I have always argued that our industry didn’t do enough, early enough to get ahead of consumer privacy. I wrote a post in February 2014 (seems like forever ago) where I stated in no uncertain terms: “If we continue to keep our collective heads buried in the sand on this issue, we can say goodbye to one of the only remaining benefits of online ads: highly precise targeting.”
Fast forward to today. We’ve lost control of the narrative and let others like the European Union lawmakers and their well-intentioned General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) take control. We should have been clear that: 1) creating high-quality content is not cheap, and 2) as a result, consumers should be willing to pay for this content either in the form of paid subscriptions and/or personal (but not personally identifiable) data. But we didn’t.
We continued to create digital campaigns that were increasingly reliant on consumer data. If you weren’t harnessing the so-called power of big data you were considered a digital neophyte. Now we see that “power” rapidly diminishing as increasing privacy regulations become the norm enabling consumers to take more and more control of their online information. According to some in the AdTech/MarTech space (i.e., the ones whose business models are predicated on the use of data), this signals the death of (digital) marketing as we know it. Bullshit.
Data doesn’t drive successful campaigns. Ideas drive successful campaigns.
There was a piece in AdWeek recently written by Fernando Machado, CMO of Burger King entitled “The Inside Story of the Burger King Campaign that Changed the Brand’s Entire Outlook on Marketing.” If you haven’t read it, I’d strongly encourage you to do so. In the article, Mr. Machado posits that: “To make people care, you need a big idea. An idea that plays with people’s imagination, an idea that is fun and connects people to the brand. He goes on to talk about a “future where creativity is only used for (and celebrated for) responding to real, tangible business and brand goals.” In his almost 2,000 word article, he didn’t use the word data once.
To be clear, I am not saying that data cannot be used to make great ideas come to life – it should, while we still have the capability to do so – but we as a creative industry cannot continue to rely on data to compensate for mediocre ideas.
I’d love to hear what you think.
Northampton Consulting 