Understanding Audiences in a World That Won’t Slow Down

Heather Riexinger: Today, I am joined by Kristen Balliet, an account director here at Flynn, and a strategic superstar on our team. So wanted to bring you in today to talk a little bit about how you and Michelle are working together into a lot of the high consideration categories we work in, the peace of mind brands. And last episode, I was talking with Michelle, one of our colleagues about synthetic audiences. So I’d love to understand how you and Michelle are working together to incorporate synthetic audiences with some of our clients.

Kristin Balliet: Yeah, absolutely. I’m sure, as you know, research is super expensive, and not always attainable. But in particularly the categories that we work in, it’s harder to reach those audiences sometimes, to really know. And a lot of our clients have been in the industries for years and years and years, and have a very good understanding of their audiences. But things change. There’s categorical changes, cultural changes, and keeping up to date with the latest is super important. So we’ve really started to use a synthetic audience early on, before the brief, a little bit of validation, a little bit of audience research, to really tap into what is the mindset right now? What maybe has changed? What do we need to think about differently? And using prompts and articles and things that are out there to really help us start to say, you know your audience at the base level, but what do we need to maybe be shifting and changing things up as we talk to them today? Great.

Heather Riexinger: taking it back a step, can you talk a little bit about what it’s like to work in these high consideration categories, the long sales cycles, compliance issues? It’s a very, very complex industry as you’re working in. So tell us a little bit about those industries and the challenges you’re seeing.

Kristin Balliet: so especially with how much thought goes into what our audience and our clients, consumers, are buying, it isn’t a quick time purchase. We’re not an Instagram ad. We’re not banging you over the head. You really have to develop trust. You really have to develop a relationship. This audience needs to understand the brand deeply. I actually just had the opportunity to attend a webinar last week from the Evidence-Based Marketing Alliance, which is kind of new. And they were talking about some of these principles of memory and building memory with your audience. They were super focused in CPG. But it felt even more relevant to who we’re working with for every day because we need to be able to tap into what does that audience need at any given time in that consideration cycle because they’re not ready to buy all the time. Often they need a lot of convincing, but that doesn’t come through just repeating what we do. That comes through really connecting with what they need, who they are, and establishing that relationship over time to get them over the finish line.

Heather Riexinger: So as you’re doing that, it’s really interesting you bring up this idea of the importance and the carryover from CPG into these highest consideration categories. I think when I go into Target to buy something, brands that I’ve heard of or I’ve seen on Instagram or an influencer told me about. But I think people forget that the same thing goes for a bank. When you need a loan, you’re still back your mind thinking, here’s three or four banks that I’ve heard of that are reputable or I’ve seen a TV spot about. So how do you currently balance for– we have a large financial services client that you are running media for. How do you balance that mix of brand and direct attribution and being all the way down the funnel?

Kristin Balliet: Yeah. It really goes into how we’re creating our messaging, quite honestly, because we do need to get across the features and benefits. We do need to make sure that the audience understands what they’re getting into. But they need to understand who they’re getting it from. In this particular client, there’s a lot of competition. And there is a lot of competition with people who have similar offerings. And so we need to look at how do we stay top of mind, infuse some of that more traditional brand awareness, and then all the way through carry that brand story, that emotion, that spirit, the vibe through everything, and then down to retargeting and reminding people that we are that brand that you can trust. And this is something that is going to help you achieve your financial goals.

Heather Riexinger: Is there anything that you’re doing different in the financial services industry or health care when these products are kind of higher stakes? They’re large purchases. They’re really important. Is there anything that you are saying or doing differently than, say, a CPG company would do to build that long-term relationship?

Kristin Balliet: Yeah, I think it’s really understanding– again, not to beat it at a horse, but understanding the audience and what job they’re trying to get done. What are they trying to achieve? What are their motivators? Because you might go into Target and grab a pack of gum, because there’s a pack of gum at the line. It doesn’t really matter. When you’re investing really heavily into anything or making a large financial decision, implementing a new health care med tech into your hospital, it’s not an easy thing. There’s a lot of factors. There’s a lot of stakeholders. Even if it’s a family decision or it’s a boardroom, we really need to be appealing to the job done or the goal that our audience is trying to get to and prove we’re the company that is going to enable them to get that done.

Heather Riexinger: So you talked a lot about audience understanding and really knowing these people. So when we kicked this off, we talked a little bit about synthetic audiences. So how are you using the synthetic audiences today? Let’s get down in the weeds. Where are you using them? How are you speaking to them? What information are you putting into the synthetic audiences on a day-to-day basis to better understand?

