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example , Launzel- Pennes points out how Gen-Z attendees engage in a unique way . “ They want a seat at the table and their voice to be heard , therefore , a traditional keynote wouldn ’ t work . Additionally , they may be listening to a keynote , but they might also be multi-tasking on their mobile devices . If we want to evolve as an industry , we must know who the customer is , what they expect and how they want to engage during the entire event lifecycle .” The attendees , Rose tells me , are open to participating in audience mapping , now more than ever . He explains : “ We use AudienceDNA , which is not strictly an AI tool , but it is very much a tool curated to map audience demographics . |
“ I believe we need humans to add the nuances to make each event a success . While tech offers some amazing benefits for audience mapping , it ’ s crucial to blend it with human insight to get a well-rounded view of your audience .”
– Fab Giovanetti
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“ It ’ s proven very successful , we know this because we have used it for multiple events and those events have better outcomes and higher engagement rates .
“ What ’ s most interesting to me is that the people that were willing to complete AudienceDNA was initially around about 50 %, which is still quite high number , has now increased to 75 %.” This suggests that the modern-event goer is now prioritising personalisation , and wants experiences built for them – not around them .
The most important thing to remember when doing this , is to handle their data carefully . “ You don ’ t need to know someone ’ s life story , just gather the data that will genuinely help improve the event . Always make sure you have explicit consent from the attendees and be upfront about what you ’ re collecting and why ,” adds Giovanetti .
Audience mapping isn ’ t just beneficial for attendees , as Giovanetti reminds us . “ With a clearer picture of who ’ s attending , you can offer valuable insights to sponsors and exhibitors on how to make their contributions more targeted and impactful ,” she adds .
The human touch With this in mind , it ’ s reassuring that anyone can learn how to map their audience , and organisers do not need to be ‘ tech savvy .’ “ Technology has become quite democratised now . You don ’ t need a computer science degree in order to really get to grips with it ,” says Rose .
Although audience mapping technology is useful and can be used by anyone , the event professionals agree that there is a danger of solely relying on it and taking what it says at face value .
“ I wholeheartedly believe we
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need humans to add the nuances to make each event a success . While tech offers some amazing benefits for audience mapping , it ’ s crucial to blend it with human insight to get a well-rounded view of your audience . While technology can give you valuable data , it might miss out on the emotional and behavioral nuances that you ’ d get from direct human interaction ,” warns Giovanetti . After all , our industry thrives off human connection – and no one is better versed in facilitating this than event professionals .
“ What you get out of AI is only possible because of human brilliance . The human is guiding the ship , AI is just a powerful toolset . It ’ s only as accurate as the information you put in . That said , it is a lot of fun to engage with ,” says Launzel-Pennes .
“ We have created an event called AUTONOMOUSXP , which is entirely driven by AI . It is an experiment to see just how far AI can go . It has created audience personas , built the content framework , identified speakers and so on . The more we use it , we find , the more it gets to know us - and the output gets better and better .”
There ’ s also the danger of potentially excluding audience members . Rose explained : “ There can be two issues with audience profiling with AI : the first is that these systems by their very nature , are black boxes . We don ’ t understand how they think , we just ask the question and it gives an answer . If you ’ re given an answer that is incorrect , you can quickly find yourself in a trap .”
“ The second issue is that technology is really good at telling you ‘ what ’, but not ‘ why ’. You cannot loose that human aspect that makes events ‘ events ’.”
For instance , Rose says the
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