Paige Walker on Building Cultural Intelligence Inside The Hershey Company

Adam Katz sits down with Paige Walker, Manager, Cultural Intelligence and Trends at The Hershey Company, for a candid conversation about her path from journalism to leading social listening and cultural intelligence inside a global CPG organization.

Paige shares how her role evolved from consumer relations to becoming the in-house SME for social intelligence, how she partners with brand and insights teams, and what it looks like to build influence in a niche discipline inside a large enterprise.

This episode offers an inside look at how cultural intelligence functions within a major brand, and how Paige operates within the broader media and marketing ecosystem.

Episode 59 TRANSCRIPT

Adam Katz
Welcome to Breaking Through the Mayhem today. We're so delighted to have Paige Walker from Hershey's. So excited to finally have you on the show.

We had to move this around a little bit, which I apologize because I haven't been feeling well the last few weeks. Tell us a little bit about yourself, your title, what you do, kind of how you got to Hershey's, because I don't know, I find what you do to be not only thrilling, cool, and smart, but something that I want to learn about.

Paige Walker
Yeah. Hey, Adam, thank you so much for having me on the podcast. And, you know, it's just that time of year.

I feel like everybody's getting sick. I have a head cold myself. So if I sound a little stuffed up, that is why.

But hey, it's winter. So what are you going to do? But yeah, thanks for having me.

Excited to be here. My official title at Hershey is manager of cultural intelligence and trends. And I've been with the company since 2020.

I actually literally started the week the pandemic started. That was my first day at the company. So I went to the office for like five minutes, got my laptop and they're like, all right, bye, get out of here.

And I didn't go back to the office for over two years. So it was definitely an interesting kind of journey to learn a whole new field and a new career while the world was blowing up with the pandemic and everything. But I used to be a journalist.

So I was in the journalism field. I have a journalism degree. I left that career and I started out at Hershey as just what was called a social media engagement specialist.

So that was a person who responds back and forth to consumers on social media. We have really big consumer facing brands like Reese's, Jolly Rancher, Twizzlers, Hershey's, of course. And they all have social media accounts and people are contacting us on those accounts all the time for various reasons, for positive reasons and negative reasons.

Like if you buy a Reese's cup and there's no peanut butter in it, which does happen sometimes, you might be upset and you might go to Twitter or X, excuse me, I'm always going to call it Twitter. But you might go to X and tweet how upset you are and somebody has to answer that. And that was the team that I was on originally.

You could say it was like the customer service team. It's called consumer relations internally. But every quality issue that someone contacts the company about that has to be documented, it has to be sent to the plants so they can know whenever there's a huge, small or big issue with one of our products so they can solve issues if needed.

And just track how our quality is over time and make sure we're delivering quality products to our consumers. So consumers can contact us, of course, on social media, but they can also contact us like any other company on phone, email, web chat, text, etc. So that team was where I was originally and I was on the social media team for that.

But then what started happening was, you know, we were getting all these really great insights from social media, just people telling us, of course, like, you know, when they had a problem with one of our products, but also what they loved about our products, what they, you know, wish we would change, if there were flavors that they want us to bring back, if there was packaging that they didn't like, or a design they maybe did really like, and they were excited about it, or, you know, just all kinds of different insights that we were like, we need to get these to the brand teams, because we feel like these are really valuable. We can make changes based off of what people are saying.

And so it started out in the beginning of just having those owned contacts to our organic social channels. We were like, well, we need to look more broadly, we need to look at the whole internet in general, because, you know, someone might be talking about you on Reddit, but they're not actually like, mentioning Reese's on Reddit. So, you know, we started doing, you know, what's called social listening, truly, and looking at mentions where we weren't actually tagged and mentions where we were tagged and really just offering our services to the brand.

I'm saying our because I had somebody else working with me at the time, she's no longer at the company, but we were offering our services and the brands were like, yeah, sure, like, okay, like, if you want to do a report for me, that's great. So we do these reports, and they got really good feedback. And they're like, oh, like, could you do this quarterly or monthly?

