Ged Carroll

Creativity in data

Published: (Updated: ) in branding | 品牌推廣 | 브랜드 마케팅 | ブランディング, ideas | 想法 | 생각 | 考える, marketing | 營銷 | 마케팅 | マーケティング by .

8 minutes estimated reading time

I had the honour of being part of a panel for the PRCA on the creativity in data run in association with The Work Crowd.

Creativity and data

Here was the synopsis of the panel discussion that the PRCA put out.

Communications is frequently seen as all about ‘big ideas’. But increasingly, it’s being recognised that to develop a big idea that’s really going to have an impact, it’s not just about creativity. Now, the winning formula is creativity + data.


Of course, data has always played a role in the creative process, but historically through a more ‘rear view’ measurement of past behaviours. However, with technology advancing and predictive analytics utilising newly available data, the data we have access to is more forward-looking than ever.


The ability to synthesise these insights is super-powering strategic planning for businesses, but it’s definitely not just the boardroom who should be interested in ‘running the numbers’. Maths and data may not be seen as natural bedfellows of storytelling and creation, but have we been underestimating the power of creativity in data? Ultimately, is data a friend or foe to the creative process?

I kicked this around with Camilla and Richard. Here are my thoughts that came from this process in no particular order below:

I wondered what the forefathers of the communications industry would have thought about the question? Leaving ethical considerations aside for a moment about the legitimacy of their techniques, what would they have thought?

Edward Bernays was famous for using consumer insight, research and psychology in his work. It would likely have felt very alien to Bernays that we were even asking such a question. He would have felt that the answer is self-evident a 100 years later.

Data isn’t a friend or foe to the creative process. It is part of the creative process. The sieving of data to get down to the grain of truth – the insight that you can hang your creative idea off.

Thinking about the nature of data itself is muddled. Over the past couple of decades the communications industry has struggled with measurement. This then shaped its perception of data.

All of which is wrong:

I am not saying that communications should move away from obtaining and using quantitive data. But this should be balanced by a focus on qualitative data as well.

Data is seen paradoxically as ‘all around us, pervasive’ and expensive to obtain.

So what data should the creative planners of the communications industry care about? Some of the sources listed below are free, some are books that are worthwhile investing in and others are expensive services that even the largest agencies struggle to afford in many markets.

The data that the client has already

Clients are already sitting on a wealth of information inside their organisation:

Work smarter, rather than harder. It is foolish to try and do the same information gathering twice. A client’s willingness to dig and get this for you gives you a rough read on how important your work is for the organisation.

Best practice data on efficiency and effectiveness

The marketing industry as a whole has put a lot of money into the Ehrensberg Bass Institute and they have compiled decades of marketing science research to some accessible books. How Brands Grow parts 1 and 2 are constant references for me.

The IPA’s publication The Long and The Short of It by Les Binet and Peter Fields is another reference for me. Binet has updated this research to cover B2B recently.

They help me answer questions such as:

To make your life easier, here’s a slide where I distilled optimal channel choice versus marketing strategy.

Zero-Based Budgeting

Where you see ticks, that’s when the marketing tool (PR, advertising etc) will do the most good.

The Holmes Report and WARC have collaborated so that if you have a WARC subscription you can access award winning case studies and learn from campaigns that have solved similar problems to the ones that you face. None of the industry organisations or communications have distilled this kind of data down into a comms agency equivalent and Binet and Fields.

Desk research

Academia

Both Scopus and Google Scholar have got great resources on social science based research. In addition, Wolfram Alpha is a really good sources of validated data points. The British Library can also be a treasure trove of content.

Articles

Government statistics bodies

Social listening data

Social listening data needs to be used with a certain amount of caution. It is a measure of the level of discussions around a given subject but not the sum of them. Some of them are likely to happening in real world settings, many in ‘dark social’ – social interactions that tools can’t see.

As a rule of thumb in European countries there tends to be less B2B social discussions going on than the US. For consumer brands there has been some good work done to show how social media listening attributions (volume, share of voice, sentiment etc) can approximate to brand tracking.

Primary research

This could be everything from:

More information

Academia

British Library – getting a reader pass

Google Scholar

Scopus (paywall)

Wolfram Alpha

Best Practice

How Brands Grow What Marketers Don’t Know by Byron Sharp

How Brands Grow: Part 2: Emerging Markets, Services, Durables, New and Luxury Brands by Jenni Romaniuk and Byron Sharp

The Long & The Short of It: Balancing Short Term and Long Term Marketing Strategies by Les Binet and Peter Fields

Other

FT Graphics

World Economic Forum reports

Governmental organisations data

CIA World Factbook

Eurostat

IMF Data

UN Statistics Division

Wikipedia category page on national statistical services