A great interviewee to start the new year - Tina Wilson, Group GP of Nielsen’s portfolio of Analytic Businesses and Ecosytem Partnerships. As most readers/ listeners will know, Nielsen is perhaps best known for its measurement currencies but Tina has overall responsibility for a major other business area: helping clients plan, evaluate and continue to optimize their marketing strategies.
This incorporates 6 different P&Ls, responsibility for around $0.5b in client revenue and Tina explains over-arching principles behind her philosophy, as well as how Nielsen had proved such a fruitful place to work, incorporating multiple roles across the organisation. for almost 27 years. We also cover:
Tina’s role in mentoring and practical means to encourage diversity in the workplace
All episodes available at https://www.insightplatforms.com/podcasts/
Follow FutureView on Twitter at https://twitter.com/FutureView7
A great interviewee to start the new year - Tina Wilson, Group GP of Nielsen’s portfolio of Analytic Businesses and Ecosytem Partnerships. As most readers/ listeners will know, Nielsen is perhaps best known for its measurement currencies but Tina has overall responsibility for a major other business area: helping clients plan, evaluate and continue to optimize their marketing strategies.
This incorporates 6 different P&Ls, responsibility for around $0.5b in client revenue and Tina explains over-arching principles behind her philosophy, as well as how Nielsen had proved such a fruitful place to work, incorporating multiple roles across the organisation. for almost 27 years. We also cover:
Tina’s role in mentoring and practical means to encourage diversity in the workplace
All episodes available at https://www.insightplatforms.com/podcasts/
Follow FutureView on Twitter at https://twitter.com/FutureView7
Somehow. I've been at a company that is known for audience measurement for a very long period of time and I've not had one day in the measurement side of our business. I certainly collaborate with my colleagues there, but my remit has always been the added value, the enhanced assets on top of measurement.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Futureview, happy New Year and I'm delighted to introduce the first episode of 2024 with brilliant Tina Wilson. And so where to start with Tina's stellar career? In some ways, it's easy, because Tina's been a staple of Nielsen's senior leadership team for many years. She now serves as Group General Manager of Nielsen's portfolio of analytic businesses and ecosystem partnerships. That incorporates accountability for a portfolio of around half a billion dollars cross-businesses partnering with media buyers, sellers and industry partners locally, nationally and globally. But it doesn't stop there. She's also Co-Chair of the World Economic Strategy Officer Forum for Media, sport and Entertainment and a guest lecturer at multiple universities. And, as we'll get on to, tina is also highly committed to mentoring and has been awarded Admonsters and AdExchangers Top Women in Media Award. So onto the interview, tina first up. Thanks so much for joining today. Really, really delighted and honored to have you on the podcast.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me. It's great to be here and I'm looking forward to our conversation.
Speaker 2:Fantastic. Now, lots and lots to talk about, but first of all, I want to start off with a bit of an icebreaker. I mean, you've had this amazing career, particularly through Nielsen, that we're going to get on to in a moment, but what's something about you that most people don't know or might find surprising, so just something they wouldn't be able to see on your LinkedIn profile or through an online search, something like that.
Speaker 1:What a great question for an icebreaker Boy. Let's see, I would probably go to the fact that I love to bake. I try a lot of different recipes. Most of my social media feeds have to do with new, interesting ways to try to create dessert creations, and so it's something that gives me a lot of joy. I'm not particularly skilled at it, but it's something that I'm quite passionate about.
Speaker 2:But what type of thing is it? So it's mainly desserts and sweet stuff, or is it bread, or is it a mix of everything?
Speaker 1:No, great question. So more on the sweet side, and I'll tell you. What I'm obsessed with right now is a trend in cupcakes that look like succulent plants, and so the icing on them and the little kind of topography that you create on top. It's actually incredible what you can do with icing and piping bags and really create little pieces of art. So, again, have not perfected it, but obsessed enough to keep trying it, and it's just a great outlet.
Speaker 2:That sounds really cool. My youngest son is 13. He's actually quite into his cooking and it's all those types of things, so maybe I'll try and drag him off the video games and again to spend more time on the cupcakes.
Speaker 1:Not. There's any more video games, by the way.
Speaker 2:So back on to the main subject of the conversation. So you've had an amazing career at Nielsen and you're a really impressive range of positions and you've covered a lot of different methodological areas. But firstly, if it's not too much of a cheeky question, how come you stuck with Nielsen for so long? I mean, it's a great company, I work there, but I'm sure you've had other job offers along the way. So what's kept you at Nielsen? I have.
Speaker 1:In fact, I just celebrated completing my 27th year, so I'm in my 28th year at the company and it's either that I can't keep a job or I've had 22 different roles, and that's really what it's about.
Speaker 1:It's a big company. I've had a lot of latitude and freedom to try different roles in different markets, in different functional areas, different types of teams, and so I feel like I've done and seen a lot at the company and it's really, for me, it's that latitude. I'm not one who likes to do the same thing for a long period of time and I've had great support, great mentors, just great opportunities to try and either hone new skills or be in new disciplines, and it's been phenomenal. I would have never predicted, first of all, that I would have been in the US because I'm Canadian. I would have never predicted that I would have been at a media company and I would have never predicted that I would be at the same company for as long as I have. So, yes, I've been flattered by a decent amount of inbound interest in what I've done, but for me, the quality of the people and the quality of the experiences it serves me well, and so proud to have celebrated this recent milestone with the company.
