceleration path when COVID struck, putting the Yum! Brand on that launch monitor.

The pandemic has created an opportunity for them to engage with customers after they make their usual purchases. They are now at a point where Yum! Brand as a company can actually engage with them through digital apps, loyalty programs, and their ability to personalize their normal customer experience into a special relationship through the communications they are able to establish with them normally.

It all boils down to a mental shift. It's simply a shift in how we think about marketing, operational relationships, and the overall opportunity.

He thinks it's exciting for the industry and what it'll do, ushering them into the next stage of natural evolution.