In this closing episode of Know your Audience Series 2, Paul and James dive right into the burning question: how much does AI market research have to cost you? When budgets are trimmed, market research spend is often the first to be chucked out. This episode looks at how researching consumer behaviour should be an investment in the future of your business. Can technology, AI and audience sentiment research be a more efficient and cost-effective tool in getting to know your consumer?

In this episode, James and Paul unpack the barriers some more traditional marketers may have to adopting technology for market research. Although this technology exists and is used in everyday life, there is still some resistance to making use of AI enabled data collection.  Is this just a dose of healthy scepticism or a lack of understanding of how to use AI-led data to best effect? Listen on to find out how this technology can be a valuable tool for everybody wanting to understand consumer trends without personal bias or opinion.

James and Paul with the thoughts of special guests Faisal Khan (VP of products, D/A) discuss how technology have both advanced and democratised data and insights for organisations globally. Regardless of this accessibility, why do brands still rely on traditional forms of research? This episode takes us on a no-nonsense discussion on how you can start using technology solutions to advance your consumer insights efforts today.

In this episode, Paul and James along with Faisal Khan (VP Products at D/A) explore and discuss the basic understanding of market research and how the rationality of human beings ultimately effects choices and decisions in consumerism. They also talk about the history of market research and how significant it is to adapt to the new tools available in order to effectively reach target markets in a digital first marketplace.

In this episode, Paul Kelly (D/A) and Dr James Piecowye (Zayed University), with Reem Elmahdi, a Data Scientist at D/A dive into the topic of Data Science practices  and how it enables us to analyse data beyond libraries of individual words or ‘keywords and phrases’ and contextualises conversations at scale using machine learning.

In this episode, James and Paul talk about how technology and particularly AI have made consumer-led research and insights accessible to a wider range and size of business. In a world where consumers expect to be part of a brands DNA, it is important that businesses know how to access insights about their customers and how to then interpret this information to help grow and drive relevance with their audience. James and Paul unpack what different types of consumer intelligence can look like and ways to think about applying this data, even in the most simple of scenarios.

What is AI exactly, and how do we use it every day? Paul Kelly (D/A) and Dr James Piecowye (Zayed University) are joined by Diego Moreno, a senior data scientist for D/A to discuss what AI means, how we use it every day and how natural language processing, in simple terms, works. You might be surprised to see how it works in everyday applications and the implications for the Arabic-speaking world. There's also a discussion about how AI is misused to confuse us sometimes, and how when you make it simple, we understand the power a lot better.

Big data isn't just for big business. Paul Kelly and Dr. James Piecowye talk about how data can be relevant to businesses at any scale to understand their customers better and make better decisions about their marketing and sales. By using what's available to us, and thinking big, you needn't be concerned about small budgets as there's many ways to find insight from data available to you.

What does audience intelligence mean for the insights drawn from it? In this episode, Paul and James discuss understanding sentiment accurately and how it can unlock insight at scale.  When you can understand how people feel, it helps make better decisions for everything from marketing to government. This episode of Know your Audience also discusses customer experience, broad trends and how happiness can be a window into a world. The guys touch on the concept of AI and natural language processing to better understand an audience - bringing it all together to understand how you can unlock insight to make better audience decisions. Know your audience is a production of D/A and Dr James Piecowye.

How have consumer data analysis methods evolved?  Paul and James dive deeper into the application of audience-first marketing, and how data can be used for better communications, product planning, business strategy, and creativity. They also talk about how understanding an audience, whether a large FMCG or just a smaller startup, means you need multiple data points at scale. They also discuss the difference between consumer intelligence and social listening or like tools.

Paul and James re-introduce the concept of audience-first marketing, and how data can be used for a better understanding of audiences. They also talk about how understanding an audience, whether a large FMCG or just a smaller startup, means you need multiple data points to understand them. They also discuss the difference between data and insight and where the two diverge and how even James confuses them from time to time.

Change is difficult for any team or organisation, and is often associated with high cost. In this episode, Paul Kelly discusses the need to incorporate change to increase profit and how essential shifting to audience first methodology in every sense is how brands will survive and grow in the future.

Language is the cornerstone of communication and essential not only to communicating with, but also in understanding data of audience sets. In this episode, Paul discusses how there is a surprising lack of data analysis in native language and especially so in Arabic.  He describes how he created Sila to solve this problem in his region, and why it is so important for brands to get it right.

We can discuss scale in 2 ways; firstly scale of data and how that impacts insight; and the scale of the reachable audiences as a result of that insight. In this episode, Dr. James Piecowye discusses with Paul Kelly how better decisions are made when you have the largest possible audience pool to give greater confidence in your decisions.

Understanding the framework that results in audience understanding follows the well-known path of; identify, monitor, track, reference, segment, and plan. Getting the right data is imperative to using this framework. In this episode, Paull Kelly talks us through live examples of using the right data in the right way and how to approach 'audiences first' methodology in brand building, campaign planning or simply to better understand an audience.

Data allows for observations that drive brilliant ideas. It is easy to become over-reliant on data or misuse it to replace creative thinking. In this episode, Dr. James Piecowye and Paul Kelly discuss where data provides value and how it should be used in the framework of ‘Audience-first’ thinking. And how to get great insights that can be transformed into ideas that connect with audiences.

Gone are the days where brands could build a product and then find (or buy) an audience for that product. Nowadays, audiences' needs and wants must be part of the product or brand that is being communicated.  In this episode, Dr. James Piecowye and Paul Kelly talk about how to sell stuff. The reality is, the model for engaging with audiences to sell to them has not changed, what has changed is how we use the model. By rethinking our flywheel of sales and thinking audience first, not product, we can have a profound impact on our marketing outcomes.

Digital and social content creators have expanded beyond the 'influencer'. Entertainers, artists, and brands alike are collaborating to cross-pollinate and create new audiences for all content irrespective of form.  In this episode, Dr. James Piecowye and Paul Kelly talk about the role of the creator, not so much as a disruptive force, but as an audience enabler.

With the digital proliferation taking place before our eyes, the influencer isn't going away anytime soon. And this offers us another way to get to our audience in an authentic way. In this episode, Paul Kelly talks about the role of the creator and how they have kept up with the transformative digital content world and harnessed the power of the true influence of an audience.  Paul looks at how brands can unpack this and grow the size of and connection with their customers.

With measurement being defined by the platforms that sell us the real estate, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find commonality within metrics. Naming conventions are being misrepresented with newer formats replacing old. And so the big question becomes, do marketers truly understand the metrics they are performing against? In this episode, Dr. James Piecowye and Paul Kelly take a step back and explore what we actually can learn from social media metrics.