Do you have a data strategy?
Ryan Murdoch believes analysts that are comfortable in vast amounts of data can quickly find insights
Now that you have this data, what to do with it? A lack of skills and talent is a real obvious barrier in the region, there’s no point in collecting all this data if it’s just going to sit there and not be used and for that, you need different skills than historically you might have used. You need skilled people that can make sense of it with systems, math, statistics and econometric backgrounds. The key difference in the new world is having analysts that are comfortable in vast amounts of data and can quickly find insights. Companies can no longer play lip service to it, so building dedicated teams will be crucial in the new age of data and analytics lead organisations.
“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half”-John Wanamaker
Doing the math right: if you don’t get the math right, you won’t get the attribution right. The industry will eventually move in this direction and data analysis will be a combination of aggregate analytics, like MMM, as well as event-level data analytics, based on people and cookie data. Both will become more real-time over the next three to five years, as the analogue world continues to move to digital platforms. This has been coined as Analytics 2.0: machine-based analytics that churn through huge volumes of data with the ability to auto model results. Organisational behavioural shift, from my experience, is the biggest challenge. You can be sitting on the best data, with the best analysts and if you are not willing to act on findings and insight then it all goes to waste. I have seen numerous companies fall into this pit and, regrettably, learned from being part of one of these companies, which invested in steps 1, 2 and 3 but neglected this final area. The whole organisation needs to get behind it and management needs to push this from the top down.
How do you change behaviour when you have decision makers who have been working the same way for many years? You not only have to train them to act and think differently, but also supplement their skills with new people from this new world thinking.
In summary, media and marketing isn’t an exact science, and I say that as an analyst! As we know, the communication world is far more complex place then it was even five years ago. Consumers have so many more opportunities to connect with brands across all the paid, owned and earned (POE) channels, in which we all now operate.
What data allows you to do is back up hypothesise, prove theories, help measure performance and optimise accordingly. There is a quote from the infamous Peter Drucker, which says, “What gets measured gets managed.” This is as true today as it was in 1954. Data should be used to inform decisionmaking and help manage performance. Media has always been about creativity and the emotional experience. However, data-based decision-making can only help in defining the most effective way of bringing these experiences to life.
Pareto’s 80/20 rule is still very much relevant today. Ryan Murdoch is head of data and analytics at SMG MENA & emerging markets