DIRECTOR CONSUMER & CULTURAL INSIGHTS

Jack in the Box; California; On-site; USD 140,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical

Dental

Vision

HSA

FSA

Life and Disability Plans

401(k) plan with company match

Legal Plan

Pet Insurance

Tuition Reimbursement

Employee Assistance Program

Job summary

Jack in the Box seeks a senior leader to drive the Consumer Insights function and learning agenda at our corporate HQ. You will translate consumer needs, motives, and barriers into actionable insights embedded into brand, menu, digital, and restaurant experiences to grow brand and business.

You will oversee diverse research methods, build a connected knowledge base, and partner with Marketing, Product, and Operations to influence decisions with consumer voice.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Market Research, Psychology, or related field.
• Progressive experience in consumer insights and leadership responsibilities.
• Experience managing complex research portfolios and external partners.

Responsibilities

• Leads development and management of enterprise consumer learning agenda.
• Partners with Marketing and cross-functional leaders to identify knowledge gaps.
• Builds a connected body of consumer knowledge across projects.
• Champion the voice of the consumer in decision making.
• Leads qualitative and quantitative research across brand, menu, digital, and experience.
• Oversees methods including segmentation, surveys, ethnography, and journey research.
• Synthesizes insights into actionable recommendations for partners.
• Ensures ethical research and privacy compliance.

Skills

Consumer insights

Market research

Leadership

Stakeholder mgmt

Research methods

Education

Bachelor's degree in Marketing or related field

Tools

AI-enabled tools

Job description

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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.

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.

• Ability to travel approximately 20-25% of time as business needs require.

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
• 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. 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.