Major Moments from Meltwater Summit 2024

More than 1,100 excited attendees filtered into New York City’s Glasshouse venue on June 25 and 26 for the 2024 edition of Meltwater Summit.

After the success of last year’s inaugural Summit event, attendees eagerly anticipated another opportunity to connect with peers, be inspired, glean insights from industry experts, and much more. 

Let's dive into all of the awesome happenings and takeaways!

Contents:

• 7 Notable Sessions from Summit 2024

• Onsite Activations Roundup

• Let's Hear it for Our Sponsors!

• What Attendees are Saying

• Get Ready for Next Year

7 Notable Sessions from Summit 2024

Keynote with Ryan Reynolds

The conference kicked off with a highly anticipated keynote fireside chat with Deadpool himself — actor, producer, and entrepreneur Ryan Reynolds. 

During this blockbuster session, Meltwater VP of Culture Zubair Timol chatted with Reynolds about his incredibly successful and diverse career. Beyond his many starring roles in high-grossing Hollywood films, Reynolds is also an avid entrepreneur with stakes in liquor company Aviation Gin, telecom brand Mint Mobile, and even a Welsh soccer team, Wrexham A.F.C. 

Attendees listened intently as Reynolds shared valuable insights on how he approaches creating unique marketing campaigns, how he uses humor in brand storytelling, and how he builds teams.

“You want people who are comfortable failing with integrity instead of winning with bullsh*t,” Reynolds said. “You’re looking for people who have a moral compass.”

When it comes to ad campaigns, Reynolds said he and his team believe in “fast-vertising” — creating ads quickly, testing what works, and not being afraid to fail.

“If you’re prepared to burn it all down and try something new… sometimes amazing things happen,” he said. “If it hasn’t manifested in some way, get rid of it, back burner it and move on. You gotta keep moving.”

On growing Mint Mobile, Aviation Gin, and Wrexham, Reynolds noted the value of interpersonal relationships and communication.

“I would argue it’s the personal relationships. It’s calling someone and showing up,” he said.

Meltwater Product Keynote

We then dove right into an exciting Product Keynote with Meltwater Chief Product Officer Chris Hackney. The session provided attendees with a peek under the hood of new Meltwater features that leverage AI to unlock productivity and make important tasks easier to complete.

These enhancements include:

• AI Search Assistant: Not a Boolean expert? Not a problem. This new functionality within our Social Listening solution helps users bypass Boolean queries and create basic or advanced searches with ease.
• AI-powered Daily Digests: Users can receive AI-curated overviews of the most relevant news of the day. These digests are vetted and delivered with topic highlights to reduce the time needed for manual review.
• Alerts: Our Spike Detection and Analysis alerts now include real-time topic analysis, enhanced narrative sentiment, and instant summaries and insights.

Want the full details on our Mid-Year 2024 Product Release? Check it all out right here.

Microsoft: Reinventing Communications with AI

The Product Keynote wasn’t the only session showcasing exciting new Meltwater innovations. During his session on how Microsoft approaches AI’s utility across the communications field, Microsoft's VP of Communications Strategy, Steve Clayton, also sat down with Meltwater's CEO, John Box, to explore our partnership with Microsoft and our new Meltwater Copilot Plugin.

This new plugin enables communications professionals to conversationally interact with the Meltwater platform to easily surface and understand insights, and fits in perfectly with Microsoft’s vision for AI helping to streamline content creation, news operations, social media, and more.

“Replacing repetitive mundane tasks is definitely the main goal of AI,” Clayton said.

Learn more about our Microsoft partnership and the new Meltwater Copilot Plugin right here.

How NASCAR Reaches New Fans

Audiences were also treated to a high-octane session with NASCAR, exploring how America’s #1 motorsport has grown its fanbase through authentic engagement with a younger demographic.

NASCAR's VP of Communications, Eric Ryan, sat down with veteran sportscaster Shannon Spake to discuss successful strategies for reaching a younger, more diverse audience.

These strategies have included licensing and merchandising and successful initiatives within the gaming and e-sports space, which has served as a perfect on-ramp for younger audiences and even the next generation of racers.

