6 February 2025
The Relative Insight team have just returned from sunny Scottsdale after a great few days at the Media Insights and Engagement Conference. We had a wonderful time connecting with fabulous people from across the media sphere.
Among the many highlights I experienced at the event was chairing a panel with industry luminaries. Plus, the team and I met existing Relative Insight customers, who shared how they have greater understanding of customers thanks to our software. We also spoke to many other brands looking to gain similar insight into their customers.
Our time in Arizona wasn’t just an opportunity to chat to some lovely people, we also learned a lot about the key trends, challenges and opportunities impacting media companies. Here are just some of the key insights I took away from the Media Insights and Engagement Conference.
AI continues to dominate conversations
In the panel session, I was joined by:
- Karen Montecuollo, Senior Vice President, Brand and Content Insights at A+E Networks
- Jon Merkin, Director, Platform Analytics at Roku
- Justin Briggs, Senior Director, SEO at Paramount
Other than agreeing about the importance of getting winter sun, another consensus area between the three was the impact artificial intelligence is having on the sector. While this subject dominates debate at most events, our panelists viewed AI through the lens of media consumption.
They focused on three aspects of AI: the impact of AI-driven search on how audiences discover content, how new technology plays into the dynamic between traditional search and platform-specific recommendations, plus how companies should adapt to these shifts.
Each panelist shared insights around how AI has impacted audience behavior. Karen, Jon and Justin also revealed interesting anecdotes on what audiences are looking for — and how they’re doing it.
This discussion reflects the work Relative Insight undertakes with our customers. Whether it’s journey mapping or other aspects of CX, using AI to help undercover how customers interact with brands is an exciting frontier that the most forward-thinking brands are embracing. It was encouraging to see this mode of thinking on full display at the Media Insights and Engagement Conference.
Personalization, fragmentation and optimized decision making
Our conversation wasn’t just limited to AI. As the talk progressed, all three experts shared how their roles within Paramount, Roku and A+E Networks have shaped their perception of other key media trends.
Following on from our dialogue surrounding AI in relation to content discovery, we debated the merits of removing consumers from content bubbles. While we all love personalized recommendations, sometimes we get more joy from discovering something new and unexpected. We all agreed that there is a sweet spot that media companies need to find that balances the two.
The panel also shared their thoughts about overcoming fragmentation across different platforms to provide a cohesive experience. This is something we’re familiar with at Relative Insight, with many of our customers looking to bring together different sources of customer and audience data into a single source of truth.
Finally, we concluded the session by debating how to optimize user decision making. I asked whether spending 10 minutes (and sometimes much longer) picking something to watch is down to human nature, or whether media companies can make this a much quicker process. Again, each of the guest speakers argued that there’s a balance to be struck between serving up content on a plate and allowing customers that experience of discovery.
Proving value to advertisers headlines Media Insights & Engagement Conference
Beyond our panel session, there was one clear theme that underpinned the Media Insights & Engagement Conference: proving value to advertisers.
This debate encompassed many different facets, including innovating how advertisers can be seen across media platforms through to precise measurement that proves absolute monetary value.
I found it intriguing that a trend we’re seeing across CX and the customer space is also present in the media sphere, just with a different set of stakeholders. For advertisers in media, read leadership teams and shareholders for customer teams — it’s equivalent.
Across the business world, we’re all being asked to ‘show our working’ a lot more. And this isn’t just with quantitative data, it’s increasingly focused on qualitative data. Advertisers want to know why audiences engage with particular content, not just how many eyeballs it gets. Similarly, leadership teams want to know why customers are love their brand, or why they might want to leave for a competitor.
I hear it every day when I talk to customers and businesses looking to enhance their capability in this area. That’s why Relative Insight’s customer intelligence platform helps you to connect different dots across customer interactions to tell you why they’re behaving in a certain way. Find out how by speaking to me or another of our experts.
