Crunch Time: The Art of Data

Shoppers Are Doin’ It For Themselves - sing these words to the Eurythmics 1980s classic tune and you’ve got the perfect sing-along anthem for the seismic changes we’re experiencing in the media world.

It’s old news that customers are no longer sitting, waiting to be entertained and influenced by TV advertising.  Remember when kids gleefully chorused jingles in the playground - “Just one Cornetto” anyone?

Now we’ve got Generation Z who prefer to create their own stuff, 'Millennials' ( I use the term loosely) who are busy vlogging and sharing experiences on YouTube, and Baby Boomers surfing around checking customer reviews before booking their next cruise or ordering a stair-lift.

So now that everyone prefers to do their own thing - what does the Ad (Wo)Man of today have to do to avoid being consigned to the growing heap of obsolete, forgotten trades?  How best to survive the people power revolution where only the ‘unavoidable’ platforms like outdoor or in-store experience can win, with their captive audiences stuck in traffic or queuing at the check-out?  It's these channels which will take over and do the brand building ‘heavy lifting’ - previously the domain of TV.

Hang on a minute, ad folk consigned to history - no way!  We’re changing too, we’re busy going after Big Data - the saviour of the Media world.  Big Data, the star, not of screen, but of all the best conversations at Cannes Lions 2016.  And if you want to check just how big Big Data has got, search ‘Big Data’ on Google and you’ll get no fewer than 354 million results (search ‘TV Advertising’ and you’ll get less than half that number).  

The people might be revolting, but we’ll be OK - we just need to get hold of that customer data and we’re back in control.  We’ll scurry around collecting data like squirrels collect nuts in autumn. We’ll get to know all about our customers and we can ‘put them at the heart of the organisation’, we can create those personal one-to-one conversations which build loyalty.  We can share and commercialise the data - great for the agency and great for the brand. With that 360-degree view of every customer and automated data capture at every touchpoint, we can beat those YouTubers and Silver Surfers at their own game, can't we?  We can create that authentic, helpful and entertaining content that shoppers now demand, if not as their birthright, then as a precursor to buying our products.

But is it that simple?  How many organisations are set up to be truly customer-centric?  How many know what to do with the Big Data once they’ve collected it, beyond creating segmentations and algorithms to power programmatic campaigns? 

The successful agency of the future is going to be very different.  It’ll have the capability of taking billions of pieces of information and turning it into meaningful content, in real time - again and again ad infinitum. It’ll know how to bridge the chasm between Data and Creativity. It will be measuring everything - what’s working and what’s not - and be using that learning to get better and better at meeting the customer’s expectations - expectations that continually change.   

So how do we compete in these revolutionary times? We’ll have to be, well, revolutionary.  Avoid the ‘sticking plaster’ approach favoured by too many organisations (agency and client-side), who think that they’ve done enough if they recruit a data strategy team or a customer insight expert, who’s hoping to be invited to meet the client and elbow their way into the next big pitch.  Take a really hard look at your organisation and start with a clean sheet of paper.  Remove the revenue, organisational and technology silos, put in processes and ways of working that allow customer knowledge to ‘flow through’ every team.  Change your people culture so that every employee knows that every brief must start with the Data Insight.  And don’t forget to enhance that quantitative knowledge with some good old fashioned qualitative research - that’s a truly potent mix.

The real value of Big Data is all about understanding your customer, but analysing Data for the sake of it is pointless.  To win you need to do much, much more than ‘crunch it’. You have to champion the people who have the knack of interpreting that data, who can use it to predict that most capricious of things - what shoppers want - and who can turn that insight into compelling content that competes with the Zoellas and Alfies of this complex new world.

Go on, be brave, be radical, be a winner.  Embrace change - give it a good long hug, not just an air kiss.