EVENT SUMMARY
Expect the Unexpected
Edwin Wong – VP of Research & Insights | BuzzFeed
In his two decades of studying digital consumer behavior, BuzzFeed’s VP of Research and Insights, Edwin Wong, has been trained to believe that research and insights should establish best practices and rules. While that is mostly true, what BuzzFeed’s data has proven is that consumer engagement, platform choices, and connection are constantly evolving.
Edwin kicked things off at the bootcamp by exploring how BuzzFeed’s consumers have taught him and his team to break the rules, and to constantly push to find new relevance for their audiences. Part of Edwin’s job is to help advertisers connect with their core audiences and capitalize on key trends in consumer behavior. So what was his advice to advertisers?
It’s all about the content and relevancy—and creating content that speaks to the individual, rather than the masses. To illustrate this principle, Edwin referenced the typewriter—an innovation that was in fact originally developed by a man to help his blind sister write. Little did the inventor know that a solution for one person would ultimately be helpful, and revolutionary, for the masses. In the same sense, Edwin urges advertisers to aim for content that will reach one person really well. In doing so, there’s a good change others will get value from it, too. He referred to the “axis of ME”—encouraging advertisers to bend the curve and focus on relevancy above all.
The industry often refers to our age of marketing as the post-advertising era. And in some ways, this is true; consumers are trained to ignore ad banners, videos, and other blatant advertisements that get in the way of their content consumption. To overcome this intolerance, Edwin discussed the power of “next level native ads”: consumers are willing to engage with the content if it fits naturally within their interests. Imagine the potential to reach and engage consumers when you can show them a meaningful message that blends into their experience and fits perfectly with their interests. A piece of custom content tailored to resonate with a select segment of math nerds on Pi Day will be more impactful than an intrusive ad that gets in the way of someone’s browsing experience.
When developing native ads, Edwin urged the industry to give attention to both the message and the creative. As he puts it, “content is the hook, platforms are the look. You need a little bit of both when creating advertisements.” In order to push ourselves to find new ways of resonating with our audiences, Edwin urged us to come to expect the unexpected, and to retrain ourselves constantly as practitioners and data experts.
[Summary by: Maris Cohen – Director, Content Marketing | The NPD Group]
Presentation not available
Data is the New Black
Nikki Bogopolskaya – Head of Sales Insights & Analytics | Foursquare
With so many streams of data it’s crucial to figure out how to apply all this information. Nikki Bogopolskaya, Head of Sales Insights & Analytics at Foursquare, shares how it can help brands and marketers leverage location data to map the day in a life of a consumer. For instance, Americans may be at the gym on Tuesdays, eat out on Wednesdays for date night, and run errands on Saturday. Foursquare can identify points of intercepts of a specific brand’s customer – before a customer persona enters Sephora, they will typically go to healthy places or wine/cocktail bars before stepping foot into the store. Imagine the kind of tailored messaging you could send. Location data can also fuel real world predictions, such as the impact of a food scare on a fast food chain or the decline in sales during Black Friday. It can help uncover emerging trends, including a boom in healthy living (increase in healthy casual dining, boutique gyms, and juice bars), or growing popularity in music festivals or concert venues over sports bars and stadiums.
[Summary by: Angie Liang – Director, Research | Shutterstock]
Panel: Understanding the Full Picture: How to Grow and Lead in Market Research
In our massive advertising research universe, it’s common to feel in the dark about the other parts of the industry. In this panel session, leaders across brands, media properties, research companies, and agencies discuss how all the parts work together, and how they approach internal and external challenges.
