Two days at Sofitel Melbourne on Collins gave me a bit of everything: inspiration, a few fizzers, some genuinely useful ideas I can take back to work, and a reality check on what “gala” now seems to mean. Overall, I would call it a good conference with moments that pushed into great. Day 2 clearly did the heavy lifting for anyone wearing a market research hat. Day 1 had bright spots, then drifted. Here is what stuck, what did not, and what I will do differently because of it.
Why Day 2 won me over
Day 2 felt like the conference remembered its core audience. We got practical frames, evidence you can use, and a sense of where human judgement fits with new tools.
Nudging through noise – The Behavioural Architects / News Corp
The Nudging Through Noise paper was my favourite of the entire conference and clearly the best for me. It showed how behavioural nudges can be applied to advertising by changing copy in line with behavioural science principles, then testing it with AI. This was a brilliant mix of rigour and practicality. It gave me confidence that nudging is not just theory but something we can apply directly to comms and creative. Clear, evidence based, and memorable.
From presentation to documentary – The Practice Insights
This was the lightbulb moment. The idea is simple: stop delivering only decks, start packaging key findings as a short documentary. People remember stories, not slide 47. A tight 5 to 8 minute doco can stitch together the human voice, the why behind the numbers, and the one or two decisions you want a leadership team to make. I left thinking this is a real deliverable, not a gimmick. I can see it at the end of brand work, segmentation, even U and A. It is also a tidy way to land insight with stakeholders who will never read a long report no matter how pretty the charts.
The Canva session – Purespectrum / Canva
A case study Balancing Real Human Data and AI in Modern Research Ecosystems showing how a team is integrating human research craft alongside AI. The point was balance: AI for speed and heavy lifting, humans for rules, checks, and judgement. Practical and replicable.
Other Day 2 sessions
There was also a very technical paper on how AI can help deliver stronger human insights. This was impressive and very technical. The presenter clearly lives deep in the AI stack. I took the point that better human insights can be the outcome of good AI use, not a casualty of it. I would need a second pass to catch all of it, yet it did its job. It pushed me to dig deeper after the event.
Keynotes
Turia Pitt was outstanding. The story that stayed with me was not the big headlines everyone knows. It was the detail about daily bandage removal, excruciating every time, and a nurse urging her to choose to go first. Take control of the worst thing in your day, then the rest gets easier. That is resilience translated into a practical act. She also had us up doing squats, and she did it with a dry wit, so you could not help but lean in.
The CMO panel, moderated by Jenn Ten Seldam, was also a highlight, with sharp comments about risk, data, and the role of researchers that stayed with me.
The Wankernomics duo closed with humour, although I have to say I have seen most of the jokes prior – maybe I’m spending too much time on TikTok.
Day 1, the hits and the misses
Day 1 started with energy then slid around. There were bright points. There were also sessions that were engaging in the room but did not stick 24 hours later.
Dividing for unity – 89 Degrees East / Hartward Strategic
This was excellent. A polarising attitude space, six segments across the spectrum, and then the live “worm” approach to test which language unites rather than splits. You could see how the right phrasing can bring people together across beliefs without watering the message down to mush. Gold for government and for any brand speaking to broad audiences. Clear Day 1 standout.
It’s all about confidence, baby – House of Brand
The paper compared agree or disagree scales for brand attributes with a confidence scale. The useful bit was the focus on the messy middle, the neither option, and what partly agree might really mean when people are hedging. The data showed slight differences. Interesting, not earth shattering. I asked why not avoid scale drama entirely and use binary brand associations. The answer made sense from their perspective. They needed more points on the scale for driver analysis. Fair enough. I left thinking this is one to keep in the toolbox, not one to rebuild your tracking program around.
100 Lunches with Strangers – Kaley Chu
Loved this. The set up was honest. She realised her social circle looked just like her, so she set herself the task of having 100 lunches with strangers. It changed her life, widened her circle, and led to the keynote and the book. It is a reminder that you do not need a grand plan to shift your world. You need a habit that forces you out of your lane.
Other Day 1 sessions
Joanna Lepore – I enjoyed it in the room. First speaker advantage should have helped it stick because primacy and recency are real, yet nothing concrete survived the next day for me. That is not a criticism of her as a presenter. I think futurist talks just do not grab me unless there is a very clear line to action.