And we're like, yeah, like, absolutely. So that it turned into us offering our services to them. Now my job is like, so ad hoc, like everything I get is a request.

I have, thankfully, a ton of requests, like backed up. And I went from like, not doing any social listening to then social listening being my full time job. And now the research is really integrated into our consumer insights team and the primary research they're doing.

And then my role has evolved, not from just listening on a brand level, but listening on a category level, and just kind of on like a macro level, because like, yeah, you know, Skinny Pop popcorn is one of our brands. And we're, we're interested in what people are saying about Skinny Pop, but I'm also interested in popcorn as a category in general. And then, you know, just on top of that, I'm interested in snacking and different food and beverage trends.

And I'm interested in how people, you know, are shopping and behaving in this crazy world that we live in. So it's gone from very specific to like consumer feedback for brands to now just very broad consumer behavior and trends.

Adam Katz
Unbelievable story. Did you, did you ever think when you were, I saw you were a cum laude at Penn State, did you ever think when you were in State College that you'd be, you'd be listening to how people feel about a Reese's peanut butter cup? So it's a pretty, pretty crazy journey.

What do you think is like the consistent throughput that gets you to where you are? It sounds like it's that you're always willing to learn something new, dive in, think through it, be analytical, and then, you know, show up with something and try to be consistent. But maybe I answered the question for you based on what I hear, but, but what's kind of been the consistent throughput and thread that's made Paige Walker so successful?

Paige Walker
Well, I appreciate that. And that's part of it. I think really storytelling at the end of the day, because, you know, I was a journalist in high school and college and then out of college, and I love journalism, I love storytelling.

And I always say that consumer insights is just storytelling for brands. It's just like journalism is storytelling for your community. And consumer insights is storytelling for your brand.

So it's just me taking my skills I had as a storyteller and applying it in a different setting in this time, you know, for business and strategy and insights and all that. And I think that's why part of why my reports are received well, just because I am good at telling a story. I'm good at looking through, you know, large data sets and figuring out like, hey, what of this is noise?

What of this actually matters? Like, what is the action we can take? Or what is my recommendation from all this noise that's going on on the internet?

It's the same thing with being a journalist, being a storyteller. There's so much happening in the world every single day. You have to decide, okay, what actually matters to my community?

What do they need to hear? So I kind of just take that same philosophy and I apply it to our brands at Hershey.

Adam Katz
It's amazing. I mean, you know, from my perspective, you know, I've seen that you've won awards, right? These prestigious top 50 awards.

Are these like things that, you know, the awards are things that come to you or is this something that you apply for? Like, how can people learn how to get out there like that? Because I do think those things truly impact careers.

Like, what would be your advice to people to try to get themselves in the mix for these type of things?

Paige Walker
Yeah, if you're in the social listening field or, I mean, this can really apply to any field. But if you're in social listening specifically, you should check out the Social Intelligence Lab. Dr. Jillian Nye, she runs the whole show. She's based in Scotland, actually. So it's a global organization. But essentially, like, I just started using LinkedIn more.

I got connected with some people in the field on LinkedIn and then they introduced me to the Social Intelligence Lab. So people like to hate on LinkedIn, but I think LinkedIn is actually like one of the best tools we have, like, in our toolbox as marketers.

Adam Katz
Who hates on it?

Paige Walker
People on TikTok, they call it cringe. I mean, I agree. It can be cringe, like, for sure.

But if you use it in the right way, like, it has led me to a ton of opportunities, like including this.

Adam Katz
Look at how we met. From my perspective, yeah, listen, if you go listen to any platform, you know this from your experience, you'll find the negative of anyone's story. To me, there's the good in all people and the good in all platforms and the bad in all of it.

And you've clearly taken big advantage of it. But so when you met, you know, Jillian, right? Isn't that just another, you just keep marching until you find the next way, right?

It feels like in your career, right? When you get these, when you get these type of awards, do you feel like Hershey celebrates it? Is it more of an individual thing?

Like, how do these things happen and what do you do with them?