Panelists
Jonathan Kriner – Director of Marketing | TVision Insights (Moderator; Young Pros Advisory Board)
Colleen Funkey – Senior Director Consumer Insights | Anheuser-Busch Inbev
Rachel Herskovitz – VP, Content Partnerships | iHeartMedia
Hiroki Murakami – Associate Strategy Director | Deutsch
Alexandra Dziuma – VP of Client Management | Kantar Millward Brown
Lead by moderator, Jonathan Kriner, the panel addressed a wide variety of questions regarding the role of data in the advertising industry, how to overcome challenges and create a path that leads to success. The group began with a discussion on using data to drive results. Colleen noted that we must connect, not just collect, the dots and find ways to work smarter, synthesize faster to make sense of the data that influences stakeholders, both internally and externally. Hiroki expressed the importance of focusing on the needed data, especially when overwhelmed with too much.
When asked about best practices to keep teams aligned, Alexandra pointed out some helpful steps such as kicking off projects with a brief that includes stakeholders, decision-makers and research staff to develop a plan that keeps the attention on the objective. Hiroki added that process and structure is key, along with striving to be efficient.
Rachel’s POV on what makes a great partner or team member… No “Yes, Ma’am’s”; bring something to the table – ask the why’s, suggest ideas and make moves. There has to be some give and take during a collaborative team effort. Colleen added that “if you can walk into a room and are unable to determine who the agency and client is, that’s a great partnership”. Aim for a solid level of trust, commitment and comfortability for a successful relationship.
How is success measured? Hiroki leans on consumers, describing how easily it is to spot positive reception from social posts almost instantaneously. Alexandra feels that an engaged audience during an impactful presentation prompts questions – a quiet room during Q&A can be perceived negatively. Rachel believes that consistency is a great indication. If the client chooses to do it again, you did a good job.
The panel each noted the skills and attributes sought out when building a team. Passion, drive, forward thinking and articulation. Rachel expressed the importance of requesting feedback from interviews for an opportunity to evaluate.
A Young Pro in the audience asked the panel to describe any regrets on their career journeys thus far. Rachel expressed that each move is a lesson learned and wouldn’t change a thing. Colleen offered some final wise words to the audience… “Have a plan”. Even if it changes, keep focused and stick to it.
[Summary by: Tiffany Ihle – Insights Manager | Coxreps]
Presentation not available
Young Pro of the Year – Jared Feldman!
Jared Feldman – Founder & CEO | Canvs
The 2017 Young Pro of the Year is excited to discuss his journey as Founder & CEO of Canvs — from its start in a college startup to a multi-million dollar emotion measurement company that provides meaningful qualitative insights to the likes of Turner, Viacom, HBO, Fox, and others. Jared will discuss how Canvs has empowered the advertising industry by proving that emotions are highly predictive of ratings, ad recall, and conversions.
As the Founder & CEO of Canvs, Jared Feldman is leading the change on how television networks, content creators and advertisers are measuring the impact of an audience’s emotional reaction to content. Jared shared that having the ability to analyze an audience’s emotional response to something is critical to our industry as fragmentation and changes in consumer viewing behavior continue to evolve. Canvs has developed a way to take people’s unsolicited responses and make that information available to businesses. Utilizing things like Emojis and vernacular on social media gives us the ability to understand people in their natural language, which provides business knowledge that hasn’t been available before. Understanding the depth of audience engagement allows companies to understand how to grow their audience, how a consumer makes decisions, how to spend marketing dollars and even how to price ad inventory. He shared insights from one particular study that Canvs conducted in partnership with George University looking at the state of live TV viewership. There is a correlation between Live TV viewing and emotions as evident in the “This is Us” episode that was analyzed. The greater an emotional reaction is, the more likely the audience will tune in live the following week. There is also a correlation between emotional connection to the talent, and Live tune in. This research allows companies to understand how to invest in talent and grow their audience.
[Summary by: Lauren Ettlinger – Director, Client Solutions | Nielsen]
Panel: The Evolution of Cross-Platform Measurement
The cross-platform measurement platform panel will discuss how leading TV networks and media agencies are now using evolving measurement techniques to make smarter, more efficient ad purchasing decisions across platform. These decisions are helping to inform more efficient ad spend, driving higher brand recall and engagement amongst viewing audiences.
