To Affinity and Beyond - Decision Intelligence for Retail – Details, episodes & analysis

This is To Affinity & Beyond; HyperFinity's decision intelligence for retail podcast.

We're back with a new season - focusing on everything customer loyalty.

Loyalty programmes are everywhere in retail these days. But there's one huge hurdle marketing teams consistently face: convincing the finance department that loyalty is worth the investment.

So how do you justify the costs associated with loyalty schemes when your CFO is eyeing that budget line with scepticism?

This episode dives into measurement and how it's the answer marketeers are looking for.

There's more on our website: hyperfinity.ai/loyalty

Resources mentioned in the conversation: https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2025/04/ms-archie-norman/

This is To Affinity & Beyond; HyperFinity’s podcast about decision intelligence, data science and AI for retail.

In the final episode of season two, we’re looking back at the topics we’ve covered over the last couple of months. Host Peter Denby walks through sound bites from each episode – from demand forecasting and decision intelligence to location planning and 2023’s retail trends.

Resource one: The state of retail in 2023, part one – https://hyperfinity.ai/resources/the-state-of-retail-in-2023-part-one

Resource two: The state of retail in 2023, part two – https://hyperfinity.ai/resources/the-state-of-retail-in-2023-part-two

Resource three: Why is demand forecasting a huge opportunity for retailers? – https://hyperfinity.ai/resources/why-is-demand-forecasting-a-huge-opportunity-for-retailers

Resource four: What is decision intelligence for retail? – https://hyperfinity.ai/resources/what-is-decision-intelligence-for-retail

Resource five: Why should I buy from you? – https://hyperfinity.ai/resources/why-should-i-buy-from-you

Resource six: From data to devotion: How to create loyal customers using analytics – https://hyperfinity.ai/resources/how-to-create-loyal-customers-using-analytics

Resource seven: What’s the future of decision intelligence? – https://hyperfinity.ai/resources/what-is-the-future-of-decision-intelligence

Resource eight: Why should data inform a retailer’s location? – https://hyperfinity.ai/resources/why-should-data-inform-a-retailers-location

Email peterdenby@hyperfinity.ai with your comments and hit subscribe to keep up to date.

Hello and welcome to the final episode in Season One of our podcast, To Affinity and Beyond. I’m Pete Denby, host of the podcast and Co-founder at Hyper.

In this episode I’m going to reflect on 3 things.

1. What we’ve learnt from starting and producing a regular podcast

2. Our most listened to podcast and it’s main highlights

3. 3 key insights from the rest of Season One

As promised in the episode, below is a summary of my favourite podcasts. We hope you enjoy these before tuning back in to Season Two of To Affinity and Beyond!

🎤 How I Built This with Guy Raz
💡 Inspiring stories of ambition, adversity and ultimately huge reward, led by a host who facilities rather than dominates.

🎤State of Demand Gen with Chris Walker.
💡Chris pretty much creates the modern day B2B marketing playbook. Very important and timely podcast.

🎤On Strategy Showcase with Fergus O'Carroll.
💡Deep dive into the strategy behind hugely successful marketing and advertising campaigns. Fergus gives plenty of room for his guests to describe their work in detail.

🎤The Bigger Narrative with Andy Raskin.
💡Discussions with CEOs about the power of strategic narrative. With invaluable contributions from the Andy’s mum.

🎤Product Marketing Experts with Sharebird.
💡Various topics relating to product marketing. E.g. positioning & messaging, product launches, career development. From a passionate community of product marketers.

🎤B2B Marketing Leaders / The DGMG Podcast with Dave Gerhardt.
💡Interviews with B2B tech and SaaS CMOs. Another prime example of a modern B2B marketer.

🎤Seeking Wisdom with David Cancel.
💡Professional and personal advice from a prolifically successful tech entrepreneur.

🎤Sweathead with Mark Pollard, Strategy Friend.
💡The podcast that spawned a massive community of strategists. Mark’s interviews reach the depths most people get nowhere near.

🎤Exponential View with Azeem Azhar.
💡Discussion with leading thinkers about the technology and trends shaping the exponential era, led by an extremely smart host.

🎤Eat Sleep Work Repeat with Bruce Daisley.
💡Work reimagined and improved for the modern age. Running since before the pandemic but even more pertinent now.

🎤Masters of Scale with Reid Hoffman.
💡Advice from an impressive array of guests to help entrepreneurs and ambitious corporate workers scale at speed, hosted by a man who has been there, done it and got multiple t-shirts.

Thank you for listening to our podcast. We’d love to hear your feedback and suggestions for future episodes, so please get in touch with me at peter@hyper-group.co.uk.

Hello and welcome to another episode of To Affinity and Beyond. This week I’m joined by Joel Spence, Director of Growth and Innovation at Serco ExperienceLab.

I’ve known Joel for a few years, since working together for around 12 months at Callcredit, before their £1b acquisition by TransUnion. Joel is the epitome of a modern growth director with a strong focus on customer experience and innovation.