Paige Walker
Yeah, so the award you're referencing specifically just for audience reference is the Social Intelligence Insider 50. I am very grateful to be chosen for that list for the past two years. And what that list, thank you, what that list is, is it recognizes the top social listening practitioners globally who are influencing the industry and, you know, spreading the good word for social listening, essentially.

And that it's cross categories. So people in CPG, people in tech, people in medicine, I don't know. So there's like so many different categories.

And then you can nominate people, but you can also self-nominate. So I've self-nominated the last two years and you really have to, you know, there's an interview list of questions you have to answer about the work that you've done and how you've advocated for the field. And then that gets judged by a panel of judges that Dr. Jillian has on her team. So whatever, I don't know. It's, I mean, my co-workers are happy for me, of course, but I do feel like it's more of the kind of like community celebrating ourselves because social listening is so niche and there's not a lot of us who do this job yet. And if you go to, you know, big organizations like Hershey's and others in the CPG realm even, there's typically one person who does the job and like that's it.

I'm the only person here who does this work. There's some of my colleagues internally, you know, they know how to use the platform and everything, but I am the social listening SME and I'm the one doing the research for the brand.

Adam Katz
Don't you feel like what's, you know, with the technology advancements happening right now, that there's a way that you can be multiplied and maybe Hershey's can like make a page agent instead of the organization or figure out a way? Because I feel like what's kind of coming next is this ability to let someone who only has your expertise be put into the hands of more people. You know, what's your opinion about that future and kind of how that's going to play out?

Paige Walker
Yeah, so AI is a huge conversation in the social intelligence, social listening space. And it's something that I do use internally and some of my stakeholders use internally to an extent. Our main social listening platform, which is called Quid, it has an internal kind of AI bot to where you can like ask it questions about certain large data sets.

Because, you know, you might be looking at this super broad topic and you have millions of mentions and you're like, well, I don't know where to start. I don't know what the main themes of conversation are. So the AI can make that easier by helping to identify those themes and, you know, that speed to insight a lot quicker.

But what I've found with the AI is that like it will think something is an insight where it's not really an insight. Like it'll take one tweet and be like, here's a theme about this person. And all these people are talking about this.

And it's really like one post or like one guy on Twitter or one guy on Reddit. And I'm like, this is not really what I'm looking for here. So like it'll unearth some things, but it doesn't have the ability to like understand nuance or understand that like this is actually not a big thing.

It's just one thing that somebody said. Sometimes, you know, it does unearth really great things. And other times I'm like, this makes no sense or it'll just, I don't know.

I found with AI, I can sometimes like spit out garbage.

Adam Katz
To you, it's another tool in your tool shed and you have to figure out which time to use that tool versus when not to.

Paige Walker
Exactly. Yeah. We do have a video intelligence tool where the AI has the AI bot that will go out and kind of like watch videos for us about certain things.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is like, I don't think AI, at least in the social intelligence space, is at the point where it can like replace someone. It can enhance your skills and help you get to an answer faster. But at any time I'm sending something that I use like an AI summary for, I'm like, hey, like, just be aware.

Like this is an AI generated response. I'm going to look deeper into it at a later point. But it does help for those very quick, like, oh, it's Friday at four o'clock and I need a really quick answer on X, Y, and Z.

It's like, okay, let me go ask the AI bot and see what's going on here.

Adam Katz
So listen, everyone has their own feeling of where these things are, where they're going, how to use them, what to do. I think part of what you're getting at though is because you're in a smaller team within a bigger organization and you've got to stick your name on something, you like to feel a lot of confidence in it is really what I'm hearing. You know, especially the journalistic background is I want to tell my truth a certain way that is fair and worthy, right?

And, you know, so from my perspective, it sounds like you have all these different tools that you're using, but ultimately you have your own mindset of what you want that output to be. So I think there is a future, not that you're a place, but I think there's a future where a page is automated for everyone else. That's where my head's going to look at.

Paige Walker
I mean, it's growing for sure. It is. The technology is only going to get better, at least that's my prediction.

