Founder & Director, Three Piece Marketing. Hamish identifies marketing pain points and inherent opportunities in a way that drives growth.
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How much do you love coffee, or chocolate, or those priceless weekends away with family and friends? It’s unlikely you can quantify just how much you love these things. In fact, it’s likely you’ll find it hard to provide a rational answer and will instead have a feeling that is hard to explain.
If you’re honest, the chocolate you love and choose time and time again is probably from one brand because of the way it makes you feel, or a memory it evokes. Data cannot explain these things and, in fact, often obscures meaning and those elements that make for a campaign that really connects with an audience. But with growing pressure within organizations for data-driven results — be this usage data, purchase value, return on investment or year-over-year growth — many marketers are relying on statistics, not insights. After all, how can you justify your budget to the chief financial officer if you cannot quantify things, or how do you personalize if you don’t use data? And therein lies the dilemma: Data has begun to drive marketing, rather than support it.
Reading The Room
The truth is, great marketing campaigns come from wickedly smart insights that unlock a strategy pathway that delivers on multiple fronts: resonant messaging, execution, media strategy and beyond.
Of course, data is important for discovery, testing and refining, but I think it’s time to get back to a central tenet of marketing: Insights come from observation of behavior, and insights should be supported by data, rather than data driving them. I’m talking about reading the room rather than counting the number of people in it.
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You see, the problem is that numbers, as wonderful as they can be, can also obscure the truth. By way of a rudimentary example, imagine you are looking through a window into a store that looks packed, with people everywhere. You think to yourself, “There must be 50 people in there. What do they know that I don’t?” You walk in, but suddenly recognize that the 50 people you saw are actually mannequins, not real people. The data you relied on painted a picture that was not a reality.
When we use data for decision-making in lieu of interpreting that data, we risk seeing what we want or don’t want to see instead of capturing the essence of what lies behind or between the data. The result is that we miss an opportunity to elevate our campaign from (advertising) noise to a stand-out campaign.
Resonate Through Understanding
At the end of the day, we are humans, and we are often driven by our emotions and our emotional needs. We want to be understood, feel a connection and desire authenticity. Case in point: Think about one of your favorite songs. You probably didn’t select a song because it was No. 1 for 23 weeks. You chose it for the memories it evokes and the way you feel when you hear it. Emotions connect us to things.
Conversely, no one appreciates being misunderstood, disenfranchised or feeling unheard. In fact, studies have shown that 68% of customers will stop patronizing a business if it seems indifferent to them. That’s why when we see a piece of communication that says the right things but lacks the emotional undertone we require for connection, we steer clear.
Think about this: The field of psychology is based on statistical hypotheses. But rest assured that if you see a psychologist, you will not be lectured on various studies. Rather, the psychologist will probably ask you exploratory questions, empathize with you and adopt a model that suits you. Understanding rapport and insight are key to success. They will then offer thoughts they believe will simultaneously help and resonate with you.
In the same vein, we need consumer psychology and insight based on human behaviors to lead the marketing strategy again, not the other way around. Data should inform and support, but not frame everything.
Resonance Trumps Data
So, how do you develop meaningful, impactful insights? The advice I instill at my agency is to ask why over and over. It is simple, yet powerful. When people have to stop and answer this question, so much is uncovered.
“Sales increased by 50% this time last year. We need to make it happen again.” Okay, but why? Do we know whether new messaging led to the sales increase? Or was it the launch of a new product, news coverage or maybe a price drop? Why should we focus on growing sales and not on growing customer value? The key is to look beyond the numbers into the role that human behavior plays, as this is where the gold is or the insight on how to avoid failure.
Starbucks is a good case in point. Around the world, Starbucks is a sensation. In Australia, it has largely failed. The reason is simple: The company failed to understand what makes Australian coffee drinkers unique and instead blindly believed the success it had elsewhere and the numbers that supported them meant it could roll out as it had before without looking further. But the chain doesn’t resonate with most Australians, who expect a coffee experience: a barista who knows them, good quality coffee and a price point cheaper than Starbucks offers. Starbucks stuck to a model that didn’t leverage audience insight or connection, and ultimately, it cost them. In that, the numbers do not lie.
Sure, I may not be able to quantifiably articulate how much you love coffee or chocolate, but I know if I can build rapport with you and back it up with data, I’m on a good path. Ultimately, insights should connect with our audience to compel them in such a way that they feel it was their choice all along and to associate an emotion with us, thus ensuring that the next time they think of our product category, they think of us fondly.
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Author: Hamish Anderson, Forbes Councils Member