Kristin Balliet: They’re my fake friends. Shout out Nicole Lee. She’s my go-to. We use them regularly. Where I often like to start is to get some of that sort of psychographic information. These synthetic audiences are built based on the population, based on demographics, psychographics. So tapping into that to say, in this particular situation, how would you respond? When you’re faced with this, what do you think? We really try to start to build that profile in a deeper way than maybe you’ll get out of some different tool sets because it’s starting to understand the thought process behind that preference. So it’s really where we start. We also like to use it in creative when we iterate. So we think real concept testing, end of the day, use a real person, they are still valuable. But when we can try to say, does this initial idea resonate with you? What would you do to punch it up? How would you look at this or what’s holding you back? And allowing some different perspectives to share what they quote unquote think. It allows us to then sort of take that, synthesize it down to say, okay, here’s a really key piece that we can extrapolate is gonna impact our audience. And we should really make this change because it’s something that we most likely will see in market.

Heather Riexinger: Yeah, so have you, I’m so interested by these synthetic audiences and their ability to understand humans, which is a little scary. Have you found that the answers are very similar to what you’re hearing when you are talking to people? How accurate are these audience, is this audience feedback?

Kristin Balliet: Yeah, it’s a great question. And I think that we know to be true, I think the stats 60 ish percent accuracy, which is great because we’re using it directionally. We’re not using it as gospel, but we do see it really echo often what we expect. We do see that it falls in line with some of our assumptions and our hypotheses. What really becomes interesting is when it introduces something you wouldn’t necessarily think. From a financial services perspective, something that the synthetic audience really told us was, you need to shoot it straight. Cut out the red, fine print, this is a big purchase for us. You really need to shoot it straight, which is not something we necessarily thought about at first because we said, no, we know this audience. In using that feedback, we’re able to shape our creative. We had the opportunity to do some testing with the synthetic audience and then in market. And it validated what the synthetic audience had said to begin with. So it was pretty cool to say, okay, we have a confidence that this directionally can guide us. And at the end of the day, we’re the humans making the call. There’s other factors outside of a synthetic audience, but it really is a great directional guide to say, this is gonna land, this may be not so much.

Heather Riexinger: Yeah, and where I found it to be also really interesting is in research, especially focus groups, we’ve always said, people don’t wanna let you in their pocketbook. So our human nature is to hold back. I don’t wanna tell a brand how to get money from me, how to better target me, but the synthetic audiences don’t necessarily have that piece of the human element to them. So it seems like you’re saying sometimes we’re getting things out of them that a human may not say or even think to say, because the human reaction is reacting to what you were asking them specifically. So I think it’s been really interesting from that perspective too.

Kristin Balliet: Yeah, totally. And I think it’s even the way you ask questions. So when we’re doing a more structured research with a synthetic audience, we absolutely are very objective in the way we ask things, we follow best practices, but there’s also times when I’ll just pop in there because we’re having a discussion in the office and someone says, “Eh, they don’t think that.” And I’ll just say, “Hey, what’s the thought here?” And I think even the way that as a moderator, you can talk to the synthetic audience, you can ask some things that maybe you wouldn’t ask if you were sitting in a room with a bunch of folks.

Heather Riexinger: Great. Well, kind of shifting gears here, I think that’s all really interesting. As you know, when you started out, we won’t tell our ages here on the podcast, but- I’m 21. 21, okay. So when you started in this industry, at six years old, were very different. It was, you get an insight, you write a brief, you have two, three, four weeks to concept, and the world has just shifted. So we’re using these synthetic audiences to speed that up significantly. And a lot of times, a brief that may have taken a week to research and write is now compacted down into three hours of an afternoon so that the team can get working. How are you utilizing AI, synthetic audiences, other tools that we have available to ensure that your strategy is still incredibly sound when you have an afternoon to put input together?

Kristin Balliet: Yeah, absolutely. I think the best thing that I’ve seen is that it’s really shifted, not necessarily the work, but where the effort goes into. And in a lot of times when you have all that time, there’s a ton of time taken where you’re either out doing research, you’re doing desk research, you’re collecting, you’re spending days and days collecting and organizing information, and then your presentation’s at noon tomorrow. So you’ve got two hours to sift through all of that. And now all of that collecting, all of that organizing, all that sort of manual work, you can get to so much faster. So the amount of time that you have is now being spent thinking and applying your expertise and applying your insight so that you’re not just kind of organizing what’s out there, but you now have the space and time to think through it, add that human element that is so important and what you’re outputting. And a lot of times it’s actually stronger because you’re not working off a blank page, you’re working off a lot that you can toss, keep and build from.

