Real communication? Ditch the guesswork and admit when you're wrong!

The event which took place in the premises of DOX+, Prague on Wednesday, May 24, welcomed almost four hundred people from communication departments of important brands and institutions. Richard Shotton, British author of The Choice Factory bestseller (2018), was the key speaker in the first program block. In his book he unveiled principals of behavioural sciences and explained their effective application in marketing.

Having published the new book The Illusion of Choice recently, he provided the listeners in Prague with valuable advice on how to deal with frequent false assumptions about consumers’ decision making and what impact this can have. “Of course, there's value in coming up with a great service and fine-tuning a product or trying to make people it. But we forget that the most important thing is to remove barriers to access to it, to remove that friction. That a seemingly small simplification of the process of purchasing, paying for a subscription and so on can have a huge effect,” Shotton explained, offering the audience a range of research and case studies from the industry.

Beyond declarations

Shotton pointed out that admitting one's flaws can support customers’ trust, and that the alleged desire for uniqueness that your product or service should promise is something you don’t have to take much seriously.

Our need to belong to some community, simply to fit in is stronger because it is a bias the evolution imprinted into our subconsciousness. It is even possible to measure it, Hana Kloučková, the owner of the research agency Confess Research knows very well. Her company focuses on research on contradictions between the conscious declarations of consumers and their subconscious reactions.

Based on the number of case studies of well-known Czech brands such as Dr. Max, or the Czech branch of Greenpeace, Kloučková showed how big the differences between what respondents claim and what they feel can often be. To detect them, the agency uses various neuroscientific methods including EEG or monitoring of electrodermal activity, i.e. skin conductivity, which can reliably detect emotional excitement operating on a completely unconscious level.

"For brands, it represents great potential and at the same time a competitive advantage. Especially if they focus on the “dark horses” segment. These are particularly moments where respondents declare average importance, but on a subconscious level it turns out to be strongly relevant to them," Kloučková revealed and proved that relying only on the respondents' statements does not bring a complex picture.

Responsible influencers

Jessika Aro, a Finnish investigative journalist, and the author of Putin's Trolls, shared a powerful personal story. She had experienced the power and aggression of offensive Russian propaganda, and through a large number of articles, photographs and statements of people connected to official Russian structures, she proved that for the ruling representatives, information is not a tool for education, but it is a weapon. Aro was invited to Prague by the guarantor of the last program block the association NELEŽ, whose goal is to fight against disinformation and educate advertisers in not supporting disinformation servers with profits from advertising.

Jonáš Čumrik, former Czech YouTuber spoke about how the influencer scene has changed in recent years. As the Strategy & Idea Director in Notino, he shared the company’s approach to influencers’ collaboration. Instead of a generic metrics as the number of followers the most popular influencers have at particular markets (Notino operates in almost three dozen European countries), the beauty giant focuses more on community building.

"Our main concern is that influencers enjoy creating content. Then they do it because they want to, not because there is currently a promotion for that particular product and ten other celebrities are recommending it. And these people can only have two or five thousand followers," Čumrik said. Notino is coming back to the way social media content was created in the early days of the influencer era. At that time, the entertainment was the main purpose. The economic profit followed years later.

Will AI replace marketing and PR department?

AI is a buzzword of the last few months and it was also discussed at the Communication Summit. Martina Bechyňová (Liftago), Peter Šebo (PS:Digital) and Tomáš Vitásek (Monitora Media) competed in the RICPIC presentation competition and tried to answer the question when or if AI replaces people from PR and marketing . Their conclusions varied, but the speakers agreed that in the upcoming transformation of marketing communications only those who will learn how to profit from advantages AI brings can succeed. Martina Bechyňská from Liftago persuaded the audience the most and won the contest.

Useful advice on how to become an imaginary winner in presenting anything was then shared by Marek Hrkal, the founder of odprezentuj, who collaborates with Blue Events on mentoring speakers. According to him, the Czech style of presenting at conferences needs to be improved, especially in terms of the mental attitude of the speakers, the willingness to speak openly and, last but not at least, also in the real passion for the topic. "If you can't find passion for your topic, you can't feel that spark in yourself, you can't talk about it in an engaging way over a beer, you'll miss out on a presentation on a big stage," advises Hrkal.

The sixth edition of the Communication Summit conference was held under the auspices of the Union of Industry and Transport of the Czech Republic and the Senate Standing Committee on Media. It was supported in partnership by Plzeňský Prazdroj, Kofola, the European Commission, MarketuUp, Monitora, Seznam.cz, Odprezentuj, Confess Research, Notino, Papelote, etc.

Contact: Jan Patera, +420 731 421 751, [email protected], www.blueevents.eu

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