24/7/2017 'Thick Data' Helps Marketers Humanize Big Data

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Key Takeaways Ive spent Office Goals: A Peek Inside

Little & Company
What? Big Data helps marketers answer my career
well-defined questions and see on a 5 Ways Nonprofits Can
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phenomena, but it falls short of mission to
explaining why consumers behave as put people Funding the Future of Free
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they do. at the center
of business. Grads of Life Paves a Path
to Employment for Non-
So what? "Thick data" provides the My career
degree Opportunity Youth
granular detail to humanize Big Data. prior to
84.51 was Balancing Volunteerism
With a Full-time Job
Now what? To acquire thick data, at a large,
marketers need to reignite personal established
More
connections with consumers and strive consumer
to understand the context of their packaged
decisions. goods
company, Marketer's Toolkit
so naturally
I was intrigued by what it would be like to be on the other Sample Size Calculator
side. As a long-term data geek, I was giddy at the prospect

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24/7/2017 'Thick Data' Helps Marketers Humanize Big Data

of having so much data at my fingertips along with capabilities Research Proposal

like geo-fencing and a cutting-edge team of data scientists to Template
work with and learn from every day. Research Consensus
Ranking Tool
As many insight strategists and business leaders know, all that Participant Profile Form
data can make it diificult to know where to begin or even what Market Research Strategy
it all means. A senior leader at one of our clients described his Scorecard
biggest challenge to me, gesturing to piles of papers all over
his desk: All this data. Everyone brings me data. Theres so
much of it that its getting harder to know what matters; what it
might mean for the future or what should I do now based on all Upcoming Conferences
this.
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This is one of the challenges facing leaders in an era of bigger
and bigger data. We have more information than ever before, 2017 Summer AMA
but amid all the data, some important things can get lost. Conference
Clarity can become fleeting as more data points pile up and 2017 AMA Annual
the people behind that data get lost. Conference
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Behind the data are people. People with complicated lives, Marketing of Higher
Education
existing in rich cultural ecosystems. People who happened to
stop in the grocery store that day for some reasonperhaps 2018 AMA Winter Academic
Conference
for a quick dinner for the family on the way home from soccer
practice, maybe to pick up medicine for an elderly parent, for
fresh ingredients for a special dinner celebrating a big life More
moment or possibly trying to get the groceries for the week
with the little bit of money left in the bank account before
payday. Upcoming Training Events

People are the reason our brands exist. Most brands say we Effective Marketing Writing
have our consumers or customers at the center of what we do, Content Marketing - 2017 -
but do we really see them in all that data we have? Do we Chicago
know what makes them tick, what they need and where our Effective Marketing Writing -
brands fit in the greater landscape of their lives (or where they 2017 - Chicago
could)?
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To do this, we need to go back to basics and reignite human
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connection. We need to experience life with our customers, Marketing Research
getting to know them as people and understand the contexts
they live within and how that context impacts what they do More
every day. We need to know what happened before and after
that trip to the grocery store to create clarity and depth of
understanding.
Upcoming Webcasts
We call this type of information thick data. Its the stuff of
10 Common Webinar
human existence and connection, which can be like rocket fuel Mistakesand How to
for a brand when harnessed effectively. Thick data is messy, Avoid Them

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24/7/2017 'Thick Data' Helps Marketers Humanize Big Data

low base size and hard to scale. It has to be processed by a Member Only Webcast:
human brain and requires skills like empathy and creativity to "The Brief of a Lifetime" -
The Story of the Creation of
make it useful. But it answers questions that our Big Data a New Global Snacking
alone cannot. And, if we succeed in putting these two types of Brand
data together, we can understand the people we serve more Content: Your Ticket to
completely, illuminating new possibilities for how we can make High-Performing ABM &
a real difference for them. Sales Enablement
8 Biggest Mistakes Email
Big Data is extremely useful in answering well-defined Marketers Make and How to
Avoid Them
questions and addressing phenomena that are well-
understood. Models are built on assumptions, which are 9 Social Media Metrics to
typically well-informed by historical data, but they are only as Monitor
useful as those assumptions are accurate and as good as the
modeler is at choosing the right types of data to feed into the More
system.

The recent presidential election is a now over-told story of this

problem. All the traditional polls missed predicting Trumps win
because they missed some important cultural shifts that had
happened diminishing the accuracy of the old models. So
rather than looking at how certain counties had voted across a
long history of prior elections, questions about the level
frustration with established institutions may have had more
predictive power. Thick data can help us understand these
phenomena that are not yet well-defined or neatly measured.

We can find new ideas or models that are just emerging but
are still too small to impact our existing Big Data frameworks.
The understanding provided can help us look at our models
differently and ask what if so we might see the opportunities
and threats that are coming and what the implications could be
on our businesses and brands. And, through thick data work,
well find the people behind those numbers again and
understand why they do what they do, reigniting our
connection with them to light a clear path forward.

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Author
Bio:

Mandy Rassi
Mandy Rassi is vice president of primary research
at 84.51. She previously worked at Procter &
Gamble in varying consumer insight roles.

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