data driven irrelevance

how to deliver the right message to the right person at the right time, possibly in the right place, and very, very, very possibly the right message.

How to deliver the right message to the right person at the right time, possibly in the right place, and very, very, very possibly the right message.

In August 2016, a collective "Oh crap!" moment swept through the marketing industry. Procter & Gamble no longer believed in Facebook targeting! Even though they served ads to "pet owners" and "large families," surprisingly, no more people bought Febreze. OMG. Maybe we should take this opportunity to reflect on what it's really about: relevance.

Whether digital or not, marketing should ideally reach the right person at the right time with the right message — meaning it should be as relevant as possible. Over the past few years, we've invented new technologies, collected vast amounts of data, and tried to define, categorize, and measure the diverse group of people out there. And everything went smoothly: with data-driven optimization and performance-based billing, we could snatch bigger pieces of the pie from established TV and print players, accompanied by the epic narrative of the downfall of old media, which fits our times so well.

Even with data-driven advertising, usually half the money is wasted.

From dusty target groups and perpetually smiling personas, we now had users whose journeys aka experiences aka moments we could finally track and target with appropriate advertising. To eliminate any remaining doubts from our clients, we even started tracking users' eye movements, facial expressions, and gestures, aligning ourselves with neuroscience, believing that more data would lead to more relevance.

But things turned out differently. What used to be bathroom breaks during commercials or "No Ads" stickers are now ad-blockers and terms of service objections. Tracking scares most people. Our "relevance" often overshoots the mark and just becomes creepy. So, even with data-driven advertising, usually half the money is wasted.

Culture is chaos. Culture is creative human failure. Culture is the reason no one suddenly visits your website anymore.

Relevance means "situational importance" (Wikipedia, of course...) and, unlike general importance — significance — it can't be measured in numbers. To deliver the right message to the right person at the right time, possibly in the right place, and very, very, very possibly the right message, we often lack an ingredient that we can neither measure nor artificially create: culture. Not in terms of music, theater, or painting, but in terms of actions and interpretations of people who have to deal with our banners and pre-rolls in their daily lives. Culture is chaos. Culture is creative human failure. Culture is the reason no one suddenly visits your website anymore.

To be clear: Relevance, without a deeper understanding of culture, is neither plannable nor measurable because it depends on the unplannable and immeasurable cultural context.

Not representative? Please...

I'm not arguing against data-driven targeting here, but rather for not blindly relying on data and algorithms. We should always consider cultural contexts in every analysis and planning step. Despite all the tech euphoria and faith in numbers, it should at least be possible to make a marketing decision without backing it up with "data" (source usually "Some-Consumer-Survey US/UK/Canada 2012"). It's time for marketing decision-makers to trust cultural phenomena that are captured without technical measuring devices and defined without numbers. Not representative? Please... Of course, there are "representative" data, e.g., about how many people take the bus to work and how many of them tick one of three preset questions. But a culturally relevant campaign for public transport won't likely arise from these insights.

The best results always come from combinations of human and machine, so also from cultural relevance and data-driven targeting. Alongside technical solutions, we need more human insight and, above all, more trust in its substance. From it, brilliant campaigns with cultural appeal can still emerge, compensating for targeting inefficiencies.

Oh, and if you're wondering where to get all these cultural insights: there are dozens of cultural studies institutes training young people. But be careful, they might be a bit "anti" there because they've been told for twenty years that they're useless for the economy.