Speaker 2:Yeah, fantastic Congratulations. And what do you cover? Now I know we're going to kind of go back in your career and cover some of the other areas, but what's your remit and area of responsibilities?
Speaker 1:So I think it's also a really interesting answer because in January of this year the company reorganized into three business units. So most people know us for audience measurement, which is the biggest part of our business globally. We also have Grace Note, which is metadata on all content entertainment. And then I have the third business unit, which is six analytic businesses that really help marketers across the entire life cycle, from the time that they're planning, activating and measuring all the different ways they're looking to drive the outcomes. And the businesses in my portfolio range based on whether they're serving a very local kind of niche market all the way to global national companies, and so whether it's sports leagues and teams, whether it's agencies, advertisers, really covering kind of all aspects of the media ecosystem. So that's the current role, so it's six standalone P&Ls as part of the company.
Speaker 2:Got you and what type of business issues and I'm sure there's a lot, given that you've got those six units but what are some of the most prevalent business issues that you're helping clients to address within those units?
Speaker 1:I mean, some of it is just pure digital disruption, right, and marketers trying to figure out how they can get appropriate measurement for actions that they're taking to influence and reach consumers. They're also looking on how to best persuade and educate their CFOs on the investments that they make and the dollars that they spend to kind of execute and look. I think that the role of a market today is so much more complicated than it's ever been Certainly dynamic, certainly fascinating, but also more complicated. There's just more data from more data sources and we really do support kind of the data integration, data understanding, data simplification, so we can just continue to have good data driven decisioning and helping our clients in that space. So I'd say that the fact that the ecosystem is in large changes, of its own industries within that are changing, and then just how people do business is just again far more complicated than it has been in the past.
Speaker 2:Yes, certainly agreed on that. I guess we'll start to go through the process later in the conversation as to how you integrate the data and then report it and then potentially analyze it. But to go back to the beginning, I mean you started out in BASIS In my mind anyway, it was best known for predictive metrics and modeling. Then you went into this crazy world of entertainment research that I used to work in and then in content in general. So within whatever that was first five, 10 years of your career or you had a really great range of experience. But how did the sectors differ? I mean, did you find there were key things that were different around the entertainment sector as opposed to CPG, for instance?
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely. So you're right in great memory. So when I started, it was in new product testing and sales forecasting, and the goal was really quite simple get input from the target consumers about either a concept that a manufacturer had or an actual product prototype. They wanted them to evaluate and marry that up with the intended marketing support and you would take those inputs and you'd be able to model them together so you could have the voice of the consumer and you could have again the intention for driving awareness or driving distribution or promotions against new ideas and see what they might materialize in market. And it was a lot of client interface as well as a lot of pattern recognition in the math and the storytelling, because you'd be looking to advise a client on how they could get the same return with less investment or how they could better use the investment for greater returns, and so you were in very data-driven conversations with known constructs of what the levers were, of this input equates to that output, and so you're educating clients along the path, all with the same goal, and it really didn't matter which type of industry we were working in. Everybody wants to create the most success they can for their new product innovations. They want to lower the risk, they want to be able to manage that risk and they want a good thought partner along the way, should they need to course correct or learn from what's working well for the next investment that they go to make.
Speaker 1:And so that was really the nature of the first business unit that I was privy to and part of, and the reason that it extended into entertainment was a lot of the key clients that we had in these consumer packaged goods or retailer clients moved in the dot-com bubble to other entities and other types of practices that were growing up in the same type of spirit and space, meaning they were looking to take the voice of the consumer and combine it with their intended marketing and be able to bring new video games to market, new videos to the catalog, make decisions about windowing time frames between something that was going to the big screen to DVD.
Speaker 1:So a lot of the same questions how do I get what I have in front of the consumer who's going to be most interested, and how do I motivate them to buy it, subscribe to it, recommend it? Again, all the same kind of constructs existed. And then, you're right, it went from that space of entertainment and working in film and video and music into then content testing, ad testing, kind of more classic areas, and then more broadly into media advisory overall, which is what brings us to the type of remit that I have today in the nature of the businesses that are part of this portfolio. Probably the most interesting fact is, if we take the first question that you had with this question is, somehow I've been at a company that is known for audience measurement for a very long period of time and I've not had one day in the measurement side of our business and I certainly collaborate with my colleagues there, but my remit has always been the added value, the enhanced assets on top of measurement.
Speaker 2:Did you find out of interest in the entertainment sector that clients would process the information, though in the same way, because I have heard people say this in the past In CPG it tends to be more data-driven, that people want to understand the methodology. To some extent it's easier because you can model against relatively known markets, whereas in entertainment it's very, very fluid. But also, frankly, you've got a lot of execs with a very short attention span and actually maybe on that data savvy, is that fair or am I being grossly unfair?
Speaker 1:I don't think it's unfair, but I put it as a point in time. So I would agree with you wholeheartedly that a key difference was that the clients we were working with in the CPG space Now again based on the work that we were doing tended to be larger clients, tended to be savvy and be in this space for a while, so they had a history and a set of experiences of how to work with data to drive their decision. So that was more of the way those businesses had already operated when I was first entering into the entertainment space. It was newer.
