Are you just using data to report on things? This session explores how to unlock data's potential as a powerful engine for creative inspiration.

VML's Global Lead of Creative Data, Jason Carmel, challenges you to view data not as a rearview mirror, but as a source of limitless creative fuel for your brand.

It’s time to expand the definition of Creative Technology to include Creative Data.

Key Takeaways

Where the pitfalls lurk:  

  • In the complexity of creative technology.  
  • In the different types of team structures involved in this kind of work - from small project teams to large multi-vendor projects. 
  • In standard project processes - from pre-production to installation and support.  
  • In the scoping and research process - common issues encountered. 
  • In all the phases in R&D  

Guidance on avoiding the pitfalls:  

Grounded in Marshall McLuhan’s insight that “we make the tool, and the tool remakes us,” event participants are invited to reimagine their roles, not just as advertisers, but as meaning-makers, provocateurs, and cultural architects, exploring how emerging technologies are redefining not only what it means to create, but also what creative work is expected to achieve. 

Richard Brehm has a 30-year career in the entertainment industry, working in diverse capacities including marketing executive at Universal Pictures, development executive, screenwriter and most recently as writer and producer of documentaries for film and television.  His documentaries have aired on Netflix, Disney+, NatGeo, NBC, HBO, A&E, History, Syfy and many others.  He has extensive experience working in family entertainment, including as executive producer of the 8-hour series, Creating the World of Harry Potter for Warner Bros.

Soft Skills / Hard Results 

Empathy and Storytelling in the Age of AI and Restructure

This may be soft skills, but it's a hard talk - about the two oldest technologies that still run everything: empathy and storytelling. This session reframes office politics as narrative power and shows you how to ethically build influence, manage up, and protect your team. Without selling out your soul.

From Silence to Signals

What Global Data Reveals About the Real Drivers of Creative Performance

The challenge:

Creative Operations are under mounting pressure to do more with less.

Bad response:

Cut costs.

Better response: 

Pursue empathy not efficiency.

What Signals has found: