The Weather Company’s Sheri Bachstein Forecasts a Positive Future (Video)
Media companies invest hundreds of thousands -- even millions -- of dollars in activations during the five-day Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. While these beachfront, hotel suite and yacht experiences house meetings, meals and extravagant entertainment in beautiful surroundings, few capture the essence and brand equity of the company that’s funding them. One notable exception is The Weather Company, an IBM Business. Housed on several floors of a small but luxurious and well air-conditioned modern building just a block off the well-traveled Croisette thoroughfare and steps from the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès where the creative community holds forth with speakers, panels and awards presentations, The Weather Company created a true brand experience, which CEO Sheri Bachstein describes in our Legends & Leadership conversation. (Watch the video above.)
Sheri also shares her early experience as a storm chaser, leading teams literally into the eye of the hurricane and following tornados as a TV producer, which led her into several roles with The Weather Channel and to her current role leading The Weather Company. Weather forecasting is a $2.5 billion business, part of an $8 billion weather industry that impacts not only every consumer but every business category. In Cannes, The Weather Company opened its experience to industry professionals, locals and tourists, reflecting the universality of weather, its impact, influence and relevance.
In our conversation, Sheri explains how The Weather Company, which includes The Weather Channel app, weather.com and Weather Underground (and licenses its The Weather Channel brand to Allen Media Group), offers fully integrated partnership opportunities as erratic weather patterns cause marketers to pay more attention to weather patterns if they want to maximize their business. "We have 400 advertising triggers across different verticals that brands can incorporate in their campaigns," she points out. "We've already done the AI. We've already done the science for them. Our weather triggers are integrated into several demand and supply-side platforms and can be used directly by marketers and agencies globally. We are a tech provider as well, providing AI interactive tech tools for advertisers. We have a dynamic creative tool and our chat bot delivers insights back to the brand, not just the consumer."
Acknowledging that advertisers are in the early stages of understanding the opportunities available through The Weather Company, Sheri expects the technologies, data, marketing insights and advertising opportunities to be increasingly valuable to them as the "climate continues to shift and we have these erratic patterns. We all need to be prepared, make decisions, and hopefully stay safe."
View my engaging, informative and important conversation with Sheri above and here.
Jack Myers
Media Ecologist, Founder: MediaVillage and Advancing Diversity Hall of Honors Jack Myers is a media ecologist and founder of MediaVillage, the media and advertising community’s leading resource for market intelligence, education, business connection…