Heather Riexinger: Yeah, and that’s what I’ve found too is when I had three, four days a week to write a brief, I stared at the blank sheet of paper, I overthought it for two days, I would rewrite the brief six times in totally different directions because I wanted everything to be perfect. And now I almost think the speed is taking away perfection and the overthinking. And like you said, things are actually becoming stronger because we don’t have that time to just swirl, but there are times where it’s good to swirl. And I think we’re finding too where maybe that first iteration is good. And then as we all think on it, shower thoughts, singing in the car on the way to work, that all of a sudden round two, we’re like, ah, now I have a thought, but we’re going from something that we already know is solid and expanding on it rather than trying to get to perfection in that first round. So I think that’s a big piece and it’s true. You would think with less time that things would be worse, but

Kristin Balliet: kind of. I think to your point of the shifting, the industry shifting in general is that iterative approach, which people are not historically good with. You put a first version out and it would be like, well, that’s not, that thing, that tweak needs to happen. And you were polishing on B1. And I think a lot of clients, I think we’re really interested in that idea of get to B1 faster, but B1 is rougher. B1 is the opportunity for you to work it out in a place that’s more real. And that has proven the ability for us to be not having to necessarily solve every single thing and get it to 110%. We get it to 80, and then we can really get feedback from clients and reactions and work that in from the ground up a little bit easier.

Heather Riexinger: I actually think it makes the work more fun because the presentations to the clients aren’t necessarily presentations like they used to be. It used to be this dog and pony show where you’re like, look at this beautiful work we did. What do you think? And now it’s a lot more collaborative. It’s a lot more, like you said, iterative. And I think it makes it more fun because it doesn’t hurt as bad when you shift if it’s 60, 80% and you haven’t been polishing it for two weeks. I think it just is.

Kristin Balliet: And it’s more of a partnership. You’re building it then together and kind of everyone has that skin in the game and it’s not as much toss over the fence and back and forth. It’s something that the whole team’s really building together which at the end of the day can be an adventure but it always makes it more worth it.

Heather Riexinger: Right, and I think that the interesting piece of this too is internally we always laugh because we have very different styles. Sure do. And personalities. And I’m more of a fly by the seat of my pants type of gal. And you love a good process. So I always find it so interesting when things go quicker, process almost becomes more important and more impactful which is kind of opposite of what people would think. So how do you find that your process changes internally with the team? So we’ve talked a lot about externally but what has shifted with the team and do you feel like relationships are stronger, more stressful?

Kristin Balliet: Yeah, I have to ask some of the rest of the team too. No, I think that it’s the same idea of building it together. There’s a lot of agencies and workflows where it’s this person has this piece of the puzzle and you pass it down the line and maybe the end product is good, it’s fine. Because we’re sort of in a time crunch, there’s more people at the table from the beginning. So you’re actually coming together to have the conversations upfront because you don’t have the time to have person A doing their piece for three days and passing it along. And that brings different points of view together a lot faster so that what you build, you’re kind of again all going on that same path together and catching things along the way versus having to sort of start over in rework because somebody took three days and the next person’s like, no, that’s not right.

Heather Riexinger: Yeah, and I kind of love the speed as well of just, when I first started here at Flynn 13 years ago, it used to be the creative team would kind of go in a room for a week or a week and a half and then they’d let me in and peek at it and see how it’s aligning with the brief and things like that. And I love that now it’s, hey, come check this out or I have some thoughts and I feel like what we talked about with clients and sharing things earlier is happening across the team earlier, creative media, strategy and planning. So it really feels like more of a team effort today, which is so interesting. But a great effect, I guess.

Kristin Balliet: I always say that my favorite projects when I look back are with the worst ones, like the most stressful. And that’s always because it’s usually a time crunch and you’re all in the trenches together and you might wanna like wring some necks midway through, but at the end, it’s like, wow, look at what we were able to do together. So I think that what used to be sort of a one-off crunch has become a little bit more of the norm and less of the neck wringing because everyone’s more used to this now. We’re just in it together. It’s not a forcing function. It’s the way we do work.

Heather Riexinger: Right, and nothing builds a better friendship than a common enemy. Trauma bonding, trauma bonding for the win. So yeah, I know we bring up all the time. We’re joking about different things that happened or different, I know yesterday we were just joking about something that had happened before, a big pitch in the office, a trauma bonding. So those are the things that I feel like you bring up. Nobody, when we’re laughing around the office or telling stories is like, remember that perfectly planned and executed campaign. It’s like, remember when we– Do those exist? I know, I know. I mean, once in a while, right? But yeah, it’s always like, remember that time that we overcame whatever. And so I love that. All right, well, thanks for joining me. Anything else that you think is important going on right now that the audience should know about?

Kristin Balliet: No, I think like as everyone continues to embrace AI, not to over talk it, but it’s just understanding that it’s not a replacement for anything. And I think that that’s the more that we shift how we’re working and how we think about things. It’s just shifting where that mindset’s going and really looking more for creative expertise, media expertise, strategic expertise to spend the time doing that part, right? Instead of doing the executional. And I think that that’s a really actually great opportunity for a lot of us.

Heather Riexinger: Yeah, that’s the fun part. That’s the fun part. Well, great. Well, thank