Why this head of insights thinks data is critical to reaching untapped fandoms

Charlene Polite Corley, VP, content and insights, Nielsen Global Marketing, is set to speak at the upcoming Marketing Brew Summit on September 30. Ahead of the event, we caught up with her to hear about why representation is critical to winning attention and developing fandoms.

What do you think most marketers get wrong in their advertising today?

I think treating inclusion as optional instead of as a growth strategy is a miss. Representation isn’t just a top-of-funnel “feel good” metric; it’s an essential step in winning attention and driving conversion. For example, Black audiences average about two hours more a week online than the average consumer, but over 60% of Black audiences want more representation in ads online, often feeling misrepresented.

Where do you see the biggest gap between how marketers think audiences behave and how they actually behave?

One great example is fandoms. This is still an untapped element of identity, connection, and community for many audiences. Fandoms are chosen cultures. Anime offers a great case study for this: Over 45 billion minutes of anime content were streamed in the US last year. That is absolutely mainstream.

Five years from now, what’s the marketing “best practice” of today that you think we’ll all look back on and cringe at?

I do think the pace with which we are trusting, deploying, and displacing with AI is going to feel unbelievable once we’re able to pause and do an assessment of the impact. I’m curious to see how trust, loyalty, and brand health continue to evolve in this new normal.

Name one brand or organization that’s putting out advertising you’re regularly jealous of. What makes it so good?

Nike very frequently gets it right for me. The passion, the simplicity in storytelling, and very frequently the speed with which they will get an ad or billboard running at the perfect moment are great to watch.

The summit’s themes are insights, intuition, and integration. Which of those three is the most underrated right now—and which one are marketers leaning on too much?

I’m biased, so I’m going to go with “insights.” We have a ton of data points and metrics. We don’t always have context or storytelling around them. Figuring that out is my favorite part of the work.