There's More Data

After going to countless seminars, forums and tech talks, I've found that I've gravitated more and more to data and analytics. Before this trip, I knew I had an interest in PR research and market analytics, and this conference has almost but secured my desicion to pursue analytics as a career. 

Kathryn Parsons, Co-CEO of Decoded, ran a master class with the editor of The Gaurdian. In this talk she stated that men and women have the same ambition when it comes to learning about technology, but women are 30 percent less confident about it. I could almost mirror that statistic onto myself because I used to be timid about learning applications like Photoshop and Indesign, but I discovered that I loved them and I was talented at design. The same applies in research and analytics. Before spring 2014 semester, I thought I couldn't run programs in data and satsitics till I had to and I figured out I loved the discovery part of research. 

For the rest of the day, I learned how different companies are using analytics to make discoveries about advertising. Scott Button, CEO of Unruly, says the key to ads is the sharability. Through analytics, Unruly was able to determine that 42 percent of video sharing happens three days after the launch of the video. What most probably wouldn't guess is that YouTube is only responsible for 24.3 percent of these views. This statistic surprised me. Most companies pay extensively for distribution on other video platforms to reach the coverage they pay for. 

"Sharing is the gold standard. The more shares their are, typically the more impressions, action and likability follows the brand/campaign." -Button 

Keith Eadie, CMO of TubeMogul, talked about video views and sharing when it came to online video ads. Through TubeMogul's data they were able to determine that the size of the video player had a profound impact when it came to the duration a user watched a video ad.

"As of now, two-thirds of video ads are not viewable. What impacts whether an ad has good viewership is ad placement and player size. A player that was 1200px was 48 percent more likely to watch the entire duration of the ad." -Eadie 

After meeting with the President of Rocketfuel, Richard Frankel, and talking about the future of analytics and the need for professionals to pursue this, I feel market research is in my future. I am so greatful for the opportunity this conference has presented me with. I have gained valuable insight of the industry and the skills I need to work on to be successful in it.