Collage Roundtables Transform How Global Brands View the Total Market
The 2018 Experience and the 2019 Proposed Agenda
The 2018 Experience and the 2019 Proposed Agenda
The following describes the unrivaled experience of the Collage Group annual Roundtable and workshops. Learn more about the 2019 Roundtable Agenda scheduled for October and December and to learn more about how you can participate
Every year, we seek to provide our members an exclusive new insights into the dynamic worlds of multicultural and youth consumers. Our Executive Roundtables are an integral part of the Collage Group agenda, allowing members to discuss high-level topics from a cross-industry perspective. As Collage Group CEO David Wellisch puts it, our goal at every Roundtable is to “change the way our members see the world and perceive their challenges.”
At this year’s event, we unveiled groundbreaking research into the complex emotional profiles of America in 2018, and introduced AdRate, our advertisement rating system backed by machine learning and facial tracking technology. We are extremely grateful to our members at Brown Forman and Executive Vice President Roberto Ruiz and Senior Vice President Liz Sanderson at Univision for hosting this year in Louisville and New York City respectively.
The overwhelming success of our 2018 Roundtable – the second highest scoring Roundtable series in our history – revealed some undeniable takeaways on the value of Roundtable participation.
In a room full of great minds, we’ve learned that thoughtful content has the power to spark meaningful discussions both within and across industries. For Client Service Director Paul Deasey, the Roundtable is a safe space for even competitive members to reach their common goal of “upping everyone’s game,” where they can discuss “what they can do to push the knowledge base forward.”
This year, members showed strong interest in the marketing implications of our America in 2018 work. Members showed particular interest in Exceptionalism, one of 4 “emotional profiles” we revealed in our research that for many multicultural consumers emphasizes the value of one’s internal uniqueness and perceived special differences. Members also gravitated to our new advertising performance metrics “Groundswell” and “Backlash”, which measure how ads can negatively or positively polarize different demographic segments. These innovative concepts helped members better understand not only the changing consumer landscape, but also specific challenges and opportunities they’ve faced with their own brands.
In our view, the biggest sign of a successful roundtable is when members, even competitors, are able to discuss their own experiences with one another in the context of our presented material. “Hearing what other marketers are going through is a breakthrough”, says Ida Chacon, VP of Custom Solutions. “It’s lonely in the multicultural world”. Our data and insights have the power to inspire these visceral connections. And this ability was especially evident during a presentation by Creative Chairman and CEO of ALMA, Luis Miguel Messianu, whose moving examples of ads that elicit what we call Peak Sentimentality helped the audience reflect on and share their own marketing challenges. David Evans, Chief Insights Officer noted, “I have participated in probably more than a hundred conferences in my career and this one was unique for uniting members both rationally around the takeaways for the business, but also emotionally around what truly engages and moves us as people.”
By participating at the roundtable, clients can voice what they need to know from their perspective in the market. Our research relies not only on current market trends, but on uniting around the challenges our members have in the face of them. The format of our team-driven workshop allows us to identify common questions and priorities, helping us determine the scope of our future research agenda.
At our roundtables, such interactions are not only encouraged, but materialized organically. As one member noted, “I have been to many conferences in the last year, but this one was truly outstanding”. Together, our members have the power to solve problems, develop new ideas and share personal experiences. “The fun and joy of hosting this event comes from working so closely with every client” Ryan Miller notes, “To see them in the same room and engaging with one another was such a joy to see”.