Student Voices | Beyond the Scroll: Leveraging Attention in Marketing With AI Insights
Graduate | May 31, 2024 | Gabelli School of Business
During the spring semester, the Marketing Area invited Michelle Nagelberg, group director of the Business Intelligence and Analytics team at Mindshare to connect with students as part of its Industry Speaker Series. The event, titled “Beyond the Scroll: Leveraging Attention in Marketing with AI Insights,” dove deep into content that is of great importance in a marketing landscape that is increasingly influenced by artificial intelligence.
Nagelberg has developed an impressive background in data, strategy, and analytics with almost 10 years of experience in the marketing industry. Prior to her current role, she worked as an analyst and director at Mindshare, a client strategist for Quantcast, and as an account manager for Tarte Cosmetics. During her talk, Nagelberg shared many valuable insights about artificial intelligence (AI) and the technology space in relation to marketing, as well as how to leverage this technology in the context of shrinking attention spans and a dynamic digital landscape. She defined artificial intelligence as “technology leveraging data in a way to replicate or augment what humans can do,” and explained the long history that led up to the “big AI boom.”
Specifically, she talked about how the latest evolution of generative AI tools, including ChatGPT, have democratized how people are leveraging AI technology, and how this has, in turn, led to the more active versus passive use of the technology.
In terms of the marketing landscape, Nagelberg identified three major themes: the modern digital landscape has unprecedented challenges in capturing and retaining attention; AI’s role is becoming more pivotal in marketing strategies due to shrinking attention; and the need to move past surface-level interactions and engage in a more meaningful manner.
A critical theme throughout the talk was how to measure, comprehend, and capture attention through marketing using AI, which can help to analyze big data and uncover patterns to better target and segment markets. Furthermore, this can lead to personalization and better predictive analytics to uncover new growth opportunities. AI can also support content creation that effectively captures attention, and it can improve customer service and automated tasks to create seamless, efficient customer experiences. However, while AI can have many benefits, the technology also brings new challenges. This includes ensuring data quality and accuracy, following privacy laws, and removing algorithmic biases from the models. Nagelberg emphasized the importance of maintaining a human component when leveraging AI to address these issues. Furthermore, when asked whether AI will replace humans in the workforce, she maintained that it will act as a supportive technology for human-based initiatives that require human intervention.
Written by: Amelia Semler ’24 , M.S. in Marketing Intelligence
