#10 - Fiona Blades (New York) - President MESH Experience - Show Business & Brand Experience

Real People, With Jason Dunstone - Consumer Insights, Market Research, Customers, Design Thinking and More

There's no business like show business, and that at least partly explains how Fiona Blades grew up in a small village in the north of England wanting to be a ballerina, studied Drama and Literature at University, then went on to establish MESH Experience in 2006, a global consumer insight agency with offices in London, New York, Sao Paulo and Singapore. MESH specialises in understanding people's experiences - with brands, within categories and across their behaviours, working with global icons including Unilever, GM and LG. Many people look at the products and services they use and think "I could do that better," but few ever do. Fiona was bold enough to take an outsider's perspective and develop a new approach to help businesses better use critical data to improve brand experiences online, offline and the real world. We discuss where MESH grew from, Fiona's perspective on brands, culture, data, insight and driving change when decision makers may have their blinkers on. This is a fascinating discussion including the role of tech and data in understanding the lives of people, as well as the vital role of people thinking and reflecting to solve business and other complex problems. Real People is a podcast hosted by Jason Dunstone, the founder and managing director of Square Holes. Subscribe to Real People on your favourite podcast player. Jason builds on his 25 years of conducting human-centred research, interviewing average and not so average people (rich, poor, old, young, content and vulnerable) to understand what they believe and how they behave. Check out the Real People website - http://squareholes.com/realpeople Connect with Jason Dunstone on Twitter @jasondunstone - https://twitter.com/jasondunstone?lang=en Send Jason an email - [e-mail] Read more blogs from Jason Dunstone - https://squareholes.com/blog/author/jason/ Find out more about Square Holes - http://www.squareholes.com/ Produced with Apiro Media - https://www.apiropodcasts.com/