Gabriella Mirabelli has been living a sort of “renaissance woman” life: from award-winning documentary director, to change management at Price Waterhouse Cooper, to co-founder of Anatomy Media, where she also hosts her own weekly podcast, Up Next. But it's Mirabelli’s reputation as a futurist, with a focus on analyzing and forecasting Millennial and Gen Z digital native media behaviors, that sparked this interview.

Don't miss the myriad insights she shared, gleaned from all those experiences and areas of expertise; and don’t miss hearing her infectious laugh or comments on Colin Kaepernick to Frank Oz. Learn what our prefrontal cortex has to do with how we choose content, how community creates trust, and how brands can create fans in Episode 19 of Insider InSites from MediaVillage, with Head of Content Strategy and host, E.B. Moss.

Here's a topline:  

Moss:   To do a lot of what you do requires you really have to have fingers on the pulse.

Mirabelli:  We like to say we know smart creative. The industry has really changed since we launched. The change in how we do our business, even how much space you need, how the technology supports what you do, how much was home brew and handmade versus, how much is tech. I saw anecdotally that changes were happening... this is why I started surveying. But my favorite focus group is the carpool when I'm dropping kids off to lacrosse and they're trapped in my car. I remember asking, "Do you guys watch TV?", and they, like, laughed. This was funny.  

Moss:  It's not their first screen, so to speak?

Mirabelli:  It's not their first screen and it's not their go-to content. Certainly, when you're talking Gen-Z, YouTube is where a lot of them are hanging out. And they might binge on shows, or they might not. What they binge on might just as easily be CollegeHumor, or Rooster Teeth. It's just really different. I noticed that with my children: back when TiVo first came out they liked pausing it. They wanted what they wanted, when they wanted, how they wanted. 

What I found is price point is a part of experience, but it's not the whole story of experience. Access is also part of your experience, ease is part of your experience.  

Moss:   How do young Millennials discover and consume content?

Mirabelli: More than half through their social channels. And comparing broadcasters with over-the-top providers brand-recognition it didn't go so well .... The broadcast networks were all around the same 31%, but Netflix did really well. And so then we looked at this six-screen touch-points. Where are we touching the consumer, and how are we building their awareness? We looked at on-air where you would expect some real difference, because our broadcasters have this and our over-the-tops do not - a huge advantage. They should be working that advantage while they have it, digital advertising.

We found that social was highly, highly correlated with brand-recognition. It had an R-squared of point seven. What does that mean? It means that 70% of the differential between the different network brand-recognition scores could be attributed to engagement on social, specifically Facebook.

...Brands need to understand how the landscape is different. They used to own the pipe, you were in the ecosystem already and they pumped it at you. This is how you discovered it, and it was all this self-contained thing. And you're a pretty big muckity-muck if you're, you know, your network. Now, Facebook is enormous. I mean, let's remember, between Facebook and Google, they own the ad world.

Moss:  Back to Millennials - they are sort of one big community because of their shared experience of how they feel about media and content, where they find it, and digital word of mouth. Is that sharing, that digital word of mouth, the most trusted thing?

Mirabelli:  Well, that, and also authenticity. I mean, we had this recently - the Colin Kaepernick ad for Nike would be a great example of ... brand value overlaid into current events, and speaking out about it, and being aware that some people will not agree with that brand value. Some people will feel differently but being consistent with what they say their brand is, and being authentic, and what we saw in terms of the uptick in sales was it was very effective.

Moss:  On one of your Up Next podcasts, you interviewed our founder of MediaVillage, Jack Myers, back in June, who, is really passionate about diversity, and inclusion. So tell me how brands expressing that authenticity, that purpose is resonating with Millennials, as well?  

Mirabelli:  Well, I think it's huge. I think diversity, quite apart from whether or not it resonates with anybody, makes for more effective products. You could argue that the trouble Facebook had with its Cambridge Analytica situation, maybe if they'd had some more diverse teams, somebody would have thought, “what might happen? How could this be misused?” I mean, you just ... you get more diverse opinions in any situation, and you're going to have better problem solving.