The Wrong Data

The other day I was chatting to a Digital Grand Fromage (they exist now) in one of the big four ad networks who told me that one problem with today's brand marketers (aka clients) is they don’t like data.  Huh?  Don’t like data?  How can this be I thought?  The marketing industry is utterly obsessed with the stuff; be it GRPs, TRPs, OTS, RPC or the myriad of consumer segmentation schemes, such as TGI. Or the insights garnered from quantitative or qualitative market research about, for instance, awareness and recall. Surely, the marketing business is awash with metrics and measurement.  In fact, I think what this highly-esteemed DGF was talking about was a fear of the type of data produced on the web, by machines, apps, devices and other web wizadry.  Not ‘proper’ media and marketing information like BARB.  At a superficial level this fear of online data is the understandable anxiety felt by brand marketers who, when trying to invest their media megabucks, are interrupted by someone suggesting the use of a webby analytics package.  A kind of ‘dashboard-itis'.  Such dashboards promise to offer huge amounts of business-critical, C-Suite-level insights into ROI delivery.  In reality, they make people want to rush into a dark room and apply wet flannelling to their throbbing brows. Indeed, ongoing exposure to...