“We’re trying to target a younger and more diverse audience. Your business depends on it. The insights we get from Meltwater help us tell those diverse stories,” Ryan said.

Purpose-Driven Communications

In addition to audience expansion strategies, attendees also learned how they could be more purposeful in their communications during a session with award-winning corporate social responsibility communications expert Hope Arcuri Armanus. 

With experience at both the International Rescue Committee and Verizon, Armanus walked attendees through how they can approach CSR initiatives as more than just a box to check. 

How? By employing the “Three C’s” in your communications strategy:

• Courageous: Be clear about what you stand for and what you don’t.
• Catalyzing: Know your role in the change you’re trying to make for people.
• Counter-Cultural: Go against the grain in order to make your comms break through. 

“This is a guide that can work at companies and organizations of any size, including Fortune 100s,” Armanus said. “It will help you reach and resonate with millennials and Gen Z, and it will help you break through on your responsible business initiatives and impact.”

A Playbook for TikTok Success

TikTok’s immense popularity has left many brands wondering how to launch effective strategies and campaigns on the platform, but it’s a tough code to crack. 

Thankfully, Neil Cameron, TikTok’s Head of Canadian Agency Partnerships, was at Summit to give attendees a few pointers for creating engaging ad content on the platform and how to adapt to user preferences that are constantly changing. 

Here are a few takeaways:

• People are spending more time on TikTok First Ads
• Low-fi video does not mean low quality – avoid glossiness
• Leverage sound and use editing techniques
• Feature people (creators, employees, customers)

Cameron encouraged attendees to embrace “creative bravery” in their TikTok content.

“The outcome of creative bravery is deeper community connections,” he said.

Making the Case for Brand-Building with ZoomInfo

ZoomInfo's CMO, Bryan Law, and Evidenza's Co-founder, Peter Weinberg, hosted a session on why top-of-funnel brand-building is vital to organizations, and shared strategies for making the case to decision-makers who may be skeptical.

They encouraged the marketers in the audience to:

• Maximize your brand’s mental and physical availability.
• Use stories and emotions to build stronger memories and leave a more lasting impression on potential customers.
• Know your key brand assets (colors, words, spokespeople, etc.) and constantly reinforce them.
• Target all potential buyers, not just those in your market.

Onsite Activations Roundup

In addition to the inspiring content and the many (many) takeaways, attendees also got to enjoy a number of onsite activations, including a robot doughnut machine, notebooks customized by an onsite calligrapher, nitrogen ice cream, a chalkboard wall that attendees added to throughout the event, and much more.

The conference also featured a Meltwater Product Demo Hub and Boolean doctors who were available to review attendees’ queries in Meltwater’s Social Listening solution, Explore, and offer pointers.

Our mCommunity Lounge was a valuable resource for people to learn more about the Meltwater platform and form connections with other customers, and they also gave out badges so attendees could showcase what industry they were in, as well as (extremely comfortable) Meltwater branded socks and sweatshirts!

Want to learn more about how mCommunity can connect you with peers and help you leverage Meltwater to its fullest potential? Click here!

Let's Hear it for Our Sponsors!

Meltwater Summit 2024 wouldn’t have been possible without the support of our fantastic sponsors. Thank you so much for helping make this another amazing, unforgettable event!

• Asana
• Cvent
• Blackbird.AI
• Converseon
• Ceros
• Exclaimer
• Social Factor
• Dig Human
• TVEyes
• Sugarwish
• WE Communications
• Moody's
• Aviation American Gin

What Attendees are Saying

We're grateful to all of this year's awesome attendees, who were engaged throughout the entire event and enthusiastically sharing their favorite moments and takeaways. Let's see what they're saying on social media.

Get Ready for Next Year

Another Meltwater Summit is in the books. We know, we can't believe it either. But the good news is we're running it back and already working on the 2025 edition!

Interested in attending? Keep an eye on this page for more information in the coming weeks.

Once again, thank you so much to our attendees, speakers, and sponsors. See you next year!