WWE Chief Brand Officer Stephanie McMahon spoke at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit in Washington D.C. on Wednesday. During the summit, she described how the audience feedback can force the company to adjust its plans. Here is what she had to say:
“Our audience tells us what they love, what they don’t like and worse, what they don’t care about. And you have to be listening, and in WWE, yes, we do, we pivot on the fly,” McMahon said. “It’s an advantage that we’re live. We do set our storylines out a year in advance, WrestleMania being our Super Bowl and then we program backwards, but things happen. The audience might not be invested in a character that we think they will be invested in for whatever reason. There could be an injury that happens, because we really are an incredible athletic event as well. Anything can happen, so that ability to pivot and twist is really important.”
“And when you think about NXT, for example, our audience is actually determining who makes it to the next level, who goes to that main roster,” McMahon said. “And they know it, they know that they are a part of that person’s success, so they are that much more invested in it. And again, I just think that engagement is really important.”
