Amazon Web Services (AWS), Women in Technology Hollywood (WiTH) and Merkle explored the latest innovations in data management and analytics that media and entertainment organizations can use to better compete and overcome challenges they face today on July 21, at the Entertainment Evolution Symposium (EES).
The panel touched on topics ranging from artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning evolution to augmented data management to the vital matter of data governance, during the breakout session “360-Degrees of Customer Awareness: Innovations in Data Management and Analytics.”
Moderator Nina Skorus-Neely, an executive board member of Women in Technology Hollywood (WiTH), kicked off the conversation by focusing on the “post-COVID consumer.”
Although consumers continue to stream huge amounts of content, the increased amount of money that consumers are saving indicates there is a “pent-up demand for in-person entertainment and related products and services,” she said.
It is, meanwhile, not so easy to gain insight across multiple channels and many companies operate on a wholesale business model and don’t have access to such data themselves, she noted.
There are various challenges companies face when it comes to finding the right analytics, according to Tracie Kambies, global analytics leader at Merkle.
For one thing, dealing with privacy and risk is “still a concern” and building trust with consumers is important, Kambies said.
Companies must also meet regulatory requirements and understand their risk portfolio, she noted, calling that something that will be “pivotal.”
It is also important for M&E organizations to manage their own data, whether they have a direct or indirect relationship with consumers, according to Kambies.
Also crucial are what technology you are using and whether you are making the right investments, she added.
Agreeing with her, Adam Sutherland, head of data science at AWS, said most media companies now “have some sort of direct” connection with consumers. Many M&E companies are now competing on the experience of their streaming services, not the content per se, he said calling good, plentiful content mere “table stakes.”
One thing that is crucial about the experience, for example: Are the streams working? There is a new skillset in some ways that companies must adapt to – and they are “adopting and adapting,” he said.
M&E companies must also have the right foundation and be flexible because everything changes so often, he said, noting: “You can go from being a broadcaster to being an e-commerce player in six months and is your platform flexible enough to take care of that?”
Companies must work closely with their risk and privacy officers, according to Kambies, noting that risk, security and privacy are all entangled now. A partnership must be established early on, she said, noting that is “very critical” to the success of the media and marketing teams. M&E organizations must also understand personalization and insight teams are “pivotal” to understanding your customers better, she said.
Avoiding data silos
“You want to make sure that your data is not in silos” and that “you’ve got one place where everybody” within the organization “can access it,” according to Sutherland.
The more first-party data you can get about your consumers the better, he said. It is also important to have a “good customer data platform where you can bring in some of this third-party data,” he noted. Some folks are talking about creating a “consortia” of customer info that is shared and companies must make sure all privacy issues are addressed in creating that consortia, he said.
There is also a lot of talk about a “clean room” — a place where organizations can bring data and get it all matched up, he said. Clean room has become a “buzzword,” he said, adding organizations want to accomplish the same thing that cookies have done but without having to use them.
Cookies were never meant to do what they have evolved into, according to Kambies, who said companies became dependent on them. Clean rooms can help, she said, adding data management will “continue to evolve,” along with who has access at the device level.
Data must be clean enough to share in that clean room but “it becomes tricky,” according to Sutherland, saying it “becomes a real art and science.”
One challenge if that “if you don’t know what’s being put in” that clean room, “how do you know what you want to make sure you’ve got the highest quality” of that, he said, adding: “It’s probably not going to be Social Security numbers.”
Stewarding data
“You truly need to have people who understand what it means to steward data in your data governance organization,” according to Kambies. Without having data stewardship, you don’t really have anyone who’s accountable and responsible for making sure it stays healthy, it stays clean, it stays in a privacy/compliance sort of way, and can help you manage risk as an organization – but also informs the insight team so that they are using it in the right way,” she explained.
Another “big thing” — and it has “evolved over time” — is “there’s a new marriage of data governance with ethics and understanding the value of ethics and data and how it plays a role in what we do with data in our organizations, Kambies said. “That’s another thing that’s going to evolve in the data governance space,” she predicted.
Sutherland believes there is “actually a real potentially positive story here” if the “goals and incentives are aligned as long as everybody’s got the right time frame and or horizon to look at,” he said.
The role of blockchain
Some argue that “blockchain democratizes the ownership of data,” Skorus-Neely pointed out. Consumers can conceivably charge companies for their data, she said.
“That really is truly a value exchange at that point and then the consumer gets to monetize their own data,” Kambies responded. Blockchain also provides tracking and auditing capabilities, she noted, adding: the question is “who has that visibility” to the data?
However, “the tech isn’t quite 100 percent there from a customer perspective,” although it’s “really good for [the] supply chain, Kambies said.
There are “some constraints within it,” Kambies told viewers, adding: “I think it’ll be interesting to see how it can evolve and then what the business model that will evolve around it for the consumer” will be. The organizations “do want to have a value exchange [and] it will be very interesting to see how it evolves,” she said, adding: “I think it is coming. It’s just a matter of time.”
Sutherland pointed to one major issue with blockchain and Ethereum, a decentralized, open-source blockchain with smart contract functionality.
“My son and I successfully mined some Ethereum like a summer and a half ago only to find out when we did the math that we lost more money on the electricity that we consumed doing the mining,” he said, leading the other panelists to laugh.
Sutherland is willing to give all his data to Spotify because it uses the info to improve his experience by, for one thing, adding insights into his behavior, he said. Now, he added: “if I were to get that experience and some money on top of it? Sure. I would sign up for it. I’d like to see the consumer get a little bit more power in that space.”
Skorus-Neely, however, would like to see a little more visibility into what Spotify does with the data from its customers, she said.
On the AI and ML front, Sutherland said one thing that he is seeing a lot of on the content side is using AI and ML services to enhance metadata and then “mapping that to what the consumers enjoy.”
The Entertainment Evolution Symposium event was produced by the Hollywood IT Society (HITS), Pepperdine’s Graziadio Business School, and MESA. The event was sponsored by Whip Media, PacketFabric, 5th Kind, Qumulo, EIDR, Klio and the Trusted Partner Network.