Panelists
Jared Feldman – Founder & CEO | Canvs (Moderator)
David Wong – SVP Product Leadership | Nielsen
Reggie Shah – Senior Director of Network Research | Univision
Nithya Sowrirajan – Head of Brand Measurement Strategy | Google
Industry leaders representing both media and research companies joined us at the ARF Young Pros Bootcamp to discuss the changing media landscape, and how cross-media measurement has been evolving (and must continue to evolve) in order to account for the rapidly changing ways that consumers are accessing and consuming media today.
An over-arching theme of the panelists’ discussion was the need to “connect the dots” between the myriad of consumer touch-points that exist in our digital world. Reggie Shah, Senior Director of Network Research at Univision, discussed the need for comprehensive attribution solutions at a time when many viewers are tuning into their favorite TV shows days, or even weeks, after they have aired. David Wong, SVP of Product Measurement at Nielsen, talked about the ways in which Nielsen has been working to provide advertisers with accurate cross-media attribution measurement, and their development of cross-media norms to help clients better understand the full impact of their campaigns. Nithya Sowrirajan, Head of Brand Measurement Strategy at Google, provided her perspective on the digital media landscape and how, as content changes, we must also change the ways in which we approach measurement. She also stressed the importance of resilience in an industry that is constanting growing and needing to adapt to new technologies, and encouraged attendees to seek out opportunities that provide them with opportunities to learn and grow as both professionals and individuals.
[Summary by: Christine Miller – Senior Research Analyst, Ad Effectiveness | iHeartMedia]
Jared Feldman first posed a question to the group around the overall evolution in the industry around cross- platform measurement, and how the panelists have personally adapted. Though all the panelists agreed there was a lot of change in the last 5-10 years, there was general consensus that all the change is not here yet. Nithya discussed how the fundamental paradigm of the consumer journey has changed implicitly. So if a consumer is no longer going into a store to make a purchase, the entire journey from exposure to an ad to how the consumer engages with a brand has changed. Reggie spoke of how much media measurement has changed dramatically in the last ten years. From DVR homes being unable to be measured 10 years ago, to today when viewing is measured by device type. David added that any consumer research is only a partial view- and it is the responsibility of the industry to move toward the most comprehensive view of the consumer as possible.
From there, the panel moved into a conversation around what success in cross-platform measurement will look like. David suggested that as a starting point, the industry needs to come to an agreement about what the core metrics should look like. He discussed the need to have those metrics as a foundation for all platforms before we can add on additional layers of data and insights. Reggie echoed David’s points and endorsed Nielsen’s efforts around comparable metrics and the reports they make available to the industry quarterly. Nithya also echoed the other panelists’ points around comparability and cited the importance of fairness and working to solve for misalignment across media types.
When asked about how the evolution of measurement has impacted their own organizations, the panelists all cited examples of how and why their individual organizations have changed, and will continue to change. Nithya spoke to how Google has streamlined their measurement organization across channels, as advertisers make changes to help connect the dots in the new consumer journey. Reggie discussed how much change he had seen, even most recently in the last month with his new team. David suggested that there is less reliance on one data set, to complete the consumer story organizations need data fluency. The panel ended with advice to young professionals on what traits they need to make them “best in world.” Suggestions ranged from the need to be hungry to learn, to the need to be an observer of trends, and ultimately the need for resilience and diversity of experience.
[Summary by: Lauren Ettinger – Director, Client Solutions | Nielsen]
Presentation not available
A Renewed Focus on the Ad Experience
Brian Laverty – Senior Manager, Advertising Innovation Research | Turner Ignite
The media industry has experienced substantial advances in ad technology over recent years that have allowed for both distinct consumer targeting and stronger ROI data. But, few of these technological advances have improved the ad experience from the consumer side. In 2016, Turner AdLab was formed to explore how as an industry we can enhance the ad experience by ensuring advertising is delivered when wanted, needed and appreciated. This session will explore what has already been uncovered across ad experience and ad effectiveness, and where they are headed next.