Speaker 1:So, depending on the type of entertainment, they were on a different part of the continuum from a maturity of using data or seeing the value of data and you hit on something because you have creatives and you have a different form of personality perhaps, or ego-driven decisioning at times could be considered superior to data-driven decisions. So you had more constructs that would influence decisioning that weren't just data, so data could be used. But again, sharp contrasts of, say, if I contrasted video games and where they were at versus, say, theatrical, you would have it'd still be OK in a studio environment to have one blockbuster, eight not-so-great productions and one that was kind of mid-tier, because the largest one would offset the others. Again, that was at a point in time a long time ago, whereas things have certainly evolved since then and even that world was more simple. It wasn't multi-screens and it wasn't all access on all channels and distribution. So, yeah, just different dynamics factored into different executives' decision-making parameters and what they relied on to be able to make those decisions, depending on which function they sat in.
Speaker 2:Gets into a question I want to raise as well, around how to report and make the data the most impactful. I would associate the reasons you've described it in some ways, niels, and historically more, with audience measurement, but it sounds like what you're describing has almost been more business solutions focused. If so, how do you go about doing that and solving those problems and making sure that results and analysis are impactful?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, great question. So I think the first piece for me is knowing how the data is being used. That's a critical component. So is it being used to make a decision? Is it advisory, is it informational, educational, like really knowing that is a key concept and to then make sure that how information is presented is against the objectives of why the data is being leveraged. The second is the end user and really understanding if it is something that's going to be a standalone, say, interface that a client has the comfort of going in and using and extracting their own insights, versus if it is a data feed that might go into a business workflow, and knowing the value proposition. Again where that sits.
Speaker 1:To my earlier comment, the ecosystem that we operate in is far more complicated than it was, with lots of inputs that have to come together to really tell a complete story. And I'd say, certainly for Nielsen, we've evolved in our views of partnerships, as opposed to just having a transactional model with another data partner or collaborator, that it's more about ensuring the residual value to both and being mutually beneficial, and one that is more kind of gestaltic as opposed to just individually valuable. So more of an openness to partner and to have more things connected together. And you're right, nielsen brand carries with it a consulting component, meaning that there is value to knowing the client's business, to know not just again how data is going to be plugged into something or be. It's certainly not a data by the pound model.
Speaker 1:It is one that you're partnering with your clients to know their business, to know how it's being used. You kind of share in the outcomes of what's successful and you partner with the clients more closely when things are harder. And that's really where we're at in the media ecosystem today. There's so much change, there's consolidation, there's concern, there's fear, there's new models, new providers. It's a lot, I think, for any one client to assume. So kind of. Back to the key question of we look to ensure that we've got clarity up front of what the objectives are and then operate transparently with our clients for what's being collected and what it can be used for. So a fit for use component and then just being very open to the dialogue with clients to again stay close to their business and make no assumptions on what any client is going through or trying to work through.
Speaker 2:But pick up on something you were describing earlier as well. So, around the complexity of the media ecosystem right now and in terms of the media measurement components of this, would you mind if I kind of pitch your brain for a little bit? I kind of have a two-part question. What on earth is going on in terms of media measurement at the moment? Some people will be more familiar than others around cookie deprecation and issues with Apple around IDFA and that type of thing. So what are the big challenges first up, and then it'd be great to get on to how Nielsen is helping solve those challenges.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so measurement's always been an input in the analytics we do. But I'll park that for now and answer more about kind of the land of measurement, which really means you need to back up and look at the land of the consumer, which means that you have, just like you and I right, we are, on average, consuming what? 10 hours or more of some form of media every day, billions and billions of minutes being consumed in streaming, which is growing in an outpace growth, and so you have different distribution channels. You have so much choice and you have more power in the hands of the consumer than you did historically in terms of what's getting served, when and for what purpose, and for the monetization models that have advertising in that content. It's a heck of a lot harder now when you don't have, as you said, some of the signals that you used to have to know who's watching, how to best reach them, who the high value audience is. So you either have to interpolate or triangulate or work with a smaller data set, et cetera. So the value of having large amounts of data to be able to serve the purpose and then have it combined with a truth set in our cases, our panels. So we have measured behavior, along with universe of information that comes in.
Speaker 1:To give granularity about different characteristics and profile and constructs is really increasingly important. That's kind of, I think, against. Point one is that you've got a cross screen view, a cross channel view, that needs to be deduplicated because it's still one person. But I have these four avenues for which information about me could be collected and my media consumption can be collected. So it's important to know the difference between device and people and people versus households. It's also a different construct if my daughter was in my office or my husband was in my office. Right, knowing the who with the level of granularity becomes important.
Speaker 2:Tina, I was just going to ask about how you go about doing that as well, because there used to be the days of meters and there were surveys, there were do daris, that type of thing. So how is it all evolved now? What are the key data sources that you're pulling from and how do you knit them together?
Speaker 1:So we still rely heavily on information that is consented by panelists to be able to recruit information from them.
Speaker 1:What has changed is the technology itself.
