The inaugural Zignal Summit is history — and what a day it was! The room was filled to capacity with some of the world’s leading brands and agencies, all excited to hear about Artificial Intelligence and best practices from industry experts on topics like crisis communications and brand marketing. The day cultimated with a keynote from three time Super Bowl winning head coach Mike Shanahan who spoke about implementing the first data-driven coaching programs adopted from Silicon Valley to ultimately create a successful NFL organization.

Social Intelligence in the Age of AI

The day kicked off with an informative discussion around Artificial Intelligence and its role in marketing and communications. After a brief background on AI and Machine Learning from Zignal President Adam Beaugh, Logan Rosenstein from NVIDIA delivered an articulate presentation for communications professionals on how machine learning works, citing specific business examples. Steve Mnich from IBM discussed how advances in cognitive computing and AI are helping business professionals to work smarter and faster. Specifically, AI automates the process of sifting through large sets of data and executing routine processes. By quickly surfacing relevant stories and identifying trends in the media, AI helps marketing and communications professionals to be more productive — and devote more of their time to higher value tasks.

Risk Mitigation

The second session focused on creating a crisis response plan and leveraging data to manage a PR crisis. Brands and agencies such as Boeing, Uber, H+K Strategies and The Jeff Eller Group discussed how they leverage data to respond to crises — and know when not to engage. Data can identify crises in real-time, providing teams with the most valuable commodity in a crisis: time. With a solid, pre-prepared plan, a potential PR nightmare can be quelled at the source so that no lasting damage is done to the crown jewel of the company — brand reputation.

Brand Marketing

In today’s marketplace, consumers are the primary creators of brand content — spanning Likes, comments, Instagram photos and social shares. As such, brands are no longer in control of their own narrative and consumers now hold tremendous influence. During this session, brands and agencies including AirBNB, Ketchum PR and FleishmanHillard discussed how they leverage content and influencers to create earned media content that tell their brand story. At the same time, companies can use data to identify brand advocates and leverage their unique content to promote their own brand and messages.

Creating a Data-Driven Culture

The tsunami of digital and social media data is both a blessing and a curse for communications teams. Every day, a brand creates a massive digital footprint. At the same time, brands can leverage this data to provide more context around a crisis, earnings or product announcement or competitive intelligence. During this session, executives from Facebook, Brunswick and Accenture discussed how to create a data driven culture. These session experts all stressed the importance of adopting and embracing data and visualizations in their day-to-day workflows — or risk getting left behind.

Super Bowl Champion Coach Mike Shanahan

The day closed out with an inspiring speech from three-time Super Bowl champion head coach Mike Shanahan. He told stories of how he consulted with some of the finest minds in Silicon Valley while coaching the 49ers to learn how to leverage data to maximize the potential of any organization. He also discussed how successful teams live by “the four Ps:” Passion, Positivity, Preparation and Perseverance. For Coach Shanahan, these four attributes created the right recipe for three successful Super Bowl wins.

Thank you to everybody who attended the inaugural Zignal Labs summit, and we can’t wait to see you again next year!

If you would like to learn more about how Artificial Intelligence simplifies the conversation around your brand, download our White Paper – “Artificial Intelligence for Communications and Marketing Teams”