Most brands find out whether their advertising works after the money is spent. When Listen Labs launched its first out-of-home campaign in New York, the team did it the other way around. They put every major decision in front of real people first, from the value proposition to the faces on the billboards and kept listening after launch.
In this session, Head of Insights Eric Knoben and Head of Marketing Jin Baik walk through the full research loop behind the campaign:
- Foundational interviews with 200 marketing leaders (our ideal customers) and with New Yorkers, which set the creative direction.
- Copy and creative testing that overturned two of the team’s own assumptions.
- A mid-campaign iteration to billboards already on the street, driven by live audience feedback.
- A conversational brand tracker that set a baseline before launch and is now measuring lift.
Key takeaways:
- A repeatable pre-test → test → retest framework for creative and messaging decisions on real marketing timelines.
- How to use simulated audiences as a fast filter, so only the strongest ideas earn a full study with real people.
- Real examples of research overturning internal assumptions, including on positioning and on whether to say “AI” at all.
- How to measure brand impact through open-ended conversation, not just impressions.
- How to turn findings into a ready-to-run playbook for cultural moments.
This session is for insights and market research leaders, brand and marketing leaders and anyone who has to show that customer research changes decisions. It’s especially useful for teams that want research to keep pace with their campaigns.