Speaker 1:The comfort and size of what somebody might wear for us to be able to collect those signals, as well as what's within the home, certainly looks far slicker than it did when Nielsen first started doing this type of data collection in the 50s and 60s.
Speaker 1:So that's certainly an evolution. And, as I said, what is key for Nielsen is retention of the truth set, which in our case is going to be panels, and the quality of the panels, the size of the panels and what we collect, because that is real people and real behavior that is being measured. And to that we complement with and again sorry, the panels are across different forms of measurement, right. So we have that linear, we have that streaming, we have multiple forms of panels that cling together to converge towards that behavioral component. And then to that is added, as you said, two forms. One is big data that comes from other data streams that come inbound, that's collected from the actual sets themselves that come into homes, and then, where necessary, we complement with voice of consumer on top of that. So, not surprisingly, it's a large amount of data that gets constructed and goes into something that is actually very material to how the industry moves in buying and selling of media.
Speaker 2:I also wanted to back up just a little bit as well. I said don't so much on Nielsen, but the industry is a whole, and a large part of the purpose of this podcast is to give advice to others. So one of these horrible two-part questions again. But I was interested to know if you were giving advice to someone coming into the industry. What hasn't changed, so what's remain consistent, they should always bear in mind. And then the second part of that question is is what has changed over, say, the last five years?
Speaker 1:Gosh. So what hasn't changed? I mean, I think, the fact that there's still a buying and selling process of right, equal sides that want the same outcomes. They each want to know that they are being compensated appropriately, fair value, for what they're offering. I think that construct is one that remains. So you have media sellers who are looking to attract advertisers and agencies to sell the inventory, and you have the buyers who want to know that they've made the most smart placements and effectively put their investments in the right places. So that's consistent, which means that underpinning that is the need for reach and frequency, and underpinning that is the need to be able to manage that with some level of confidence, since it is something that gets transacted on. So that, to me, is unchanged. Now, some of the players have certainly changed and some of the rise as I mentioned earlier in streaming and its growth relative to linear, relative to cable, is certainly changed, but the base constructs are the same. You still have people who are consuming media. What's changing is the methods that they're using, but not the need to know kind of how many and who is the same.
Speaker 1:What's different in the advice that I would give is actually for people to know what tools do what best. This is where I probably spend a fair amount of time educating. But I would say that out of I'm going to use a general statement here out of, say, every typical 10 conversations I have, three are with clients who know exactly what they need, exactly what tools will satisfy that and exactly what they're buying. I would say four out of that 10, no, they need to do something and they think this is the best thing, and so they're engaging in a conversation, but they're still kind of learning along the way. And then I think there's a group of clients who are still earlier on in their understanding how to run their businesses.
Speaker 1:And again, I've talked to a range of clients all over the world. So it's a pretty general statement. But the point being back to the very basic council of know what it is you're looking to do, know what tools best serve that need, to know where the value of that tool stops and starts. So stop trying to use the same tool to do things that are not exactly what they're intended to do. You'll get the quality of output based on the fit between kind of the tool or the practice or the methodology that's used relative to the outcome.
Speaker 2:I suspect you're probably not far wrong actually, in terms of if you were to take 10 clients, in terms of roughly how those proportions would break down and to bring that to light a little bit. I was just thinking as you were talking about it, if I was to give a hypothetical example and say you know, I'm the CEO of a business that's really successful I don't know, let's say it's a new online banking kind of business, something like that, and I've done most of my advertising so I'm making this up as I go along has been digitally based and state on just lots of the obvious kind of platforms. And then I decide with my CMO that I'm going to spend more money on television because I want to go through a brand building campaign, for instance, and I turn around with the CFO and go how do I know what's working? Is that the type of scenario that you're taking clients through and, if so, what would be the broad advice?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's certainly, it's certainly one of the of the scenarios and you hit on something it it's quite timely, right, but it's exactly that contrast and I'm just gonna say, like CMO and CFO is understanding and what proof points you can put forward to validate right, the value of every dollar that's being spent and what it's converting.
Speaker 1:Because when you go on the, on the concept that you shared on brand building, in some Industries it's thought that when I invest in my brand, I'm investing for the long, longer term right, the reputational advantage, the continued growth and awareness of my brand, whereas if I want the short term outcomes, I'm going for lower funnel. I'm going for a conversion, a purchase, a subscription, a set, something which I can demonstrate more actively in ROI on and they're there in lies kind of. The challenge is that brand building can have both short and long-term impacts on Right flowing through, not just for the brand, but also on those outcomes and they've tended to be looked at separately different tools right or different even Providers in the market and I work with X company to be able to measure the effectiveness of my brand and a tracker and a health and you know the metrics that I get and I work with a altogether different company to measure the impact of the ROI that I'm getting. It's less common to have that through the same, you know, the same company with the differing tools that can do upper, mid and lower funnel marketing objectives, and so this that you really hitting on something quite timely.
Speaker 1:As I said, on the brand piece, because this is one that it is very difficult To go to a CFO in my experience and prove the value of brand building efforts when they're both short and long-term. And how does that fit in kind of the fiscal view or the evaluation of the KPIs from a CFO who can't see the same results you know, as you can when you're looking at ROI metrics on a page.
