Opinion

Can better data help agencies overcome transparency issues?

Avril D'Costa

The industry loves to debate the importance of ‘big data’ but Avrill D’Costa argues it can be effective in helping address client concerns around transparency. 

Marketers now talk about data as if it’s some kind of revolution, but, let’s be honest: it’s nothing new.

It is and always has been key driver behind all marketing decisions. Numbers help marketers navigate audiences, hone messages and deliver real value to the businesses they represent. Figures like reach, share of voice and circulation, all play a roll in the mix.

So, what is going on here? Why is there so much hype around something so intrinsic to marketing as data? 

We like to think that it has little to do with the numbers themselves, but rather the underlying concept of this whole data debate: transparency.

As technology progresses, new and exciting metrics are coming onto the sector. Combine this with faster delivery times and a greater level of accuracy in the numbers, and it’s apparent that this technological shift is lending more clarity on marketing effectiveness than was ever before.

It’s a well overdue change, as demonstrated by the MediaCom misreporting controversy from earlier this year.  In summary: an audit from EY Australia revealed that MediaCom had inflated the ad audience numbers in reports to four of its key clients, essentially telling them that their ads were more of a success than they actually were. 

MediaCom is now nutting out a path to recovery, but the way the issue sent ripples though-out the sector goes to show the value of accurate reporting and its importance to the industry.

We are tipping this debacle may be the last of its kind. We’re almost at a future where it will be the norm for brands to be delivered broad, real-time analytics on their campaigns. And the great thing about this is that it will make it incredibly difficult for anyone to fudge the figures.

The trend is also being complimented through technology enabling the creation of new measures and benchmarks. For instance, our platform monitors ads across various verticals. We’re seeing brands like Toyota, Westpac and CUB monitor their rivals advertisements and respond to them in near real-time.

Meanwhile, we’re also seeing agencies and big media brands use that same data to pick who is advertising most aggressively in the market and attempt to sway their ad spend. They’re not using guess work, assumptions or historical data; they’re reacting to real-time trends across the whole market.

The issue we have with the data debate is that its being misconstrued and often spun into meaningless buzzwords. One of these is the idea of ‘fast data’.

The logic here is that you can get lost in the waves of data available, and ultimately make poor decisions by focusing on too much of it. It’s taking a line that’s doing the round in business intelligence circles and applying it haphazardly on the marketing sector.

But this very notion defeats the point of what is new and exciting about the decades old notion of marketing data. To be fair, they’re half right: data needs to be fast, but not at the cost of breath and insight.

The real solution here is to glean turnaround actionable insights from all available data. To use the appropriate buzzwords, that’a a combination of both ‘fast’ and ‘big’ data.

Data may be nothing new, but make no mistake, its shaping the future of marketing. Expect major changes as more and more metrics come online, and by default, transparency becomes a non-issue for the sector.

Avrill D’Costa is a co-founder and the head of data analytics and product design at BigDatr

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