Brian Laverty, senior manager of advertising innovation research for Turner Ignite, shared a look inside Turner AdLab – a joint venture between industry professionals and creatives with a mission to improve advertising experience and effectiveness. Brian noted that the industry has taken steps in the right direction and made ad format changes, ad load reductions, etc. – but the experience has not changed all that much. To advance the ad experience, Turner Ad Lab aims to: foster collaboration by sharing impactful insights, innovate and develop new ad concepts and models, and influence the industry by promoting these insights and developments.
The approach to deliver on this mission is two-fold. First, they have developed Turner Advolution to examine consumer needs and produce foundational insights. Insights they have developed thus far include the need for ad content to counterbalance consumers’ emotions and enhance moods, and serendipitous content, where the advertising experience feels natural and “meant to be”.
With the Accelerators program, Turner AdLab works to identify advertising technology to build upon, test and validate to optimize the consumer ad experience. They have begun by partnering with startup companies whose prototypes they are working with to develop market strategies and solutions. Accelerators is currently working with Retube, a startup that takes existing brand advertising and transforms it into interactive experiential video banners/clips. The goal is to create engaging advertising content that is relevant and personal to the consumer. Brian closed with a call to action – for startups and brands to form partnerships to further innovation!
[Summary by: LeeAnne Villodas – Manager, Digital Ad Sales Research | Univision Communications Inc]
Breakout Sessions
Breakout: The Ten Principles of Managing Up
Katherine Crowley | K Squared & Kathi Elster | K Squared
Katherine and Kathi, of K-Squared Enterprises, a NYC-based consulting firm that specializes in professional fulfillment, led a breakout session on Managing Up. While most of us are familiar with the traditional managing “down” format, managing “up” is an important tool to develop, particularly for Young Pros. K-Squared began by admitting that managing can be tough. Most people with the title are generally not HR experts. They may have gotten their promotion as a result of field-related expertise, longevity with the company, or even political reasons.
Managers are tasked with filling dual roles – their day to day assignments as well as managing their team. Keeping in mind that all bosses aren’t perfect, Katherine and Kathi taught us to accept that though we won’t be able to change our bosses, we can change our way of relating to him or her. We must be willing to take responsibility for improving the relationship with our bosses – and this is managing “up”.
There are five key “Pivotal Practices” that make us successful in managing up:
- Train your boss to meet with you regularly and schedule it on the calendar. Arrive on time and prepared. If you show your manager it is a priority for you, they will learn to make it their priority too.
- Come to every meeting with a detailed agenda. Bring copies (hard or digital), prioritizes problems and questions, bring back-up documentation, and take notes to store for future reference. Using an agenda keeps the meeting (and your manager) focused on the key issues at hand.
- Keep a pulse check on your boss’ changing priorities and be flexible to help out where needed. Ask questions like “what do you need today?” “What else needs to be done today?” “How can I help you?” These gestures show your boss that you are a team player and build good rapport.
- Anticipate problems and offer solutions. Being aware of your environment.
- Always be prepared to give a status report on your project at any time. This action builds trust with your boss that you are appropriately managing priorities.
When you’ve mastered those “High Five”, you can move onto the following “Higher Five” tips and tricks for managing up:
- Can’t rely on the L train? Always hit traffic on the bridge? Give yourself “Time cushions”, or extra minutes that people naturally allocate for predictable delays.
- Can you think of a person that stops by your desk for a “quick question” and leaves an hour later? Be your boss’s “gate keeper” and keep away those unwanted time-eaters.
- Doesn’t everyone need a vacation once in a while? Create systems so that others can find things when you’re not around.
- We all know an office gossip. Keep confidential information where it belongs. Build your reputation as someone capable of holding sensitive information.
- Blow them away every time. Under-promise and over-deliver.