Speaker 2:So it's yeah, it's a, it's an interesting set of conversations that we're in, but you hit on on one that's quite timely very much so because of it and it's a conversation I've had with various people over the the last few years because I think you can make the argument clearly that some at some point in the funnel assuming we're gonna talk about a funnel you have to generate demand. You know that a particularly for relatively higher value kind of purchases it's not all last-minute Decision decisions that are major, regardless of let's put last click attribution to one side and all that, and so it seems like CFOs get that, but then they still want some type of proof. I as, which is fair enough, as like, yeah, I get it, you're generating demand, but but can you show me how it translates? Is anybody managing to do that effectively or is it still kind of the holy grail that nobody's quite achieved?
Speaker 1:Oh, I wouldn't say nobody. I, sir, like I said, this is this this is an active area that you know we're we're growing in. But it's that exact contrast when you think of the marketplace that we're in and you think of many of the industries you know that are that are tight on their budgets and they're looking to pull back or make, you know, decisions. That Amplifies the need for a marketer in a CFO to be able to understand at that level of granularity what you know, each action, each dollar spent, decorated for them right. So you've got this amplified environment that we're working in for the quantification. At the same time, when you tend to pull dollars, you tend to, you know, pull the support, which means you're not just short changing the investment right now, but you're taking away an opportunity that could surface later on as well, since there's a long-term impact to the dollars that you spent. Again, some generate the results in an immediate time, as well as having some latency, and others you know are further out in terms of what they provide. So the contrast to the question that I would offer you is what happens when I pull the support? How much does it take me to get back in the game, to stay relevant with those consumers and to regain the brand equity or trust or reputation that I had when I was spending. So you do have this again amplification of need to demonstrate performance at the same time as budgetary constraints, pretty much all over, and yet you know the Again.
Speaker 1:Another advisory area is this like what happens if you choose to pull those dollars that you can't fully prove every, every dollar's value? Or, on the longer term, what do you? What are you losing? What are you losing short versus long term? So it's, it's a it's a complicated area.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I definitely see that. It's interesting because that's also a qualitative research technique, trying to see what happens If you take things away from people. That's how you, that's how you discover what it really means to them. And again, tina, tell me if I'm geeking out too much in terms of like methodology, but what type of methodologies do you use from an advisory perspective, if you're trying to model in terms of you know If you, if you pull your BDS spend in a given kind of area, these are likely to be the impact, how do you go about trying to project that?
Speaker 1:I think you have to first get comfortable with the, with the framework that has evolved of the experiences between brands and consumers from what used to be purely transactional, right, I have a product or service You're interested in that you pay for it, I give it to you. That's the end of our exchange. That's evolved over the last, you know, several years to be more of a relationship, right? So I get to know you, I collect more information about you, I'm able to target and personalize my communications to you. In fact, I might invite your input into what I'm going to do next, what Flavor I might offer, things that you would want. I might have a community of people like you who are high value to my brand that I engage with. That's kind of an evolution. And if you think of it now, it's even further along that continuum that brands really want advocacy, right with their, their high value Consumers. And so, because that's what's bringing the amplification into social channels or into other avenues of emerging media that are relevant and where we see brands certainly you know investing in and I equate it that when I started in in the business of Analytics, you know, you know I Print was kind of 20% of the average marketing plan and TV was 80%. Now, if I bring me to present day, today, I'd say 15% to 20% of the investment is in these emerging channels. So you're podcasting, you're branded content, you're influencer marketing, you're kind of organic values driven components, and then you have the remaining media in cross-channel, as we talked about earlier. So you have to start with that framework to know then how you're engaging to answer that.
Speaker 1:And so for us at Nielsen, we have a number of different products that we offer clients that are in that space of evaluating, again, different forms of either simulated or live experiences with consumers as they're engaging with brands, to be able to collect that feedback. We're very strong with databases and normative perspective and things that allow a client who engages with us not just to get results of the work that we do but understand how to put them into context, how to understand how they've performed over time, how they compare to a comparative set, how they look across different countries. So a number of different, again, data constructs. And probably related to that I'd call out, you know we have one of the I think it's maybe the largest now but data set of response curves to media, and so whether that's at a brand level or that that's in the lower funnel of so many different metrics and categories and brands that have come from our marketing mix and from our campaign analytics practices that we have the ability to show, you know, simulations of, again, those what if? Scenarios, so that the linkage of a dollar spent, kind of what that looks like on a curve. So again you can advise different, you can be accessible to different size clients, different size budgets, different markets, where in some cases you're able to use that content to advise and in others it's, you know, again, deeper ingrained in large clients and partnering with them.
Speaker 1:So I think that having a range of tools from knowledge that's accessible to you know, tools that are consultative and or self-serve, I mean we've got a range that are really mapping to that marketplace and, again, serving both the buyers and the sellers of media.
