The growth and productivity-unleashing potential of AI-powered tech systems and software was the talk of the Croisette during this month’s Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity. Much of the programming was dedicated to helping marketers, content creators and media mavens navigate what is possible now and what is coming around the corner.
Variety‘s “Strictly Business” podcast did its part with a live podcast taping in Cannes on June 18 with a conversation focused on the Converge by Deloitte service as the analytics giant expands that service to focus on sports consumers. Michelle McGuire, principal and chief commercial officer of Converge by Deloitte, and Ruba Borno, VP, global specialists and partners of Amazon’s AWS, joined us on a yacht docked just off the Palais des Festivals for a live recording of a conversation about how the two brands have worked, together and separately, on initiatives like Converge that harness AI.
When it comes to targeting sports-friendly consumers, what marketers covet most is “that Venn diagram of the team, the league and your own brand,” McGuire said. Converge synthesizes a staggering amount of data and input to offer highly custom profiles for sports fans at a granular level.
“We know who you are. We know what you care about,” McGuire said. “And then we use our propensity modeling, our IP, our understanding of sports and fandom to hand that off to sponsors so that they’re then able to activate in a more personalized way. So it’s about what player do you care about, what merchandise do you buy as a result? And how do I get you to engage with the brand across the lifetime of your fandom in a way that makes that engagement feel more personal?”
The value of having consumer data at the scale of corporate giants such as Deloitte and AWS comes from being able to draw insights from the tonnage. The AI processing tools can generate a wealth of insights on consumer behavior without violating the data privacy of individuals. AWS’s ability to offer clients effective “Clean Room” services to allow for data crunching in a privacy-compliant way is very in demand and one of the company’s biggest strengths, Borno observed.
“You can bring data from multiple parties, and the raw the underlying raw data is still secure and owned by the entity that brought that data, but you can draw insights from the collective data, and so that allows us to get insights,” Borno said. “For customers, for advertisers — this is table stakes today. And so the more data you have, the better insights you have, and you can be differentiated.”
The arena of global fandom around sports is a ripe sector for research and experimentation because sports spurs great passion and engagement. McGuire has learned through her work with Converge that studying fandom yields a wealth of knowledge and pointers for other areas of a consumer’s life. The sheer computing power made possible by AI systems is sharpening audience targeting capabilities to a stunning degree.
“The thing that I find most interesting about fandom is that your fandom is not unique,” she said. “It crosses music. It crosses your retail and buying habits. It crosses all the areas of your life. … Sports fans are not a monolith. They are rabid about teams, leagues and different sports. So how do you look at them holistically as a fan and then act upon that unique fandom in that audience of one?”
Deloitte has had success with Converge by, appropriately enough, carefully tailoring the service to distinct sectors such as sports or health care. Hollywood, take note: Next on Deloitte’s horizon is the rapidly evolving world of media and entertainment.
Cynthia Littleton, Variety co-editor-in-chief and “Strictly Business” host, with Converge by Deloitte’s Michelle McGuire and AWS’ Ruba Borno
“The next frontier is media, of course,” McGuire said. “Applying the same concepts — measurement, engagement — and asking what does it mean for media organizations who care about all things fandom for potential subscribers, and who is next as a subscriber and who doesn’t subscribe today, and how do I talk to them in a tone of voice that gets them down the funnel to convert faster?” she said. “I think your fandom in characters, titles and worlds all influences your purchasing behavior when you think about streaming and subscription and so for us, that’s the next frontier to take all that we’ve learned and done with AWS is to apply to yet another industry.”
