For many growing up in the 1970s and 80s, the concept of the Pepsi Challenge was part of our daily TV viewing habit; consumers would be given a blind taste test and asked which they preferred of two non-branded fizzy drinks.

This was a very rough and ready form of consumer testing, and I'm happy to say that fast forward to 2012 and we've come a long way in finding out just what our consumers want and it is testament to our changing world that consumer insight was one of the running themes of this year's Futurebook conference.