Two weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending AMA’s 2013 Analytics with Purpose Conference, themed, ‘The Human Edge of Big Data’ in beautiful downtown San Diego, and a lengthy 3-mile trek from our office. My first impression when I walked into the conference was, "these don’t seem like your typical marketing folks." And they weren't. Rather, the event was dominated by marketing research and analytics folks, which made for a very unique AMA conference with a focus on the modern-day iterations of reach and frequency. In my opinion, here were the highlights of the conference, and my “two cents” on each. Enjoy!
1. Interpreting Multiple Data Sets to Understand Your Customers (Chris Wareham, Adobe)
- Takeaway: The first step in understanding your brand’s customer experience may be understanding their digital experience across channels, which means integrating your data warehousing, and handing it over to someone or some group that cares about user experience.
- My two cents: If you’re in a consumer-focused business, your decisions should be consumer-focused. Easy enough. We all know the stories of SWA, Apple, and Google, who built great companies this way. Can we follow their lead?
2. Panel: Problem Resolution Bureau (Kyle Nel, Lowe’s; Rene Huey-Lipton, BrainJuicer; Chris Chapman, Google)
- Takeaway: Simplicity is king in market research, especially when presenting to C-levels. If you’re using a survey, pick a problem, craft a short, easy to take questionnaire, and take action on the results! Don’t get lost in a sea of data when you can’t do anything about it.
- My two cents: Ask yourself, if you can’t make a decision based on the research you’re doing, then why are you doing it?
3. Field Testing your Advertising (Elea Felt, Wharton School)
- Takeaway: Google AdWords is a quick, easy way to test digital marketing copy. Easy as that.
4. Passive Data and the Coke Facebook project (Justin de Graaf, Global Marketing Strategy & Insights at Coca-Cola)
- Takeaway: Leveraging non-sponsored Facebook promotions is the new SEO.
- My two cents: Facebook’s newsfeed decides what you want to see, in a way that is unique from your best friend, sister, or the guy sitting next to you at the coffee shop, making it a brand new challenge for marketers. Without knowing each customer individually, how can you connect with them? Facebook wants you to let them handle it, and also pay for sponsored ads. Is there a way in without paying? This is a new challenge for marketers, and the answer is custom research. No cookie-cutter solution here, sorry!
5. Panel: Building Teams in Analytics (Jim Hirschfield, Hall and Partners; (Kyle Nel, Lowe’s; Rene Huey-Lipton, BrainJuicer; Chris Chapman, Google)
- Takeaway: Analytics skills can be taught, insights cannot. Build a team of insightful people, not a team of data crunchers.
- My two cents: Build a team of insightful people, but don’t be afraid to include the data head specialist. My biggest takeaway from my time in school at ISU was that fact that great leaders build great teams, and surround themselves with team members that can fill in the holes in their skill set. We don’t want a team full of duplicates of ourselves (no matter how great we are!).
6. Keynote: Tracey Wong
- Takeaway: Tracey Wong was the lone creative at the conference, and his agency’s work is top notch. Check it out.
Last week, Mike wrote in his blog post that the term “Big Data” is thrown around left and right, but that there isn’t really a consistent definition out there. Now that I’ve attended a conference with “Big Data” in the title, and am consequently an expert (…right?), I have to say that I agree. Big Data can be many things, but most accurately, although vaguely, Big Data is data from different sources – data from your CRM system, POS system, custom and secondary research, web tracking, and anything else that you can get your hands on. The challenge in business is not how to handle big data, it’s how to decide what you want from it. And we can take it from there.
Thoughts? Comments?
Ryan Kelly