So as the technology gets better, we'll continue to implement it more. And I know other people are doing more than we're doing at this point, but I'm excited to see kind of where it goes over the next like five, 10 years.

Adam Katz
So cool. So shifting a little gears here as we kind of come down the stretch, who's been, you know, some of your mentors? You don't have to name name, but like what have been the themes of how you learn and then how are you looking to give back to people for them to take advantage?

Because it feels like the thing that I'm learning here the whole time, you just keep finding a new way and a new move. So kind of how'd you learn that quality and how are you going to give that to others?

Paige Walker
I don't know how I necessarily like found the quality. Like maybe it was just ingrained in me, but it, you know, when I did leave journalism, I, you know, was very lost for a few years, you know, depressed and didn't like, like, well, this dream career that I had was not what I thought it was. And I'm never going to find anything I like more than this.

You know, I was really down for a long time and social listening kind of just fell in my lap. And I was like, let me share. Like I worked hard and like I've gotten opportunities because of my hard work.

But in the same vein, it was presented to me and I'm like, okay, I need to, I do like it. I need to take advantage of it. I will say like my original managers on my team, when I joined Hershey, they were just, you know, very open to the fact that I didn't have experience in CPG.

And they kind of, you know, took me under their wing and they taught me all the ways of Hershey and of the industry. And I learned a lot from them. You know, I'm still learning every day.

I'm very interested in, you know, traditional primary research as well. And that's something that I don't have a lot of experience in. So I had another manager after that, who was very helpful with teaching me, you know, how surveys work and how to actually program and field a survey and how to, you know, participate in a qual study.

So lots of people internally at Hershey who have just been, you know, teaching me and being my cheerleaders, and I'm very thankful for them. Because anytime that I'm like, you know, I think that this is the right way to go about something, or we need to use help use social data to answer this question. These people have been behind me.

They're like, yes, listen to Paige, like she knows what she's talking about. Like, let's let Paige cook, basically, like, let her do her thing. I'm grateful for all the people internally who have kind of lifted me up and helped me move.

And then I have to shout out just like the general social listening community, like everybody externally has been so helpful. Like I've reached out to a bunch of people, and they know who they are. And they've, you know, given me these one on one conversations and their advice and how they've gone about specific situations that they've maybe faced in their org that I'm now facing in my org.

So the social listening community is one of the best that I've found that I was feeling very lonely at first. Once I found this community, I'm like, wow, I'm not alone, like these other people are facing the same problems that I'm facing. So they've been great as well.

Adam Katz
I love that. You know, I don't got much to say about that other than that. That's super cool.

Good for you. You know, as we close here, you know, I always think about this. If you had a chance to go to dinner with somebody that's alive, but not your family, who would you pick?

Paige Walker
I don't know. This is a tough question. Because like, I want to say like a celebrity, but I don't know if I would learn much from a celebrity.

Adam Katz
So give me a celebrity and a non celebrity for you.

Paige Walker
I mean, celebrity is Taylor Swift. Obviously, I'm a big Swifty. I'd love to go to dinner with Taylor Swift.

But non celebrity. See, I'm a reputation girl. So I like all the reputation tracks, all the ones on there.

But then non celebrity, I don't know, I'd like to go to dinner with the founder of Olipop prebiotic soda. Because I just think what they have built is so incredible from not only like a product standpoint, like, I'm a big fan of the products. But then just I think their marketing is really well done.

Their social presence is really well done. And I would just love to hear like, from their start to where they were, where they are today and how huge they are just the success they've experienced and what advice they would give to other people. So yeah, founder of Olipop, if you're listening to this, I'd love to get dinner.

Adam Katz
I might be able to help you. I had a lot of fun talking to you today, Paige. People are going to listen to this and they're going to be inspired to take journeys on their career, take chances, be consistent and authentic and show up and then find their community that kind of lifts them.

So thank you so much for joining me today. And I had an absolutely great time with you. Of course.

Paige Walker
Thank you for having me.