One of the positive consequences of having fantastic speakers and robust conversations at Consumer Marketing this year is that we have a backlog of questions from the audience that we weren’t able to address on stage. Here are just a few of the remaining questions that fellow marketers had for Jenny Storms, CMO of NBC Sports Group, answered in her own words:

Can you talk a little about the hand off from data part (science) to the emotional part (art)? The work you did is so much smarter than simply turning data into a spot.

The data was our foundation and grounded us in consumer insights, rather than building strategies based upon our initial assumptions or historical approach. As we moved into creative development, we dug deeper into the values and themes of each segment.  It is through the knowledge of what connects each segment on an emotional level that we could develop appropriate content for each platform

What part did traditional demographics (age, gender, income) play in your values-based segmentation?

Since we were aiming to learn about consumer needs, interests and behavioral motivators, traditional demographics did not play a role in segmentation development.  Rather, demographics were simply there to contextualize the segments by understanding the composition of each group. However, in the absence of being able to fuse our segmentation data with certain paid partners, we needed to reverse engineer the segments by building our target audiences using a combination of traditional demographics and consumers’ interests.

Of all the marketing tactics and media decisions made for the Olympics effort, which did you consider the riskiest investment?

With the appropriate insights and strategy, no tactic should truly be ‘risky.’  Instead we wanted to test different tactics and non-traditional platforms in the hopes of lightning in a bottle.

How do you tap into the unexpected viral consumer interests in real time like the Adam Rippon fan base obsession?

Planning ahead is critical to take advantage of viral moments when they occur.  It started with the right staffing plan and pre-work done in order to move quickly at a moments notice.  We had a foundational content plan done months in advance to cover off on all of the events and multiple scenario outcomes, giving us the flexibility to react in real-time to viral moments and ultimately capitalize on them

How do you plan to move sporting events from one-size- fits-all to something more relevant to the individual viewer’s interest?

From the consumer marketing perspective, we will continue to mine insights and consumption behavior relative to sport, demographics, regions, etc. to help inform innovation in product offerings, programming and production solutions to create a more personalized view.  A great example of personalization is what Comcast is doing around the Olympics with the X1 platform, giving consumers access and opportunity to consume as they desire.  In addition, for the first time the NBC Sports app provided enhanced viewing opportunities for consumers.