Speaker 1:So we're not, we're not just in one narrow category. We firmly believe that the value is twofold One is that serving media buyers and sellers alike helps lift the ecosystem, because you're serving both sides of that and each have their needs. And two is our evolution, as I said earlier, of partnerships and not just looking as us ingesting you know, other data or combining it. It's looking again to be able to offer the clients the most holistic view of again where we partner with others versus where we just ingest. We also push out just in this accessibility notion you know, as the industry has changed and we talked about technologies and so forth earlier in clean rooms, right, and in privacy protected areas where data can be stitched together in that way, that's forming that more complete view. So I'd say the flexibility of how we engage, along with what we offer, and then, along with the mapping, to the understanding of what's involved between brands and consumers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you. It's a great answer and I guess, with the depth that Nielsen's data said, you do have the ability, even just using the decay curve example, to map out lots of different scenarios. Tina, just on the clean room subject, because some of the list is made up entirely clear what a clean room is, would you mind just just describing that briefly?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So when it goes back to the base concept of being able to take, you know, different data sets and bring constructs together, you certainly want to be able to do so in an environment that is safe and protected, and what I mean by that is because we're collecting information that, again, has been consented by the people we're collecting it from. We have to really ensure that we have the security around protecting the information that has, you know, that's been collected, the individuals who've supplied the information, and so not uncommon for us to operate in a way that has a environment that is, you know, led by somebody else, and so, if it's my data plus your data together, I don't see what you've inputted, you don't see what I've inputted, and so it's kind of a trusted place where you can stitch data together, safely protected, compliant, so that it's only used for the purposes and is not commingled with anything else, and, again, it's safe and secure.
Speaker 2:Gotcha and so playing it back a little bit. You've got the Nielsen data is in there, and you've got other parties, so there could be I'll make it up it could be Amazon or Google, or it could be certain TV channels, and everybody sort of agrees to put it into a clean room with enough tentacles, that sort of hook into each other that you can make it useful, but also so that the granularity and the privacy of the kind of individual components of each dataset is kind of protected.
Speaker 1:Yes, big picture, absolutely. I would just say, though, that there's a lot of data at our company, so certainly not everything makes its way there or has intentions to be there. So it's for specific use cases, and those constructs need to be known. It's not free flowing in that way. It's, again, it's for intent and purpose which is really important and material to the concept.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally key again to the point you were making earlier about that. Let's actually see what we want to use this for. Let's not throw it all into a clean room and see if anything interesting comes out.
Speaker 1:Because when we look at data governance, obviously we want to look to understand what the data is, but it certainly has to be how it was collected and how it can be used. That's parts of it. But the governance around the fit for use, what it can versus cannot be used for it's a very important part.
Speaker 2:Gotcha, I will stop geeking out at the moment in terms of the detail of this stuff and I did want to also touch on some broader social issues and firstly, in relation to Nielsen and I think personally really, really important work around trust, or actually possibly lack thereof, in the media ecosystem, with these various echo chambers and they'll be talking to each other and all those types of issues or even just trust in mainstream media as to whether it's correct or not. Could you talk through a little bit of the work that Nielsen's been doing there?
Speaker 1:Yes, again, another hot topic. So the notions of ensuring that consumers are getting information that they can trust and they can believe in, that they make decisions on, about their families, about education, about healthcare. To ensure that the sources are authenticated or verified, it's just, in general, journalistic principles, making sure that those are adhered so people are clear on the sources and the quality of the sources that they're receiving. And the second is with synthetic data being produced more. So what I mean by that is non-synthetic, would be people who are writing and reporting and putting content that's out there. Producing content that's out there versus AI, artificial intelligence generated content is one to know the difference between those two. But again, same construct of following the principles, to know what can be relied on versus what has been created or fabricated without any other input. And it doesn't carry what I like to call the good housekeeping seal of approval, like that same concept of what is the outward signal to a consumer that they know that what they are consuming.
Speaker 1:When was technology leveraged over human direction versus when somebody was actually authoring content themselves?
Speaker 1:And so it's in those two constructs I've really wanted to ensure a safe and healthy media ecosystem, and Nielsen certainly believed we play a key role in that, in measuring and understanding audiences and what staying to the true form of audiences.
Speaker 1:And so we have a number of different partnerships, and I think the one that you and I had engaged on is the work that we do with the World Economic Forum, which, again, many, many companies are involved in. But in that same spirit of how do we ensure that we're putting good constructs forward about the labor market and upskilling people to be able to adapt to the changes or to principles that go forward for content that gets published or that are known verification tools that get used? So it's such a large area and of course we play a part. We don't play the only part there, but for us it comes back to the true sets of the measurement and ensuring that, no matter what is being created and compared to and data that's getting trained off of different models, that we continue to have a reliance on real people, real behaviors and have real accountability against that.
Speaker 2:I see. So that's really interesting. I haven't kind of quite anticipated that, but it makes a lot of sense, if I'm understanding it correctly, in that, you know, Nielsen has a historic skill set based on, you know, managing and identifying kind of real people and the way the world is going in relation to synthetic data sets, which are only going to sort of ever increase, frankly, from this point onwards, that actually Nielsen can play a really really key role around going. Actually this is synthetic, artificially generated data. This is data from real humans.
Speaker 1:I think, in terms of the, you know, when you're talking about valuing the size of an audience and the composition of an audience, because that's again when we go back to the concept of how transactions happen right Between buyers and sellers. That's where we can play a role there and I'd like to think that, as it continues to evolve, that Grace note, which is our metadata business, which has a lot of contextual characteristics about content, a lot of criteria about the content, it doesn't currently, you know, possess its own kind of verification stamp if you would, but certainly would be a system in which something like that could be integrated in, you know, to be able to surface that out. So it's a really interesting body of work. Certainly, you can't turn on any media outlet right now and not see something about artificial.
