Recently at TMRE, one of the industry’s leading conferences, we had the absolute pleasure of presenting alongside our long-standing partners. Our Rival Group Co-CEO and Chief Methodologist Jennifer Reid was joined on stage by Sofia Gomez Garcia of Warner Bros. Discovery, talking about a complete reimagination of their insight community. 

This session showed first-hand how a mobile-first, conversational approach—powered by Rival Technologies—has helped Warner Bros. Discovery deliver faster, high-quality insights while keeping their community members engaged and happy. Their presentation showcases many use cases for insight communities, especially for companies that are in media and broadcasting.

For those of you who couldn’t make it, a recording is available here. We also have some highlights from the presentation below. 

Warner Bros. Discovery: A community decades in the making

The Warner Bros. A-List Community actually started more than 13 or 14 years ago as a small community intended for home entertainment transactors, or those buying Blurays and DVDs.

Since its inception, the community has grown tremendously, both in size and scope. It now supports a variety of research needs across the company’s brands, reaching over 40,000 members globally in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Japan, France, and Germany. This research community is a company-wide resource that provides critical insights, supporting ideation stages all the way to validation. 

Sofia emphasized the importance of this evolution: “We really wanted to make sure that we’re making this the best experience that our members can have. So, a few years ago, we approached Rival to try and revamp how members go through the A-List and experience the A-List because we wanted to meet them where they were.”

Mobile-first engagement and better participant experiences

A key theme of the session was the importance of making research participant-friendly. As Jennifer explained, “We’re trying to make the research experience be a conversation… warm, the right kind of tone relative to the brand, and that connection.” 

The Rival platform has helped Warner Bros. Discovery create conversational surveys that feel more like familiar messaging than traditional research, making it easier and enjoyable for members to participate.

“We wanted them to feel like they’re actually talking to humans and not just taking surveys over and over,” Sofia shared. “We also wanted to make it more Gen Z-friendly and mobile-first.” 

This approach has paid off in spades, with high response rates—37% of members respond to surveys within the first hour—and valuable insights delivered quickly to stakeholders.

Real-time insights for fast-moving industries

In the entertainment world, time is everything. Sofia explained how the shrinking windows between theatrical and home entertainment releases have made it critical to gather feedback quickly. She shared, “Our marketing teams have a very, very slim window of opportunity to course-correct if anything needs to be changed from theatrical to home.”

“The most important thing that you can do to ‘incentivize’ your community is to actually make the survey research that you’re doing with them… interesting, engaging, appropriate, targeted, and even, dare I say, fun.” 

With the Rival platform, Warner Bros. Discovery conducts rapid post-mortem research, enabling their teams to adjust marketing strategies and make smarter decisions ahead of home entertainment launches.

The power of a community-first mentality

Both Jennifer and Sofia emphasized the importance of putting community members first. As Jennifer explained, “The most important thing that you can do to ‘incentivize’ your community is to actually make the survey research that you’re doing with them… interesting, engaging, appropriate, targeted, and even, dare I say, fun.” 

This member-first approach has helped Warner Bros. Discovery build a passionate, engaged community, without traditional rewards or incentives. 

“These are people that are non-incentivized, so they’re really just waiting to give their opinions,” Sofia revealed. “It’s really giving them a chance to create impact and have a voice.”

“We’ve really been able to grow the community in the last few years, grow our stakeholder use internally, and collaborate with a lot of research teams that tap into the A-List.” 

Proving market research ROI and beyond

For Warner Bros. Discovery, the benefits of this revamped approach go far beyond market research ROI and uncovering massive research cost savings.

Sofia explained, “We’ve really been able to grow the community in the last few years, grow our stakeholder use internally, and collaborate with a lot of research teams that tap into the A-List.” 

The result? Better insights, faster decisions, and stronger connections with their audience.

AI and Beyond: Looking ahead

As technology evolves, so does the potential for research. While Warner Bros. Discovery is still exploring AI, Jennifer highlighted how Rival is prepared: “We’ve built everything with toggles that can turn on or off… clients who aren’t quite ready yet can turn them off, and when they are ready, they can turn them on.”

One AI capability from Rival that Jennifer mentioned helps in streamlining tasks like preparing video reels that can support effective storytelling. By using video feedback from participants, this AI market research tool can organize and analyze clips, saving researchers time while uncovering deeper insights.

Wrapping it up

One of the reasons that the A-List Community has been so successful is that it is truly an extension of the Warner Bros. Discovery brand, with a “very strict member-first mentality” as Sofia so perfectly put it during the session. “We really try to…make it fun, make it reflect the other campaigns that we have going on, so it’s not just, ‘I signed up for a newsletter or a survey.’ It’s, ‘I’m actually part of the Warner Bros. experience.’”

We couldn’t agree more. Partnering with Warner Bros. Discovery has been an incredible journey, and we’re so proud of how they’re using Community 2.0 on the Rival platform to redefine what an insight community can achieve.

Thank you again to everyone who attended our session at TMRE! If you’d like to learn more, please reach out—we’d love to continue the conversation.