- Partnerships to further innovation!
[Summary by: Kelly Castellon – Senior Research Analyst | Nielsen]
Breakout: Once upon a time: Storytelling with Data
Malena Rubino – Senior Design Director | GfK
Malena Rubino, a Senior Design Director at GfK, hosted a hands-on breakout session during which Young Pros learned about and used three storytelling frameworks. To begin, Young Pros were placed into small groups, each of which were assigned an audience type and a story framework. Malena noted that an important step in delivering an impactful story is understanding who your audience is and what they need. To do this, she shared an exercise called empathy mapping, which provides a 360-degree view of your audience via a series of questions. These questions range from what does your audience see and hear to what are their pains and gains.
After mapping out their respective audiences, Young Pros learned about the first framework – the 5-part story structure. It is the foundation for all story frameworks and is ideal for a captive audience and data heavy information.
The second method, the two worlds structure, is set up perfectly for pitching a product or service. It demonstrates, using a handful of key data points, how the introduction of a product or service can transform the world that is into the world that could be. The final method, SCQA (Situation, Complication, Question and Answers), is a problem-solving tool, that forces writers to pause, evaluate an issue and begin to develop specific strategic solutions. It is ideal for providing recommendations or arguments quickly and concisely.
After discussing each framework, Young Pros returned to their teams, drafted a story and shared it with the larger group.
[Summary by: Stephanie Scalice – Senior Research Analyst | Nielsen]
Presentation not available
Breakout: Data Science 101 Workshop: SQL, and Python, and SAS, OH MY!
Terry Sullivan – Executive Director, Analytic Solutions | The NPD Group
Sam Reeves – Research Manager, Analytic Solutions | The NPD Group
The market research world has been buzzing about all things data science and big data for years now. But what exactly is data science, how has it changed, and why does it matter today more than ever?
In this workshop, Ph.D. mathematician and industry veteran Terry Sullivan, Executive Director of Analytic Solutions at The NPD Group, along with Sam Reeves, Research Manager, Analytic Solutions at The NPD Group, explored these very questions in a 55-minute power “101” session.
A Data Evolution
Terry provided some context on the evolution of data science and why we should care. When she got started in the industry, data science as a field of study or career didn’t even exist. Today, it’s a booming interdisciplinary field and work focused primarily on large datasets, with the goal of extracting meaning. A live poll taken in the workshop showed that many of our young pro attendees have taken courses in data science, business analytics, and even Artificial Intelligence.
Data science allows us to both ask and answer new questions. With the proliferation of more types of data, the possibilities are ever expanding. Terry explained that as free, open-source programming software (like R or Python) surpass expensive, proprietary software (like SAS) in popularity, data science is becoming more accessible to anyone who wants to learn it, and as a result there are more people learning and sharing ideas in the field than ever before. There has been a democratization of the tools used to access data, and to a lesser degree, the data itself.
Why It Matters
So how will this impact our careers? Get ready for addressable media, tailored to the individual. Prepare for new approaches to segmentation and targeting, thanks to opt-in apps, geo-fencing, and media usage data. There will even be implications to retail, pricing, and category forecasting. Whatever field you’re in, one thing’s for certain: ignoring big data will be risky.
A Day in the Life
“Data scientists wear a lot of hats,” explained Sam Reeves. They’re always keeping up-to-date on new theories/techniques; cleaning data; writing, debugging, or rewriting code; or presenting their insights. When solving a problem, the first step is to…
- Assess the size and source of the data (e.g. Parquet, Hadoop, AWS, SAS, etc.)
- Extract and clean the data (can be done in Spark, SQL, or SAS, depending on the data source)
- Analyze the data (can be done in Excel, SAS, R, Python, C#, etc.)
- Write and run reusable code (in SQL, PySpark, Python, R, SAS, C#, or others)
- Present the insights to the client (in PowerPoint, Shiny, Flask, Excel, JavaScript, or other programs).
