Gabelli Marketing Lecture Series Examines Consumer Insights
Fordham’s Gabelli School of Business hosted a marketing lecture series at Lincoln Center late last month focused on the emerging field of consumer insights, which “explores markets from the viewpoint of real people,” according to a recent article on Gabelli Connect, the school’s website.
The Gabelli marketing lecture series featured guest speaker Ellen Zaleski, a senior VP of strategic insights at Empower Media who has built a career “learning what makes consumers tick.”
Zaleski discussed Empower’s client segmentation strategy, which uncovers marketing insights by assessing groups of people based on “behavior, attitude and shared values.” She said Empower used database matches and global surveys to more clearly identify demographics as part of a recent campaign for Microsoft’s MS SurfacePro.
Zaleski believes client segmentation enables her to uncover what people find important and inspiring and, ultimately, “why they care about you.” She elaborates, “One segment is more concerned with looking cool, another wants to feel more connected.”
This current over-saturated media landscape has certainly put the pressure on marketing researchers. “Today, the average person spends 12 hours a day consuming media, and our attention span has been reduced to 8 seconds,” Zaleski said as part of the article. “That’s less than a goldfish.”
Given the overwhelming amount of content at our fingertips and our disappearing attention spans, “big data is critical to wading through the clutter,” Zaleski argues.
About the Author
Jonathan Pfeffer
Jonathan Pfeffer joined the Clear Admit and MetroMBA teams in 2015 after spending several years as an arts/culture writer, editor, and radio producer. In addition to his role as contributing writer at MetroMBA and contributing editor at Clear Admit, he is co-founder and lead producer of the Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast. He holds a BA in Film/Video, Ethnomusicology, and Media Studies from Oberlin College.