Dr Catherine Ball – Big entrance, confident, playful, and the whole cyborg-hero motif made it fun. She was irreverent in a good way, and it was a joy to watch. Again, the specifics did not lodge. It was like a very good coffee that lifts you for an hour, then you move on.
Youth All-Star Band – Promising on paper, disappointing on stage. Four young people, a chance to burst some myths, and a good brief, but it felt ho-hum. Some of this may be my lens. As an older person you listen to “we are overwhelmed” and you think, wait until you have kids. Even so, with a stronger mentor and a tighter structure this could have worked. As presented, it did not go to the heart of anything. It was not insightful, so it sits in the misses column for me.
Creating the insights career of your dreams – A career story about moving into a dream role at Taronga Zoo after a big corporate background. Nice arc, just not what I wanted at that point. By then I was itching to get back to actual research content, so this one skimmed off me.
Unthinking, human thought has been rewired by technology, plus panel – The paper argued that IQ scores peaked in the 90s and have plateaued, with digital life changing how brains work. I am not fully convinced. The counter might be that the test is stale while people are evolving, so it is the measure that is lagging. The paper was well set up, with decent proof points. The panel that followed could have been a killer, yet it wandered. Classic media training sin. The moderator asked a question, then speakers answered Q plus one, sliding to their favourite topic. They were all interesting people. The discussion just did not cohere. Credit to the moderator Lyndal Spooner who did try to pull it back.
The logistics, the vendors, and the gala that was not Sofitel on Collins gets a tick
The hotel worked, rooms were comfortable, and the food during the day was excellent. The vendor space was easy to work, and the conversations were worthwhile. I met new people and reconnected with old colleagues, which for me is one third of the reason you show up.
The ACMI “gala” is the outlier. The museum is lovely. The event though felt like foyer drinks. Loud, impersonal, slow food, a dance floor with no lights and no atmosphere. I brought my partner, which added another $250. There was not $250 worth of value on the night. Costs are up for everyone, I get it, yet words matter. If you call it a gala, people set their expectations accordingly. This did not meet that expectation. Rename it networking drinks and no one minds. That said I managed to bust some moves on the dance floor and enjoyed the banter and fun with Amber and Tina – recruiters extraordinaire.
What I will do differently after HIC
The point of a conference is not to take photos of lanyards. It is to leave with changes you will make. Here are mine.
- Pilot the documentary format On the right projects I will propose a short documentary alongside the deck. The measure of success will be simple: do decision makers recall the story and act on it a month later. If it works, it becomes a standard line item.
- Make trust crisp again I will review how we define and track trust, with an eye to clean wording that does not double count familiarity or general favourability. I will bring System 1 and System 2 into how we frame decisions to clients, not as a lecture, but as a shared language for how people choose.
- Design AI plus human workflows Borrowing from the Spectrum and Canva case, I will map where AI saves time and where human checks must live. That means codifying prompts, documenting sanity checks, and being explicit about what the machine is allowed to guess and what it is not.
- Use nudges with receipts I will apply the tools from the nudging session on the next campaign that competes in a noisy category. The test will be behavioural, not only attitudinal.
Things that were said by CMOs that stuck with me
- “Researchers should be the co-pilot to a CMO.”
- “Empower CMOs and their teams to be truly data-led.”
- “Stop the expensive bets.”
- “Close the confidence gaps.”
- “Don’t disappear into the conversation.”
- “No big hidden reveals.”
Ideas that stuck with me
- The reminder that all the video editing suite tools are already at our fingertips – so creating short docu-findings is accessible now, not aspirational.
- Tools to explore like Descript.com and Murph.ai, plus the idea of using Research Bites as mini-docs.
- Setting rules for AI use: don’t trust blindly, always check, clarify, and verify.
- Practising structured prompts with a prompt canvas, and asking AI to summarise processes.
- Running a festival of AI with the team – playful, hands on, and a way to build confidence.
Final verdict
Good conference, sometimes great. Day 2 carried it. Day 1 had moments but less lasting value. The hotel was excellent. The “gala” needs a rethink or at least a rename. I met people worth knowing and left with ideas worth trying from nudging advertising copy to confidence scales, from docu-findings to AI rules. The vendor hall was valuable. For me, that is a win in my book.
Note: I have tried to keep this very human. These are reflections upon my lived memory, which I believe is the most salient test of what truly stuck with me. Apologies if any references to sessions or papers are not entirely precise, but this is what I remember.