GfK continues to strengthen West Coast presence with return of Sims in Marketing Effectiveness role

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Kelly Sims – a senior consumer researcher and consultant with strong ties to the tech industry – has returned to GfK. Based in San Jose, California, Sims joins a diverse GfK team serving clients up and down the West Coast.

Now a Senior Vice President in Marketing Effectiveness, Sims will bring deep research and analytic expertise to GfK in the region, helping to expand existing engagements and establish new ones. His responsibilities will span the breadth of GfK’s Marketing and Consumer Intelligence portfolio, including brand health, campaign effectiveness, customer segmentation, and buyer journeys.

Sims has more than 30 years of experience in marketing and insights and has been involved in hundreds of research projects spanning the breadth of technology and digital media markets, geographies, and audiences.

From 2015 to 2020, Sims led a GfK client-facing team focused on technology, telecom, and digital media, delivering strategic recommendations based on ad hoc consumer and B2B research. He returns in a newly created role serving clients across industries, but with a specialty in tech.

From 2020 to 2022, Sims was Head of Customer Insights at Malwarebytes, using quantitative and qualitative research to guide marketing plans, feature prioritization, and product packaging decisions. While there, he also developed a segment targeting model used to improve the efficiency of marketing campaigns and guide long-range planning.

Earlier in his career, Sims was Director of Product and Customer Insights at Symantec, where he led a nine-person team supporting global customer research needs. He developed a global brand tracking program to give Symantec management a window on brand health, buyer share, and customer advocacy across both consumer and IT segments.

Sims has also held research and marketing roles at Intel and Trend Micro.

“Kelly delivers the research excellence that sets GfK apart globally,” said Eric Villain, Managing Director of Marketing Effectiveness at GfK, “and brings rich experience in connecting insights from a variety of sources and methods. As West Coast companies struggle to understand their brand footprint and resonance in a complex consumer world, Kelly can help GfK offer an innovative but methodologically sound approach.”