MARKETING
Why Being Too Data-Driven May Work Against Your Brand
By Denis Mbau
As a consultant who wants to put my clients ahead of the pack , banking on being data-driven has been my all-time go-to strategy . I have sold the importance of data and most of my pitches to clients have leaned towards , ‘ according to a survey by ... 70 % of people this and that .’ ‘ This is how to make the brand 10 times better ’ etc .
It is extremely hard to determine the performance of your brand in today ’ s digitalized environment without data . Data gives the rank to different issues in your market assessment , defines what is most important and directs you to where to converge your efforts to win the market . In addition , data helps improve the efficiency and performance of offline and online experiences of clients .
Many in the data-driven mindset bandwagon ( myself included ) have never seen it any other way because using data in a digitalized work environment has become a necessity with the much success being placed on them . The more data you are armed with the better , or so it seems .
However , analyzing some of the marketing and communications work I have delivered in the past 5 years based on data has somehow unsettled me because I have realized how wrong I have been , and so might you .
The hyped success of data-based solutions in the last ten years has seen many organizations embrace this mindset desperately to keep abreast with the trends . Marketing departments have been preaching the magic of data with positioning such as ‘ Our services
“ We need to constantly think beyond the numbers in defining the strategic direction of our organizations by capitalizing on data to boost creativity and innovation around our brand offering . are 5x better than others , 5 % lower in fat , 100 shillings lower in cost than the competition and so forth ’. Mistakes can be a bit costly for brands and to avoid them , many companies today have invested in massive research that mints metrics , analytics , and numbers which ultimately assures every move that they make . However , as many companies are finding out the hard way , relying primarily on data is not the only way of assessing brands and might not help their business go to the next level .
We need to constantly think beyond the numbers in defining the strategic direction of our organizations by capitalizing on data to boost creativity and innovation around our brand offering . For example , when launching a brand , say a tissue paper , data gathered should not only guide in knowing the target market and what they like and doing exactly that , but should inform disruptive strategies to drive growth .
Data should inform solutions of how to get around a problem , not hold back the business from acting . For example , expansive data shows that economic activity generally slows down in Kenya during elections with firms scaling down on production and investors holding on to their cash . This would discourage many from investing but there are many cases of thriving businesses in these times .
There are other businesses also thriving where data shows the exact opposite . Just like Warren Buffett once said that it is wise for investors to be “ fearful when others are greedy , and greedy when others are fearful .” Indeed , we need to stop treating data as proof of life because it does not capture everything , and many entrepreneurs will stand by experience , intuition and know-how to thrive .
Businesses are faced with hard questions every day . Should we rebrand , should we launch a new product line , should a new department be introduced , should we partner with company X , should we develop a new marketing campaign for a new market segment and so forth . In all these questions , having access to a lot of data is good , but knowing how to use it is where the success lies because every decision you make has a risk .
Data is necessary for us to understand , mitigate and solve
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