Data is more than just the sum total of numbers

Iused to be daunted by data. It scared me. Why? Because data can be overwhelming and confusing. You just need to look at the figures to realise this. The total amount of data in the world was measured at 4.4 zettabytes in 2013. By 2020 it will have risen to 44 zettabytes. I couldn’t even begin to describe to you how much that is, because I don’t even know what a zettabyte is.

In 2015, more photos were snapped than were taken on film in the entire history of the analogue camera business. The same year, Facebook said two billion photos were shared on its systems every day. To put that into context, in 1960 an estimated three billion photos were taken across the entirety of the year.

Sometimes it’s easy to get washed away by the sheer scale of everything.

The simple fact of the matter is that we live in a data saturated world. And in such a world, how do you make sense of the information available to you?

Is data the future of human understanding? Will it make our jobs more precise and more efficient? Does it aid creativity rather than hinder it?

There’s this belief in some quarters that data is the bane of every creative’s life and that true creativity provides the unexpected, not that which is guided by algorithms and pie charts. Creativity emerges from the freedom that the constrictive properties of data wish to banish, which is why big data, small data (any data in fact) should be dealt with at arm’s length. Or so the thinking goes.

Then Baker Lambert, our global head of data, changed a lot of that for me. To him, all was simple.

Data, he told us recently at a power breakfast, was/is the fuel that powers our product and touches every element of what we do.

Data has been taken by media agencies and tech companies and moulded into a tool that delivers increased efficiency, better targeting and improved segmentation. That needs to change.

Data needs to be embraced by creative too, and for that to happen we need to change our mindset.

Data can be the idea. This I now believe, and there is no reason to be daunted. Sure, there is a lot of data out there that is useless to us and only adds to the confusion, but you just need to know where to look and how to look for it.

Then we need to ask ourselves questions. How can we use that data to inform creative in a way that makes it better and more impactful?

But more importantly, what happens if you bring data right to the front of the creative process? The answer is smarter ideas that can change the world.

Like data itself, the possibilities are endless. Think Infiniti, which measured the mental performance indicators and sub-conscious responses that characterise an individual’s driving experience.

Is this happening? Of course. CocaCola’s global senior digital director, Mariano Bosaz, told Adweek recently that he wanted to begin experimenting with “automated narratives”. Infiniti went one step further, visualising the brain movement of drivers of the Infiniti Q50 Red Sport 400 via an audio-visual display at The Dubai Fountain. In short, data enables creative executions not possible before.

We should be organising ourselves differently, bringing data to the foreground and to the beginning of the creative cycle. It should stand alongside planning and creative in terms of importance.

Data-driven creativity is a must. If data is brought to the foreground we give ourselves the best possible chance to ask the right questions. And once you begin to ask the right questions you receive far more meaningful answers and far more efficient solutions than if you had ignored data altogether.

Data gives us far better insights. And in an age of collaboration, data, planning and technology are going to be key as we move forward.

I want us to be known as pioneers in the region, bringing data creative to our clients. This can be done and it doesn’t have to be frightening.

Far from it. But it can and powerful. will be

The writer is CEO of TBWA\RAAD MENA.