Big Data Alone is Not the Answer: Is There a Holy Grail to the Advertising Business? – Mike Drexler

There39s a big gaping hole in the way we look at marketing and media Not only throughout the years before the Internet came along but even today with all the technological advances and access to Big Data we still are missing lots of answers Just quotBig Dataquot is not the answer It really depends on what you do with it And what you must do with it is provide deeper insights before the marketing process beginsWhat I mean is this We have been very good at looking at data and trying to interpret how it should be used What is the best way to take the information and apply it to strategies and tactics that will accomplish specific marketing goals What we are really good at is describing what occurs or has occurred and using it to predict what might occur in the future But here39s the rub Description is not explanation What we continue to lack is why something happened the quotWhyquot behind the actionI recently sat down to breakfast with Michael Donahue Executive VicePresident of The American Association of Advertising Agencies and he told me about a book entitled quotStart with Whyquot written by Simon Sinek I have not yet read the book so I can39t be accused of any plagiarism here But I was intrigued by the thought and have been thinking about quotWhyquot has been bereft of explanation for so longOne reason is that we always try to look for precision Most researchers seek that but it never goes far enough because arguments against it always raise doubt We can39t use something unless it is proven without a doubt that it will always provide exactly the right answer I39ve spent a lifetime in the advertising business attempting scientific reasoning coupled with creativity to find the perfect answers But certainty is almost always out of the question as long as an emotional connection we sometimes call it engagement is a necessary requirement of marketingOther reasons are cost or time The answers to quotWhyquot do not come easily or inexpensively and sometimes they can39t even be explained cohesively because sometimes it39s also about feelings I39m not a researcher but I do know that every time someone comes up with a way of trying to discover quotWhyquot particularly through some sort of psychological testing or focus groups or questionnaires online today etc the response often seems to be that people don39t always do what they say which is probably trueEven attempts to measure brain wave activity through an emotional reaction to stimuli in an ad or commercial doesn39t necessarily tell us quotWhyquot and it39s not applicable to every situation in every product category all the time Moreover it does not always provide a definitive correlation between what happens in the brain and what people actually do on their feet Sometimes it just comes from the heart because people just trust the product or the company for what they do differently If companies resort primarily to price and promotion to compete with similar products or services it won39t build a lasting profitable foundationMany attempts have been made over the years to get at the quotWhyquot And we will continue to do so But when we think about the high cost of marketing today and the short term thinking required to produce more immediate ROI we better get some answers about quotWhyquot or the foundation that many products and services build on will erode and it will take even more money to get out of the holeMike Drexler is cofounder and Managing Partner of DrexlerFajen ampamp Partners a media consulting and agency review firm that works with advertisers to evaluate their agenciesamp8217 performance He can be reached at mikedrexlerfajencomCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates at MediaBizBloggerThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaBizBloggerscom management or associated bloggers MediaBizBloggers is an open thought leadership platform and readers may share their comments and opinions in response to all commentaries

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Big Data Alone is Not the Answer: Is There a Holy Grail to the Advertising Business? – Mike Drexler

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Mike Drexler

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Big Data Alone is Not the Answer: Is There a Holy Grail to the Advertising Business? – Mike Drexler

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