Paige here, Senior Strategist at Camp+King San Francisco. I recently had the opportunity to take a class in Data Analytics and had a few share-worthy takeaways from the experience. I wanted to learn more about analytics because a lot of Excel documents end up on a strategist’s desk and as a natural right-brain’r, my goals coming out of it were to A) be less intimidated by a screen filled with thousands of numbers so that I can B) better understand how to turn numbers into actionable insights and meaningful narratives.
It’s a critical time for data
Data has come along way. In fact, in 1880 the US census took eight years to tabulate and create a final report. By the time it was completed, they were just two years from rolling out the next one![1] To put that into perspective, today Google processes data from 40,000 search queries every second.[2] Research suggests we are at the beginning of a revolution with data that will touch every business and every life. For example…
- Estimates show that by better integrating big data, healthcare could save as much as $300 billion a year — that’s equal to reducing costs by $1000 a year for every man, woman, and child.[3]
- For a typical Fortune 1000 company, just a 10% increase in data accessibility will result in more than $65 million additional net income.[4]
Why is data analytics important to us in advertising?
-
Our partners want it
With more data being generated about consumers than ever before, clients are looking to us as their agency partners to be able to interpret this data and apply it in ways that will make their marketing more effective.
-
There’s an opportunity to use it creatively.
At the Cannes Lions Festival this year, not a single US agency won top honors in the Creative Data or Data Strategy categories. There is room for improvement here! As an industry we have to understand how we can tap into data’s potential from a creative standpoint to make our final product more interesting and relevant to its audience. Here’s “Go Back to Africa,” this year’s Grand Prix Winner, as an example of that.
What we’re doing at Camp + King
We know that data rules today and, as an agency, we’ve begun to expand our approach to analytics so that we are better able to bring the power of data to our process of making brands Conversationworthy. When do we think about how data can play a role? Here are a few opportunities:
Strategy Development
This is the obvious stuff. We get our hands on as much research and data as we can about culture, the category, consumers and the company to help with insight generation and communications planning.
Creative Exploration
This is where we use data to influence our choices and build cool things. Data tells us when and where to reach people but also allows us to customize, personalize or make things interactive. Real-time data allows us to create things that change in the moment. We even use data to help develop new products or offerings.
Collaborating with Clients
This is when we use data to help our clients do great work. Numbers and charts give us a shared language with stakeholders across departments: marketing, tech, business and information groups. Using data with our partners helps us paint a universal picture to make sure everyone is on the same page and excited about what we’re building together.
I was inspired by the endless possibilities for data beyond where we typically think about using it. There is so much that can be done with data to help brands grow today, I hope I’ve inspired you to think about different ways to tap its potential.
Paige took this class as part of Camp+King’s +Minor Program. +Minor is designed to help employees pursue a minor area of study to develop a skill set outside of their day-job.
