Media intelligence has an intelligence problem

For as long as I have been working in PR, comms and corporate marketing, every "marketing intelligence" or "media intelligence" tool I have used has been a platform inundated with data analytics and dashboards that are clunky and hard to read.

These categories of products always use the term "intelligence". And yet, when using them, they don't seem to provide much "intelligence" at all (if any). Yes, they provide data and insights, but that's not what "intelligence" actually is.

What intelligence actually means

According to the dictionary definition of intelligence, it is the general mental capacity to learn, understand, reason, solve problems, and adapt to new situations.

Does your current "media intelligence" platform learn? No. Does it understand why your brand needs to track a certain word and not another? No. Does it reason? Certainly not. Does it solve problems? 1000% no. And, can it adapt to new situations? I highly doubt it.

These platforms masquerading as "intelligence" tools have nothing intelligent about them, and yet it's so normalised for every marketing team, communications agency or social media firm to have access to one in one shape or another. And yet, it seems that no one is ever satisfied with the service they provide. Let alone challenging the assumption that they provide "intelligence".

Data is not intelligence

I'm not here to slam data. I love data. Analytics fuel efficiency. But, it can't be branded as an "intelligence" tool if all it does is provide a dashboard of data, usually guided by a confusing, outdated boolean search that still needs interpreting once you've got the results. And sometimes, the data isn't even that easy to read or interpret. Then what do you do?

Built for teams that need to move

Lean marketing and comms teams looking to move fast can't sit around playing with confusing dashboards and perfecting boolean searches when they should be acting on what's happening around them. These are teams that need to know exactly what's going on in their relevant industry, what the latest competitor or prospect move is, so they can make the right marketing decisions fast. Nowadays, that tends to mean publishing some form of content to stay relevant in that industry conversation. Or, it's reaching out to an important journalist or prospect to get your foot in the door before the competition does. You want to be the first to set the standard in a developing industry conversation. You can't fall behind, otherwise your brand goes stagnant, along with those critical revenue opportunities.

And this is only one tiny part of a larger picture of what a marketer and communications expert has to offer on a daily basis. It's just what is 'expected', and yet there's no time to get it right. That makes employees feel like they are 'behind', when in reality they just haven't got the right resources to support them.

Signal-to-publish intelligence

That's what trendJack was built to do. Offer real intelligence. And offer this intelligence without the headache of dashboards and analytics. Just real industry developments, on time, with insights into why it matters to you, what you should do about it, and then offers to even draft whatever it's suggestion to you is. That's what we call 'signal-to-publish' intelligence. And it's something that actually is intelligent in the way the definition says it is.

Does trendJack meet the definition?

1. Learn? Yes. It learns your voice, brand, things that matters by reading your website, social profiles. It also learns as it goes when you like or don't like what it suggests.

2. Understand? Yes, it lives inside your brand and understands what you need to know and why.

3. Reason? Certainly. It is agentic at its core.

4. Solve problems? Yes. It spots problems before you've had your morning coffee, and solves them too.

5. Adapt to new situations? Jack is always adapting based on what you tell him. He's a very willing learner.

That's what real "intelligence" is. And we're here to define the category.