Morning Brew

Solution

To bring this to life, Morning Brew launched The Breakroom, an exclusive community where they aimed to create a 50/50 value exchange, treating members like true partners instead of just survey respondents. This engagement strategy translates to industry leading participation and response rates.

In recent years, the focus has been on growing direct revenue through research services for advertisers. The team’s research quality is well known across the business but there was further opportunity to drive more impact from their years of audience data. In July 2025, the team relaunched MBI Insights, a dedicated website showcasing the first-party thought leadership driven by analysis done by the insights team. 

To further supercharge the value of the data collected through the Breakroom, the insights team has integrated community data with its main data warehouse. This unlocked advanced progressive profiling, deeper analysis, and more creativity to combine survey responses with other data points.

Results

Feedback from the Breakroom community is shared with 200+ employees across the organization and a portfolio of 21+ brands. Audience research is leveraged for everything from derisking new brand launches to event strategy and concept testing. The scope of the team’s work continues to expand year over year.  

The team also drives both direct and indirect revenue through its support of ad sales partnerships. They are seen as a true consultative partner helping to drive strategic sales plays and protecting existing revenue streams.

The Breakroom community has truly become Morning Brews’ strategic engine, churning out 38 unique research projects year-to-date. The impact is clear:

• Guides the editorial team on exactly what content to create and sparks new ideas.
• Informs the product team with proactive feedback to improve user experience.
• Provides the revenue team with critical intelligence to fill “insight blind spots”, better understand new categories and execute direct advertiser research projects.

By combining its deep commitment to its audience, playful brand activities, and the high engagement of its audience, Morning Brew has turned consumer insights into a major competitive advantage and a powerful new strategic revenue stream.