Big Data

For over a decade now, UPS delivery trucks in the USA have avoided making left turns. Analysis of tracking system data found that eliminating left turns – which often left the vehicle idling at an intersection for significant periods of time – would save time and gasoline. This is exactly the sort of insight that allows a company to change things for the better, but it can be really tough to find no matter how much data is available to you. 

Every time I step out of New Zealand and into a big economic region, the two things I notice are the crowds and the scale. Looking out over row after row of A380s parked on tarmacs, wrestling for room on a crowded street in a busy Asian city or seeing the world go about its business in a towering CBD, the immensity of humanity and the pace at which life operates is immediately apparent.

One of the big questions on the table for brand marketers is what to do with Big Data. The presumption is that more data means better marketing, but finding the path from more to better is the challenge at hand.

Kate Crawford, a principal researcher at Microsoft Research and a visiting professor at the MIT Center for Civic Media, has written a provocative post on the HBR Blog titled, “The Hidden Biases in Big Data.” She quotes former Wired Editor-In-Chief, Chris Anderson, as saying, “with enough data, the numbers speak for themselves.” Crawford then asks, can numbers actually speak for themselves?

The era of Big Data has arrived! Yet, few brand marketers seem to properly understand it, at least from the point-of-view of consumers.