Three ways to be fearless with big data - Alex Steer, Fabric

3 ways to be

with big data

Alex Steer, Senior Strategist, Fabric | 12 September 2013

Data management platform for marketing

More data.

Better processing.

Now that advertisements are more algorithm than Mad Men …the value of the merger will be tested by whether it ushers in the second golden age of advertising. It can do so only by merging the data and analytics of 21st century invention with the ideas and genius creativity of the first golden age of advertising, enabling efficiency and creativity to thrive side by side.

Big Divorce

Big Flu

Big Crime

Big, erm, bins…

Do you feel like you’re living

in the second golden age of advertising?

Test pilots wanted.*

* For straw aeroplanes

‘We need certainty.’

‘We need to keep up.’

‘We need to start small.’

3 signs you’re on a straw aeroplane

And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain?

Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic?

‘We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things,not because they are easy, but because they are hard.’

Big data is not social listening.

Big data is not software.

Big data is not any old data.

Big data is data that is so bigand so varied that it provokes…

• creative reappraisal• creative bravery• creative destruction

It’s both how much you’ve gotand what you do with it.(Sorry, everyone on the internet.)

What makes a regular customer

What Apple users really buy

What Mums really want from recipes

What happens when the chips are down

I think you should allow me

to be braver with your money.

Three ways to be fearless with big data:

1. Start messy2. Test and kill3. Teams above tools

1. Start messy

Business Brand

Consumer

Business Brand

Consumer

Find data that overlaps, and make something with it.

• By time• By place• By consumer• By product• By channel• By any

means…

Morning Lunchtime

Afternoon Evening

2. Test and kill

‘Newsroom social’ needs editors.

3. Teams above tools.

What the tools (plural) told us:

• 6x worse than ‘buzz’ suggests• 12 million people have seen it• 40% of all search volume• 30% of all site traffic• Huge impact on sales

2/3 of the tools were freely available.

What the team (singular) did:

• Internal policy change• New comms strategy• Online video campaign• New website section• Paid search buying• Customer promotion

90% of the cost was time, not tools.

Did I mention concrete?

1. Start messy. Use only the data and tools you already have for the first 90 days, in their existing formats.

1. Start messy. Use only the data and tools you already have for the first 90 days, in their existing formats.

2. Test and kill. Set a challenge that matters to the business, so your project is capable of measurable failure. Plan to try multiple routes but kill a % of them every week.

1. Start messy. Use only the data and tools you already have for the first 90 days, in their existing formats.

2. Test and kill. Set a challenge that matters to the business, so your project is capable of measurable failure. Plan to try multiple routes but kill a % of them every week.

3. Teams above tools. Insist on simple, regular reporting based on the data; full disclosure; clear chains of command. It’s your data – stand up for it.

When data comes from everywhere…

comes from you.

Thanks for listening.

Any questions?

@alexsteer