Sam walked us through an example problem: how to determine if a new advertising campaign would drive in-store sales if rolled out nationwide. She guided us through how one could approach this situation, starting with examining the type of data available. Assuming we had point-of-sale data to work with, we could conduct an A/B test: launch the ad in selected cities, collect data, and then show with greater certainty how a larger audience would change their buying behavior if they see the advertisement. Sam walked us through how you can use a Shiny app (an R environment) to do this.
For more on how to talk data science, check out Terry and Sam’s Data Science Vocabulary list. Sam also recommended Coursera and GitHub as good resources for people just getting started in data science.
[Summary by: Maris Cohen – Director, Content Marketing | The NPD Group]
The Next Normal: Rise of Resilience
Anna Noel Taylor – Senior Director, International Research & Insights | Viacom
Anna Noel Taylor, the Vice President of Global Consumer Insights at Viacom, joined us at the ARF YP Bootcamp to share insights from a global study called The Next Normal: Rise of Resilience, an exploration of the attitudes and current outlook on life of more than 28,000 people aged 6-54 across 30 different countries. Despite what has happened over the past five years (wars, terrorism, political extremism, etc.), people are just as happy as (and no more stressed than) they were in 2012. Their resilience is being driven by standing up to uncertainty (coping with stress by surrounding oneself with loved ones (friends and family) and doing what one loves (listening to music)), staying grounded (looking for the positives in life, which is generally up across the globe), enjoying the moment (causing a shift from preference of material possessions to experiential journeys) and coming together (growing social networks, supporting human rights and increasing activity within one’s community). In totality, people are more keen on acknowledging the world as it is (the good and the bad) and using collective, connective experiences to not only deal with the current state of society but also show that there’s more that unites us than divides us as a civilization.
[Summary by: Dave Blumberg – Manager, Brand and Consumer Insights | Comedy Central]
Presentation not available*
*For more info: https://insights.viacom.com/categories/research-studies/the-next-normal-rise-of-resilience
Managing Your Career – A circuitous Route to Mastery
Howard Shimmel – CRO | Turner Broadcasting Systems, Inc.
There have been major industry changes in the last couple of years that are continuing on a daily basis. As you are thinking about how to build your career path, the key is to develop skills that will prepare you for the changes to come. Anticipate what will be needed in the next 15 years, and don’t become complacent. A career path should not be a straight line it should be a zigzag. Get lots of experiences to develop a wide range of skills. Don’t focus only on one area or talent that you know how to do very well and end up like the buggy manufacturer who was out of a job when the car was invented. Challenge yourself in different areas and accumulate different experiences so you can learn other perspectives in order to grow and be more dynamic.
This doesn’t only have to be attained by jumping around from company to company but can be achieved by wearing different hats within the same organization. For example, you could move around different departments every few years such as Ad Sales Research, Programming Research, Digital Research, and Corporate Strategy. Understanding research methodology and data quality is extremely valuable. This will give you the knowledge to determine if data is good enough to drive actual business decisions. In today’s marketplace, there are lots of data sources that are not rooted in sound methodology and one of the most valuable roles of research is to determine which are valid and call out the ones that are not.
There is also a debate in the industry on whether first party research (i.e. from an app) or traditional research (i.e. Nielsen) is more valuable. The answer is, they are equally important and there is a place for both. There is also a similar debate around what role is more valuable, the emerging role of data science vs. researchers. Again, it is not one or the other, but both. In 5 years research will become a hybrid of the two. It is important to develop these skills sets to go from a question-answer person to a solution provider.
There are many courses online to help you develop these skills if your company does not provide it. In particular regression analysis is an important skills to have. Find ways to learn and educate yourself either within your company or independently. Finally, above all else, you will spend 75,000 hours of your life working in your career. Find something you love and have passion for it.
[Summary by: Aliza Wechsler – Senior Manager of Ad Sales Research | NBCUniversal Media]