Speaker 1:You know intelligence and the rise of that and, I think, open questions about how and when should artificial intelligence be used in the media ecosystem. Is it something that's behind the scenes? Is it front and center? Is it, you know, which kind of jobs or creative aspects can candidate inform versus? You know, impute or takeover Like? There's so many, so many open questions about this. But when it comes back to Nielsen, you know I'd say that the core role is still having a true set by which any synthetic data that you know gets turned into a training set and continues to feed into artificial intelligence, has something to be able to be connected to, compared to, validated against. So it, you know, it lose kind of that North Star of real people and real behavior.
Speaker 2:Tina, I'm conscious of time but if it's okay, I wanted to spend a little bit of time on another big issue which I've raised with various interviews, in particular around the role and progression of women within the consumer, insights and the media kind of sector. I mean, what do we need to see more of in terms of encouraging, empowering, really just, you know, helping young women in particular take more kind of prominent positions within organizations like Nielsen and the broader types of companies that you work with?
Speaker 1:What a great question. You've hit a passion area for me. I'm very involved in mentoring inside and outside of our company with resource groups. We have, and I spent an actual fair amount of time with academic institutions, and that's why my answer is going to start there. I think we need to start the conversations earlier, not with a class that's about to graduate and looking for its first placement or for an internship, but earlier to be able to explain the value of what we, as in the industry not just Nielsen does right.
Speaker 1:Being able to take data numbers, find patterns, tell stories, advise businesses I mean it's a pretty cool right. It's a pretty satisfying area to be in that you get to leverage both the right and the left side of your brain. There's a creative component as well as a computational component, and the skills don't cease. And this is what I think is fascinating. I did a lecture last week and one of the questions was you know, basically I'm learning these software programs or these, I'm getting these certificates like, how valuable will these be? And I had to say probably won't be. Not that they're not good things to learn, but there's so many new tools that are coming. What you need is the curiosity and the interest to want to continue to learn, not just be vetted that you took a certificate back in, you know 2020 and that's going to propel the rest of your career. This is what's dynamic about the industry that we're in and you know I go back to what I said about print and TV when I started. We're like the two form maybe radio got peppered in, you know, at the end of a media plan and look how different it is now. And I think being able to demonstrate how at least what we're doing and what my career path has been is in products and services that I use as a consumer, that are in my home or around me in my community, like it's so relatable what we do and then you're able to use these skills and I think that's where it starts is really sharing the understanding of what a career can look like and also taking away the fear that these career paths are set in stone, that you're going to know day one what your job's going to be and 24 months later it means it's going to evolve to acts in 36 months after that. It is an experiential part of learning and I think again gaining comfort around that.
Speaker 1:I don't think that that's necessarily for women or girls only, like I think that's for anybody entering this space. What I really focus on with my female mentees, though, is knowing and owning their voice, and that starts early. What is their brand? I mean, essentially, they're marketing themselves as a brand no different than you'd be marketing a product, right? And so what does that look like? What does the story look like? Who are your mentors versus your ambassadors, right? Who are the people who speak for you when you're not in the room? Like, really working on knowing oneself and knowing how to work and network through? I'd say that that's an area that continues to require investment, and it's taking a chance on somebody who's up and coming, because then there's a pay it forward aspect that just has more of a multiplier effect.
Speaker 2:Agreed on so many levels, I guess maybe a final question on this topic. I mean, a lot of organizations talk a really good game in this area, but how can they support it in practical terms? Again, you're broadly involved in this sphere, so again, it's not just about Nielsen. But what are the types of things that organizations can really do to make sure this isn't just you, they're not just playing lip service?
Speaker 1:No, you're exactly right. This can't be tokenism, right. It has to be a real agenda for change, which means that there has to be accountability for it and it means that there has to be then metrics and governance around what it means. And that means not starting from a place of critique. I think you take an honest assessment of where a company is at and then what the goals are, and then you measure the process and the progress between those two points. It is not an assumption that everyone is starting from the same place because they're not.
Speaker 1:Well, we did a really interesting new product that we launched combines our measurement on our grace note and looks at representation on screen and the talent and so forth. And that was the whole point. It wasn't a judgment, it's not a critique on which company is doing better at it. It's just where are you at at that point in time and do you have the genuine desire to do better than that? And if you have the genuine desire, then help declare what that next milestone is going to look like. That's achievable.
Speaker 1:When you have diversity in your workplace. You drive better outcomes, you get more stimulating thought, differing opinions. That impacts our business, that impacts our partnerships, that impacts the quality of thought we bring forward, and so, whether we're in the community, whether it's social, whether it's governance, overall, like we work with metrics. So it's part of my annual evaluation, that's part of our entire senior leadership efforts, and I think there's been a real change in the market for some companies not supporting these types of rules, and that's completely counter to our culture. We. It is part of our fabric. It is not just a program or a sponsored event. It is something that is a requirement.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which is fantastic, and it seems very much you know within the ethos of the whole organization, as you say, in terms of understand where you are and then try to implement practical change, having understood but where you are, tina, I've taken up so much of your time. You've been so kind. If it's okay, I'll just do a quick fire round of just some quick questions. I hope they're not too cheeky. Some of them Feel, if they are, feel free to ignore me, all right. So what are your best and worst characteristics? Would you say?
