Christopher Whitely
Senior Director, Applied Analytics at Comcast/FreeWheel
Christopher Whitely is Senior Director of Data Science and Research at Comcast / Freewheel, working with the product and engineering teams to advance data-driven marketing at scale. He has spearheaded multiple successful proof-of-concepts over the past few years, in areas such as pre-ad decision linear viewership validation, lookalike modeling, national representativeness, and viewership assignment.
Previously, as part of Comcast EBI, Chris led applied analysis projects and developed business intelligence tools to identify drivers of content performance and enhance networks’ programming/promotional strategies. Chris also led cross-platform research efforts at the Weather Channel and ad sales research at the national cable networks of NBCU. He holds an MBA from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business and a BA from Middlebury College.
WATCH LIVE: may 4 @ 5:00pm – 5:30pm et
The marketing world is changing quickly, with new user and ad tech platforms, targeting approaches, and measurement capabilities emerging every day. Marketers require that their agencies and publisher partners optimally define their best prospective customers, and activate on these audiences using new platform opportunities such as linear addressable. Success in this environment requires talented people who can not only navigate uncertainty but also innovate. Data scientists are well suited to provide this leadership, as long as we enhance our skill sets with domain knowledge and product development skills. This session will review real-world examples of successful proof-of-concepts and the challenges/approaches used to tackle the data investigation, experiment with various modeled approaches and move the projects to production. It will also explore the key concepts of innovation and how can they be applied in the data science world, geared to the specific challenges in the media & entertainment industry today.