GfK 2012

FROM BIG DATA TO SMART DATA

GfK 2012

Indeed, don’t let the emphasis on size fool you; data is only useful if used in a smart way. So no matter how extensive they might be, behavioral information should be combined with consumer survey data and a social science perspective to get the most from your data assets. And researchers need to be at the forefront of setting the Smart Data agenda.

The right skillsGlobal management consultancy McKinsey and Company estimates that, in the US alone, there is a shortfall of 190,000 analytics experts and 1.5 million data-savvy managers with the necessary skills to make decisions based on the analysis of Big Data .

However, the skills associated with market research are very relevant to Big Data. These include excellent analytical skills, an ability to understand and manipulate large data sets, and an ability to interpret findings and apply them to business. Indeed, some research agencies are now in a position where they’re handling Big Data every day as the level of digital data being captured increases and agencies start to aggregate this information.

Big Data is the term loosely used to describe the exponential increase in data volumes alongside the growth in our ability to transfer, store and analyze. To you and me, Big Data is a powerful tool used to advance our knowledge of consumer behavior. But contrary to what some would argue, it isn’t a universal panacea to the challenges businesses face in understanding their customers.

By Colin Strong

Intelligent integrationThe need to understand the context and meaning of the behavior observed in large datasets will rapidly become critical as a purely behavioral analysis will only provide so much nuance. The consumer intention that is driving activity can only be properly understood by talking to the consumer. This is an opportunity to involve a wide range of thinkers and practitioners, from ethnographers and qualitative researchers through to marketing scientists and quantitative analysts.

Without understanding the consumer mindset, there is a danger that Big Data will never become Smart Data. As such, the value for marketers is limited. Intelligent integration brings consumer and research knowledge together with Big Data to avoid the risk of chasing the wrong questions and finding false positives. Appreciation of underlying assumptions within the data and of the motivations behind consumer actions is likely to improve the way findings are understood and communicated.

Big pictureThe starting point for Big Data has often been for brands to analyze their own proprietary

TECHTALK - FROM BIG DATA TO SMART DATA

GfK 2012

tools we use always shape how we make sense of the world. So if they suddenly evolve, then so will our understanding - not just in size and scale, but qualitatively too.

Perhaps this is the real heart of Smart Data, where our understanding of consumers is embodied within the data itself, generating insights into the human condition that are hard to obtain by other means. Creating this type of understanding will affect how brands use their datasets as they start to properly integrate models of human and social behavior.

The challenge for our industry is making the case for the use of Smart Data, rather than just Big Data. This could become the most profitable way for brands to unlock the value held in their data assets.

For further information, please contact:Colin Strong, colin.strong@gfk.com

datasets generated from their own digital assets. They would then use this information to optimize consumer interaction with their brand. However, walled-garden approaches like this only tell a part of the story. They explain nothing about the activity that led the consumer to encounter the brand in the first place. Nor, indeed, which other brands the consumer is having conversations with.Research agencies are in a strong position to deliver the Smart Data approach by:

Together, these provide the opportunity for a broader comprehension of a brand’s performance and can be used to place the research done on the brand’s own data assets in a wider context.

Eyes on the prizeThe era of Big Data allows us to explore human behavior, and specifically human social interaction, in a way that was not previously possible. The

TECHTALK - FROM BIG DATA TO SMART DATA

WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING THE CONSUMER MINDSET, THERE IS A DANGER THAT

BIG DATA WILL NEVER BECOME SMART DATA. AS

SUCH, THE VALUE FOR MARKETERS IS LIMITED

becoming aggregators of different clients’ large datasets. It is possible to provide services that reflect activity in the market as a wholebuilding panels of consumers that capture digital activity across multiple devices. It is possible to build a comprehensive picture of their online lives, not just those related to specific brandsaccessing social media data through application programming interfaces or other agreements to undertake a much more detailed look at the nature of online social interactionsusing life-logging approaches to build up large datasets for a relatively small number of individuals