Speaker 1:Oh, Well, I'd like to say my sense of humor is really strong, so I would I would say that's a good one. I have no, all honesty, I have a ridiculous discipline. I grew up as a competitive figure skater and so I just zoned in my brain on how I operate. So execution, and you know, being a strong operator, for sure I would put on the strengths column, which then means that in the, you know, room to improve or opportunity, I can be impatient because I like to get things done, and so when things don't move at the pace that I think that we could move at, that's, you know that that would be a piece that I would raise.
Speaker 2:What makes a good client?
Speaker 1:Oh, you know, gosh, what makes a good client. I think a good client is one who's open, who is willing to partner and, again, share not just their objectives, but you know what their trouble spots are or things they're concerned about. The more you know the motivations of the person you're, or the you know the company that you're partnering with, the more effective you can be. And so someone who's not threatened by Working and actually you know, truly partnering, I think is good. I love to be challenged by a client, constructively challenged, for, you know, for better and advancing and innovation. Like to me, that's the most stimulating client engagement when you're looking to advance the same issues forward on behalf of an organization or an industry, that I find very satisfying. But I'd start with the basics of, yeah, somebody who, who is Open and willing to really share what they're looking to do so that you can, you can offer the best towards the goals and Help them satisfy the objectives that they have.
Speaker 2:And I won't put words in your mouth, but I guess the inverse is probably the definition of a bad client. As I said, I'm not Trying to put words, you know yeah, no, thank you for for not putting the words in.
Speaker 1:I I'll tell you what I think is. It Is a client that I would not retain. Let me say it this way, because I have zero tolerance for a client who treats my team poorly. That is my standard. There's no. There's no acceptance, no tolerance for poor treatment of people.
Speaker 2:I'm very glad to you said I think actually way too many businesses Do accept that, particularly businesses that are in a kind of, you know, in a service sector. Glad to hear you're standing up your team. Final couple of questions, I promise.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:What do you, what do you know now that you wish you'd known, say 20 years ago, oh, Boy, that is a really good one.
Speaker 1:What do I know now? I know now that I can Trust myself to solve pretty much anything, and that doesn't mean solving it by myself. That means working with others to be able to solve. I'd say that and I'd say that I don't know that I would have anticipated that I would be as effective as working through and with others as I am. I don't think I would have foreseen that 20 years ago. So that's maybe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a confidence of the. You know they say that the the hardest problems are the ones that give you the biggest benefit later on, because they really stretch, you know, your brain as a muscle. Um, I certainly seem to attract really tough problems and and I've been very fortunate to be able to be successful at solving those by surrounding myself with people who Aren't just like me. I mean, I think that's the key to it is that working with and through others who are exactly not me Is more beneficial than than trying to find another me in the crowd. Maybe the best piece of advice I had when I first started was my hiring manager said you know they would be, they would be proud of one day. They reported to me and I think just that notion of you know it's not. It's not about the position you have today. It's doing the best in the position that you have and working as effectively as you can with others.
Speaker 2:What's your favorite, most impactful kind of book, or recent book? It doesn't have to be a book, by the way, it could be, you know, a piece of media.
Speaker 1:Managing your energy versus managing your time. So, do you know yourself yet? Do you know yourself Well enough to know what gives you energy versus what takes it away? And everybody's different. So to me, it's the spending the time to know what that is. I am one of these people that, as soon as my Brain wakes up or my eyes open, I am fully on that. I don't need a coffee, I don't need time.
Speaker 2:I wish I was right right.
Speaker 1:So I'm not saying that it yeah, I don't. I don't know that everybody loves that about me, but I, but I recognize that in myself, and so this notion of that means that I'm more likely to bound it a bit and do the hardest thing First, and, you know, before the Sun's already risen, because that's that's that works for me and that's that's where my energy comes from. So that that's a bit, it's a, it's a big shift of time management versus energy management.
Speaker 2:I Tina that's a book. Is it that the outlines how to think about that?
Speaker 1:There are books, there are other yeah, there are podcasts. There's just other constructs about it. So I consider it more a body of body of work as opposed to, you know, a single yeah, but but I love that as a I love that as a concept.
Speaker 2:It's what I'm gonna. I'm definitely gonna explore further, tina. Thank you so much. This has been really great and an absolute pleasure having you on.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you for allowing me to share some thoughts here. I hope that there's been good value for you and for your listeners. I'm very much appreciate the opportunity.
Speaker 2:Well, to use Tina's closing phrase, I certainly took a huge amount of value out of that conversation, both personally not least the idea of thinking about how to manage energy rather than time, as well as more industry specific issues around how to analyze and present data. I Suspect the point around the challenges of verification around synthetic, artificially produced data as opposed to genuine human reaction. It's going to be a very hot topic both in the short term and in years to come. So thanks again to Tina for participating, to you for listening, to insight platforms for their continued support. See you next time.