- is significant not just for fans of Brad Pitt and baseball, but also for marketing.
As coach of the perennial underperforming Oakland Athletic baseball team, general manager Billy Beane used statistical modeling to buy better players for less money. The ultimate ROI.
Meanwhile, our own industry tells quite a different story. Also just released, but not due to premiere at a cinema near you,
We know the fact that social media was atop a list of concerns for CMOs will spark debate. To us, this misses the point.
Let's look at the key data:
- 63% of CMOs feel that being able to demonstrate ROI from their marketing activity will be the most important measure of their personal success by 2015
- 80% still focus primarily on traditional sources of information such as market research (ask and dig research)
- 70% feel incapable of analysing the glut of information available about their customers
- 56% see social media as a key engagement channel
These stats tell the tale of a confused industry struggling to cope with emerging technology and a new raft of skillsets required to remain effective.
Further weight is added to this argument when we realise that the latest figures from the leading search and selection firms servicing the marketing industry have seen an unprecedented rise in demand for roles with the words, 'data' and 'analyst' in them.
There is a way to cut through the reams of data and to keep pace with the velocity of technological advancement.
However, the language used by both the surveying and the surveyed belies the real problem:
- 56% see social media as a key engagement channel
Here's the rub. Social media is a behaviour, not a channel.
Mass participation across social platforms means organisations can now understand the actions, need states and behaviour traits of their audiences (customers and potential customers) in less artificial surroundings than traditional market research.
Understanding your audience via social media can bridge the gap between claimed and actual behaviour.
What's more, this can be trended over time - in the same way the analysts on trading floors of investment banks do - in order to provide predictive information.
Banks, hedge funds and private Investors have been using this theory for years. This is the opportunity for marketing to move into this new age.
The CMOs that participated in IBM’s survey are worried. They feel confused by the plenitude of data and powerless at the lack of insight.
They all know the theory of channel proliferation (agencies have been banging that drum for years), yet they still seek to understand this new world using old market research techniques.
We're not trying to find the Higgs Boson with something Faraday would have used. It's time to understand our audiences in a new way.
It's not the death of the focus group or the NPS, but it is time to look at the alternatives.
In the meantime, . See you in the queue.
Christian Gladwell, social media specialist, M&C Saatchi Group