In this episode we talk about how technology and insight drive innovation. Joel shares some great examples to bring the topic to life and I think you’ll find the content really enjoyable and valuable.

Joel’s very active on LinkedIn, posting and sharing some excellent content, so I’d highly recommend connecting to him.

If you’d like to find out more about Hyper and how we use data science and AI to create insight and optimise decision making for consumer brands, please get in touch at peter@hyper-group.co.uk or check out our website at www.hyper-group.co.uk.

So without further ado, let’s get into the episode.

Hi I'm Pete Denby, host of To Affinity and Beyond and Co-founder of Hyper. In this episode we explore the phenomenon that is TikTok. Specially we talk about why it's so addictive, focusing on TikTok's use of data science and AI in their 'For You' recommendations. We explore what sets TikTok apart from other social media platforms and how brands can leverage TikTok to engage customers.

I'm joined by podcast regular and fellow Hyper Director, Tom Hill. Plus Jessie Stuart, Analytics Manager at Hyper, makes her podcast debut. There are shout outs for Leicester and Jessie's Dad, plus we live test our own TikTok video recommendations. Check out the full episode to hear all that and much more.

If you'd like to understand more about Hyper and how we help retailers and brands use data science and AI to improve recommendations and personalisation in their own business, please get in touch via peter@hyper-group.co.uk or check out our website at www.hyper-group.co.uk.

Enjoy the episode.

Hi, I'm Pete Denby, host of To Affinity & Beyond. In this episode I'm joined by podcast newbies Dan Potts and Tom Fothergill plus regulars Damon Bryan and Tom Hill. We explore two of our favourite topics, data & analytics and sport, providing a potted history of how data & analytics has been used by teams over time and where it's being used to gain competitive advantage today.

It's a topic we're passionate about and is clearly becoming a key weapon across multiple sports.

Just don't mention Euro 2020.

If you'd like to learn more about Hyper and how we help clients use data and analytics to understand their customers in order to make unified, customer led decisions, please get in touch at peter@hyper-group.co.uk or check out our website at www.hyper-group.co.uk.

This week I'm joined by Ash Fontana, author of The AI-First Company and Managing Director at Zetta Venture Partners. The AI-First Company is a superb read and succeeds on two levels. Firstly by articulating to executives why their business should become AI first, and secondly acting as a playbook for managers tasked with implementing the steps to becoming AI First.

In the podcast we explore the key themes from the book, such as what it means and takes to be an AI-First Company, exemplars in this space, the concept of Data Learning Effects (DLEs), how to win the war for AI talent and what Ash looks for when investing in AI start-ups.

There are few people to rival Ash in terms of understanding and backing AI first companies, and he talks with great eloquence about the topic here. 

I hope you enjoy the episode.

You can find the book at https://www.theaifirstcompany.com/ and connect with Ash at https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashfontana/.

To Affinity and Beyond is brought to you by https://hyper-group.co.uk/ and you can connect with Pete Denby at www.linkedin.com/in/peter-denby.

Hello and welcome to another episode of To Affinity and Beyond. This week I’m joined by Tony Mooney, widely acknowledged as an expert in fact-based decision making, with an incredible resume building world leading data analytics, insight and decision science capabilities for huge brands such as Sky, Orange and Centrica. I worked with Tony for around 3 years at Sky and witnessed first-hand how his 600 strong team played a massive part in Sky’s meteoric rise as a highly successful media business. In this episode we talk about the single most important role for data and insight…to make better decisions. It’s a fascinating discussion, full of great observations and advice that anyone in a business leadership role or working in D&I will benefit from listening to. I hope you enjoy it as much I enjoyed recording it. You can connect with Tony at https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonymooneyba/ and find a number of useful resources at https://www.decision-box.com/insights. Tony's course, The Essential Secrets of Effective Presentation to C-Suite, is available on Teachable at https://decisionbox.teachable.com/. As ever we'd love to hear your feedback about the show and suggestions for future guests. Please get in touch at peter@hyper-group.co.uk. Enjoy the episode.

I'm joined in this episode by David Mannheim, a leading expert on conversion rate optimisation and experimentation. David shares his views on whether experimentation inhibits or encourages innovation and creativity. We also also talk about a number of his other passions, including Disney, Manchester United and creativity more broadly.

David is a very engaging speaker who talks with authority and care for the topics than mean the most to him. It's a great listen. Enjoy!

You can connect with David at https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidleemannheim/ and find his musings at https://substack.com/profile/9872894-david-mannheim.

In this episode I'm joined by my co-founders at Hyper Group, Adam Barrowcliff, Damon Bryan and Tom Hill. We discuss how to make effective decisions with data science, something we've all lived and breathed through our careers working in retail, consumer brands, data and analytics agencies.

We talk about the status quo, what stops retailers and brands using data science to inform their decisions and how they can overcome these challenges.

There are honourable mentions for Tom's mum and Dominic Cummings plus we debate the merits of a Covid-19 enforced change to how we buy drinks in the pub! Enjoy.