Recapping Quirks Chicago

Welcome back to Intellicast! It has been a couple of weeks, but we are back with a couple of special guests. Joining Brian Peterson this week are Gabby Blados and Matthew Alexander – both of whom attended Quirks Chicago.

Kicking off the episode, the trio discuss the recent eclipse and what they did to view it. Everyone agreed that it was a once-in-a-lifetime event that they were glad they were able to see.

Next, Gabby and Matthew give a breakdown of Quirks Chicago. They talked about the overall tone of the event and how it was more lively than other conferences they had attended, especially ones just out of the COVID lockdown. Gabby mentioned how she felt a sense of camaraderie from everyone attending.

Matthew and Gabby then get into some of the major themes and topics from the conference. In what should surprise no one, AI was the biggest topic. They noticed a shift in attendees toward embracing AI, where there was much more hesitancy in previous years. Data quality was another big topic at Quirks, and sometimes it overlapped with AI.

Gabby and Matthew talked about their favorite session, which got them both thinking about how we, as an industry, ask about household income and, with cultural changes, whether there needs to be a change. They mentioned how there could be challenges in defining household income, especially among multigenerational households, households where adult children have moved back in, or ones that have extended family living with them. This leads to a deeper conversation about how current screening questions about household income could lead to the exclusion of certain respondents because of how they interpret the definition of household income.

Gabby and Matthew then talked about their experience at a session where Johnsonville and C+R Research presented how they navigated building a new campaign to bring everyone together while avoiding pitfalls that other brands have encountered recently. Matthew pointed out that he was impressed by Johnsonville’s willingness to acknowledge their initial missteps and their commitment to improve through collaboration. The conversation had Brian thinking about a movie he recently watched, Flaming Hot, that had parallels about ensuring you address cultural differences appropriately.

Finally, Matthew and Gabby tell Brian that it was announced that next year’s conference was moving out of downtown Chicago to a venue closer to O’Hare airport. Matthew and Gabby talk about how, while they enjoyed the downtown location, they were excited about the potential of the new venue.

Thanks for tuning in!

We have just released the 2024 edition of our annual report on the online sample industry, The Sample Landscape. To stay ahead of the curve of what’s going on in the online sample industry, be sure to download your copy now. Download Here: www.emi-rs.com/the-sample-landscape/

Did you miss one of our webinars or want to download some of our whitepapers and reports? You can find everything on our Resources page on our website here.