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Big Data is a Secret Weapon for Growth in China’s New Normal

29/05/2015
Advertising Agency
Hong Kong, Hong Kong
97
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Ogilvy & Mather China, Alimama and AdChina discuss next steps for industry insiders at CES Asia

Big Data gets a lot of lip service in China: everybody has it, wants it or wants to show they have it. But how do marketers take a step beyond the hype to effectively use this plethora of information in a meaningful way, bridging the gulf between raw data and the needs of brands and consumers?

“We hear clients asking us how they continue to grow in this new normal,” says Tom Wan, managing director of global brands at Ogilvy & Mather Shanghai. “It’s not just about opening new stores and distribution channels anymore, it’s about having a deeper, more fluid understanding of the existing customer in better time – this is our secret weapon in the face of a slowing economy.”

“Traversing New Frontiers of Big Data in China” was a gathering to address these very issues. The panel, hosted by Ogilvy & Mather China at this years’ inaugural CES Asia (Consumer Electronics Show Asia) and moderated by Jacco ter Schegget, president of OgilvyOne China, brought together key players in today’s Big Data landscape including Coca-Cola, Nestle, Chanel and Logitech, gathered to address not just the amount of Big Data in the world, but who is doing a good job now and the steps and innovations marketers can take into the future.

There are good starts, but brands can do more

Panelist Allen Xu, managing director of customer engagement agency OgilvyOne, noted that while true case studies are still in short supply, there are brands who have exhibited a clear vision on how to gather data and apply it to business needs.

For example L’Oreal’s ‘Magic Mirror’ campaign turned smartphones into fashion consultants and not only hooked consumers directly to Tmall for existing product they like, but also helped the beauty brand create new products from the data they captured. Caterpillar was also brought up as a company that has taken on the Internet of Things by using machinery information to optimise usage and maintenance schedules or identify suboptimal performance.

Wan added that many internet companies are also on the right track, citing Wechat as particularly ingenious at getting consumers to voluntarily offer more data that reveals their habits and movements – for example, Wechat Exercise (wechat yundong). Didi Dache (China’s Uber) also gathered a rich amount of data when they asked people to log in their working hours - offering those who got off work late a free ride. By doing so they combined timing and geo-location data to understand the population flow of the city to optimise location of their taxis. 

But both experts say there is much more that can be done. Hua Zheng of Alimama says that the potential of their data has not yet even been unlocked. The next step for brands is to begin making more links between data and people in order to review their full life – what they’re searching for on Sina, watching on Youku, listening to on Xiaomi and where they’re going via Kuaidi Dache.

Clement Tsang, managing director for global business network clients & performance marketing for Neo@Ogilvy, says that in the next 5-10 years, using this data for predictive modeling will be the norm. Right now everyone is trying to put a team together to try to predict what the consumer is going to do.

Data and technology must further a relationship

As the market space gets more crowded, there becomes a clear and dynamic shift in power from the brand to the consumer. Therefore, marketers need to build stronger and lasting relationships across the whole purchasing journey, ensuring the linkages of these data siloes.

One place where this is aggressively pursued is in wearables. These devices know a lot of information – from your temperature and heartbeat to direct choices about your lifestyle and health. Beyond this basic information, some enterprises need to think about how to incorporate these devices into their business model and build an environment.

Hotels are very aggressive in this sector, with groups taking the information to figure out how to bring new conveniences to guests. At this early stage, the wearable device functions like a key card – opening doors and allowing you to pay at the counter. But in the future, wearables can be so much more – helping people to manage a disease, lose weight and cross reference with clinical data.

Those who eschew privacy and security are industry losers

With the question of using people’s data – everything from their location to their heart rate – Deron Zhao of AdChina drove home the point that user privacy and data safety must both be protected in order to succeed in this new world order.

“User privacy and data safety is a necessity, if you guarantee this, you will be a winner in this environment,” he says. “If you cannot you cannot, you will lose.”

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