Customer Salience Summit 2026: On-Demand

The 2026 Customer Salience Summit was a one-day hybrid event exploring how insight teams can take the lead in building a customer-centric culture. Access the on-demand recording to watch the Summit now.

FlexMR hosted an exciting and diverse range of presentations, client-side panels and interactive workshops, complete with valuable opportunities to connect and learn directly from fellow attendees. Both online and in-person, we dissected the challenges facing the market research and insight industry today, the intersection of data, customer experience and driving marketing success - plus much more.

Our experts investigated and explored how client-side research teams can use marketing fundamentals to deliver long-term value, create a culture of customer-centric decision making and solve some of the most pressing challenges in modern business.

Session	Speakers	Description
The State of Customer Salience in 2026	Paul Hudson	How is Customer Salience evolving in the age of AI? What trends are driving customer-centric decision making today and how can savvy brands stay ahead of the curve? Find out in this opening address from FlexMR CEO Paul Hudson.
The Hot Seat: Why Customer Closeness Breaks Down and What Happens Next	Jeremy Woodman & Sarah Jousiffe	Two brave insight leaders face The Hot Seat - a grilling about what happens when the best laid plans go wrong, customer closeness breaks down and how to recover.
Customer Closeness: What We Learned at Sainsbury's	Nicola Stevens & Kathryn Eastwood	Discover practical advice and first-hand insight about what it takes to build a programme of customer closeness in this fireside chat with Kathryn Eastwood, Head of Insight - Food Commercial at Sainsbury's.
A Match Made in Heaven? Speed Dating With Stakeholders & Customers	Morgan Arnell	Commercial leaders rarely have time for in-depth immersion or full day workshops. In this session, you'll discover how to deliver maximum exposure to customers, and generate long-lasting empathy with speed dating style workshops.
Step into the World of Your Customers (and Bring the Business With You)	Bethan Blakeley	An in-depth walkthrough of three methods you can employ today to step into the world of your customers and bring stakeholders with you on the journey.
Battle Panel: The #1 Tactic for Communicating Customer Insight	Isabelle Barker, Natalie Delahunty, Francesca Miller & Dan Siddle	Four brave contenders take to the stage to pitch (and defend) their most effective, engaging tactic for communicating customer insight.
Making Insight Memorable: What We Learned at The Coventry Building Society	Emma Baxter & Nicola Stevens	Insight only matters if it changes something. Discover how Emma Baxter, Head of Research and Insight at The Coventry Building Society affects action through creative and effective communications.
Moving Beyond the PowerPoint Deck	Hannah Charlton	An exploration of how we move beyond reports and presentations to create genuine organisational engagement with insight. Drawing on real examples, this session explores how the cadence and rhythm of when and how insight lands ultimately shapes decision-making.
Logos, Pathos & Ethos: Persuasion in the Age of AI	Lucy Davison	Great insight deserves great communication. Discover the art to writing a great creative brief for your next research project, how AI can help, and where the human touch matters.
Customer Salience: What Makes Customer-Centric Organisations Work?	Nick Rich, Paul Griffiths & Natalie Moyce	Over the past year, Natalie Moyce has been exploring the academic foundations of Customer Salience and what the evidence says it takes to build strong decision-making networks. Join us for a preliminary discussion about the results.
Decision Communities: What We Learnt at HMRC	Veena Natarajan & Nicola Stevens	What does it take to create confidence in decisions? Listen in on this fireside chat between Nicola Stevens and Veena Natarajan to find out.
Mapping the Future of Insight and How Decisions are Made	Hannah Hartrey	Explore how stakeholder relationships, embedded partnerships and a customer-first mindset helped Aldermore transform the role of insight from answering questions to influencing strategy.
Activating Insight with Behavioural Science: The Importance of Context	Chris Harvey	Behavioural science suggests that whether insight drives action depends just as much on the context it lands in. This session explores how factors like timing, environment and social influence shape human decision-making, and how taking a more intentional approach to context can make insight more influential within organisations.
What You Can Do (Now) to Rewire Business Decision-Making	Paul Hudson	After a long day diving into the mechanics of customer closeness, insight communications and decision communities - Paul presents a brief summary and challenges you to make a commitment to Customer Salience in your work.

Sign up now for immediate access to all sessions. You'll get the inside edge on and multiple perspectives on how to put the customer at the centre of decision-making. You'll also see a range of experienced client-side panellists discuss the new frontiers of strategic relevance.