The credibility of marketing in the boardroom fails the test to be quantitative, simply because it is about the future, about predicting human behaviour and designing experiences and communications that they will relate to.
We hope.
Businesses are run on data, ‘what is the ROI’ may be the most common question around the board table. When the answer is ‘I do not know’ or a set of fluffy clichés about customer experience, the accountants, lawyers and engineers who run the joint go to sleep.
Therefore marketers have embraced the availability of digital tools like a drowning man grabbing a floater, any floater will do, and now we are drowning in data.
Problem is the foundations of the data are shaky, but because it passed the data sniff test, it gets a nod.
The result is boring, risk averse, creatively dead, communication and marketing programs.
This is great for those few who remain undaunted by the data, who build on a creative platform, using data as one of a number of tools to hone the impact, simply because the competition is so bland.
Where something is unknown , rather than speculating, imagining, and creating, we deliver a dump truck of irrelevant data to fill the hole in the hope that no one asks the key question about its validity. ‘Because it is numbers, it must be right’ seems to be the default position.
The best marketers today use data, they leverage data, they do not love it, do not allow it to drive the output, just to inform it. They remain creative.
So, my answer to the question posed in the headline is “mostly yes”. However, for those who have figured out how to use data to inform their creativity rather than to drive it, the good times are here. It is much easier to stand out in the sea of mediocrity that now exists for those very few who can harness and direct the power of data rather than being consumed by it.
Cartoon credit: my thanks, again, to Tom Fishburne www.marketoonist.com
