Andy Smith

Andy Smith has over 30 years of CPG experience having held Consumer Insights leadership positions for The Hershey Company, Mars and Nabisco and has spent the past seven years as SVP of Consumer Insights for Flowers Foods where he was hired to build Flowers’ first Insights department. Throughout his career he has supported base business, innovation, and also global branding efforts for Hershey’s, Reese’s, Brookside & Bark Thins brands.

Andy has served on the boards of The Advertising Research Foundation (The ARF), The Grain Foods Foundation and The Neuromarketing, Science & Business Association (NMSBA).

As a member of The ARF, he co-chairs the Creative Council which has published 2 white papers on advertising excellence; ‘How to Get Better Creative from Better Insights’ and ‘New Research Methods to Strengthen the Impact of Advertising Creative’. The third paper on guidelines for successful sonic branding is scheduled to be released in late 2024. Andy has been published as co-author of ‘Neural correlates of chocolate brand preference: A functional MRI study’ in the Journal of Neuroimaging.

He’s currently an Adjunct Professor at NYU co-teaching Discovering and Testing Consumer Insights to industry professionals. Additionally, he has been a guest lecturer at SMU, Temple University, University of Tennessee, Dartmouth, Villanova and at the NBC Global Research Conference.

Andy earned an MBA from Vanderbilt University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Bucknell University. He resides in Tampa Florida with his wife and two 20’s something sons.