Fifth Dimension Consulting appoints Melissa Gilson as the global Director of Consumer Insights and Brand Strategy
Announcement posted by Invigorate PR 28 Nov 2024
Fifth Dimension Consulting is pleased to announce the appointment of renowned Brand and Research expert Melissa Gilson to the newly created global role, Director of Consumer Insights and Brand Strategy.
"We are delighted to welcome Melissa Gilson to our firm. During 2024 Fifth Dimension Consulting expanded our leadership team to magnify and solidify our global capabilities and reach across key areas including trust, privacy and AI technology, to assist organisations and brands to drive long term sustainable growth through granular insights into consumer behaviour and the development of cutting-edge brand strategies," Fifth Dimension Consulting, CEO, Lyndall Spooner said.
"Melissa's appointment will further augment our expertise in these areas. She stands out in her field for her unrivalled ability to build brands by unlocking the powerful and enduring positioning insight that captures a cultural tension and consumer motivation. Her work helping businesses articulate their unique value proposition is globally recognised.
"The services sector is facing an increasing number of challenges. Consumers are becoming more polarised and market segments more fragmented. Understanding consumer thinking and behaviour is critical for business success and Melissa's experience will bolster our firm's ability to deliver meaningful strategies for our clients."
Spooner emphasised that Melissa's unswerving passion is helping businesses find the elusive creative angle or platform that forms the framework for how we talk about brands; that critical point where the strategy needs to translate into creative brilliance.
Melissa Gilson is highly respected across the consumer insights sector and brings 25 years of qualitative research and brand planning experience to Fifth Dimension Consulting. During her career she built two successful boutique insight and planning consultancies specialising in driving growth within the services category.
"I am now excited to translate my wealth of experience into the fiercely talented and innovative team at Fifth Dimension Consulting and look forward to helping more household names create history through dynamic and memorable strategies that become ingrained into the cultural psyche for many generations," Gilson said.
"I love that challenge where you know that the strategy is solid, but it needs to embed into the consumer's memory via a standout creative platform. This is where the magic happens.
"As a part of the team, I am looking forward to helping brands unlock their potential by using my many years of experience developing and refining brand and message platforms, ensuring brands stand out and remain competitive by creating strong mental availability built on deep insight. I aim to continue developing distinctive brands that are present and noticeable in people's lives via culture and media.
"Understanding consumer behaviour for the purpose of developing predictive modelling is become a more complex and nuanced challenge particularly in the face of AI platforms purporting to deliver deep and quick qualitative insights. In reality these platforms are such a contradiction in terms.
"A common misconception is that qualitative research always seeks out the centralist view. While that is true sometimes, it is often the outliers, the inconsistencies and nuances that we value the most.
"What is quietly observed or unsaid, and the gaps in-between is where opportunities can be found. AI tends to gravitate toward the centre, often focusing on consensus, and in its desire to please, it frequently overlooks what it may deem as insignificant. It is just too narrow and general at this stage to be meaningful or incredibly valuable by itself or without the experienced hand of an expert team like Fifth Dimension Consulting which is able to navigate AI's infinite floors to generate value.
"AI also ignores the importance of the moderator's context or bias in interpreting the findings. AI can't treat others with the compassion of a human and I think research benefits from more humanity not less."
Gilson explained that people essentially don't care about brands. They are apathetic and self- interested, with no real loyalty, so, we have to fight for mental availability.
"Getting noticed is becoming more difficult, so ensuring we nail the strategy and the creative delivery is becoming even more important. Anchoring brand strategy in robust, relevant consumer and cultural insight is essential for growth and Fifth Dimension is determined to lead the world in this area and others and I am honoured to be part of the journey," Gilson said.
About Fifth Dimension Consulting
Fifth Dimension is an award-winning strategic research consultancy known for its innovative approaches in strategy, experience, research, and technology. With accolades including multiple FORSTA AIR Awards including: 2021 Judges Choice, a 2021 Confirmit ACE (Achievement in Customer Excellence) Award in the Innovation category, and a 2020 Confirmit AIR Insight and Research Award. Fifth Dimension was listed in the GreenBook Research Industry Trends (GRIT) Top 25 Strategic Consultancies and continues to lead the industry in groundbreaking research and insights. Since its launch in 2006, Fifth Dimension's four pillars of expertise have continued to evolve new capabilities to embrace uncertainty and drive the development of market leading approaches: strategy, experience, research and technology.