DIRECTOR CONSUMER & CULTURAL INSIGHTS

POSITION SUMMARY 

This role is responsible for leading Jack in the Box’s Consumer Insights function and learning agenda, translating a deep understanding of consumer needs, behaviors, motivations, and barriers into actionable insights that embed the consumer voice in cross-functional decisions across the brand, communications, menu, innovation, value, digital experience, and the 

restaurant experience that will drive brand and business growth. 

KEY DUTIES/RESPONSIBILITIES: 

Consumer Learning Agenda & Leadership 

? Leads the development and ongoing management of Jack in the Box's enterprise consumer learning agenda, aligned to the most important business and Marketing decisions. 

? Partners with Marketing and cross-functional leaders to identify critical knowledge gaps, frame learning objectives, and prioritize research investments. 

? Builds a connected body of consumer knowledge across projects, reducing duplicative research and increasing the value of prior learning. 

? Champions the voice of the consumer and strengthens consumer-centered decision making across the organization. 

Consumer Research & Insights 

? Leads qualitative and quantitative consumer research across brand, communications, menu, innovation, value, digital, loyalty, and restaurant experience, and translates those insights into recommendations that help the organization make more confident, customer-centered decisions 

? Oversees research methodologies including segmentation, usage and attitudes, focus groups, ethnography, communities, surveys, concept testing, product testing, creative evaluation, and customer journey research. 

? Develops a deep understanding of consumer needs, motivations, attitudes, occasions, behaviors, trade-offs, and barriers. 

? Identifies meaningful differences across customer segments, markets, generations, usage levels, and occasions. 

? Synthesizes multiple sources of information into clear insights and compelling consumer stories. 

? Distinguishes observations from insights and translates learning into implications and recommendations for business partners. 

Brand, Communications & Cultural Insights 

? Partners with Brand Marketing and Integrated Communications to deepen understanding of brand perceptions, relevance, consideration, preference, and barriers. 

? Leads consumer input into positioning, messaging, campaign development, creative evaluation, and brand experience decisions. 

? Identifies cultural shifts, category behaviors, and emerging consumer attitudes that may influence the brand and future demand. 

? Partners with Marketing Insights & Analytics to connect attitudinal research with brand health, customer behavior, and business performance. 

Menu, Innovation & Value Insights 

? Partners with Product Marketing and Culinary teams to provide consumer understanding throughout the innovation and menu development process. 

? Leads research supporting consumer needs, opportunity spaces, product concepts, naming, pricing, value perceptions, product experience, and readiness for commercialization.                                                                                  

? Ensures consumer validation is appropriately designed for the stage and decision, avoiding unnecessary process while protecting decision quality. 

? Identifies unmet needs, occasions, flavor trends, and category opportunities that can inform future menu and innovation pipelines. 

? Partners with Marketing Insights & Analytics to connect stated consumer response with actual product, menu, and sales performance. 

Customer, Digital & Experience Insights 

? Partners with Digital & Growth, Operations, and Technology to understand customer journeys across restaurant, drive thru, app, web, delivery, loyalty, and customer care touchpoints. 

? Identifies friction points, unmet needs, and opportunities to improve convenience, engagement, frequency, and overall customer experience. 

? Leads research supporting loyalty, personalization, digital adoption, ordering behavior, and customer experience improvements. 

? Connects attitudinal insights with behavioral and customer analytics to build a more complete understanding of customer needs and actions. 

Segmentation & Foundational Learning 

? Leads foundational consumer learning, including segmentation, usage and attitudes, occasions, need states, decision journeys, and demand-space research. 

? Ensures segmentation frameworks are practical, usable, and connected to targeting, innovation, communications, and experience decisions. 

? Builds organizational understanding of priority audiences and helps teams apply consumer frameworks consistently. 

? Partners with Marketing Insights & Analytics to connect research-based segments with behavioral, transactional, and media audiences.  

Insights Activation & Storytelling  

? Transforms complex research into concise and compelling narratives.  

? Develops executive-ready presentations.  

? Creates accessible tools, summaries, and repositories that enable teams to find and use consumer knowledge. 

Research Quality, Innovation & Vendor Leadership 

? Establishes high standards for research design, sampling, methodology, analysis, interpretation, and reporting. 

? Continuously evaluates emerging research approaches, technologies, communities, behavioral methods, and artificial intelligence-enabled tools. 

? Leads relationships with research agencies, panels, platforms, and specialized partners. 

? Partners with Marketing Operations on scopes, budgets, contracts, procurement, and vendor performance. 

? Ensures research is conducted ethically and in accordance with privacy, legal, and data-governance requirements. 

? Performs other related duties, tasks, and responsibilities as required, assigned, and directed. 

QUALIFICATIONS: 

Education - Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Market Research, Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology, Economics, Statistics, Business Administration, or related field required. Advanced degree preferred. 

Experience - 10+ years of progressive experience in consumer insights, market research, customer insights, brand insights, innovation research, or related disciplines, including leadership responsibility. Experience within Restaurant, Consumer Products, Retail, Hospitality, or other consumer-driven industries strongly preferred. Demonstrated experience leading both qualitative and quantitative research and influencing senior stakeholders. Experience managing complex research portfolios, budgets, and external technology and research partners required.  

Leadership Competencies 

? Champions the consumer voice while maintaining objectivity and strong commercial judgment. 

? Builds strong partnerships across Marketing, Culinary, Digital, Operations, Technology, Analytics, and agency teams. 

? Communicates consumer learning simply and persuasively to senior leadership. 

? Develops high-performing teams through coaching, accountability, engagement, and talent development. 

? Maintains high standards of integrity, confidentiality, transparency, and sound business judgment. 

Skills/Knowledge/Abilities 

? Demonstrates intellectual curiosity and consistently seeks to understand the reasons behind consumer behavior. 

? Transforms complexity into clear insights, implications, and recommendations. 

? Challenges assumptions constructively and uses evidence to improve decision quality. 

? Balances research rigor with business speed, cost, and the level of risk associated with the decision. 

? Possesses deep expertise in qualitative and quantitative consumer research methodologies. 

? Strong experience with segmentation, usage and attitudes, concept testing, product testing, creative evaluation, brand research, customer journeys, and foundational learning. 

? Strong understanding of consumer behavior, decision making, occasions, need states, cultural trends, and category dynamics. 

? Ability to translate business questions into focused learning plans and appropriate research designs. 

? Demonstrated ability to synthesize multiple research and data sources into a clear point of view. 

? Strong knowledge of research quality, sampling, questionnaire design, analysis, privacy, and ethical standards. 

? Strong organizational and project leadership capabilities. 

? Proficient knowledge of personal computers and Microsoft Office 365 (i.e., Word, Excel) as well as modern research, survey, community, analytics, and visualization platforms. 

? Demonstrates integrity and ethical behavior. 

Physical Requirements - Ability to communicate clearly in person and on the telephone. Ability to operate a computer keyboard. Ability to travel approximately 20-25% of time as business needs require. 

REASONABLE ACCOMMODATION: 

Jack in the Box Inc. will make reasonable accommodations to allow a qualified individual with a disability to enjoy equal employment opportunities and to perform the essential functions of the job. This position description should be applied accordingly. This description of duties is not intended to be all-inclusive or to limit management's discretion to assign other duties or responsibilities as necessary.

Jack in the Box Inc. offers a competitive salary and Total Rewards package that includes: medical, dental, vision, Health Spending Account (HSA), Flexible Spending Account (FSA), Life and Disability Plans, 401(k) plan with company match, Legal Plan, Pet Insurance, Tuition Reimbursement, and Employee Assistance Program.

Our culture is fun and innovative – ‘Work Happy’ with us!

The range for this position is $140,000 - $200,000 and is based on an employee located at our corporate headquarters in San Diego. If the candidate is hired in a different city to work remote, we may apply a geographic pay differential based on the cost of labor in the market in which the employee resides.