A recent MediaBizBloggers.com blog post by Tom Cunniff raises the question of whether Big Data can really help us make sense of a largely unstructured world so as to be worth the cost and effort associated with plowing into reams of data in search of transformative insights. Tom takes the point of view that those who seek answers in Big Data may be short changing the value of Big Magic, his euphemism for creative ideas that are so powerful that they defy expectations as to their impact on consumers or even society. But Tom also recognizes that the power of Big Magic is elusive and unpredictable, and that even highly talented creative folks that can sometimes hit singles, doubles, and maybe even triples, may not ever hit a magical grand slam.

I agree that it is likely impossible to use Big Data to come up with a formula to generate Big Magic. However, what I really want to draw attention to is the disconnect between how creative folks perceive, misunderstand and fear Big Data relative to its potential to assist in making more effective advertising. While Big Data will not in itself help us come up with a formula for better creative, it does enable the ability to classify consumers and their detailed interactions in a manner that helps us better understand and leverage insights about specific groups or even individuals. All too often, the creative quest to get at the essence of consumer appeal results on missed opportunities to drive ad effectiveness by making campaigns more contextually relevant to specific target segments, content or even timely situations.

In direct marketing, there is general agreement that the effectiveness of campaigns depends on three key components: list, creative and offer. List refers to the various target segments associated with each particular creative and offers. It is also notable that direct marketing campaigns typically set up a matrix of control groups where portions of each target segment is exposed to each creative and each offer, which serves to better understand the relative response rates associated with each component. The relevant insights derived are then used to enhance ongoing performance of subsequent campaigns.

Fans of Big Magic may look down on direct marketing as an ugly duckling that may be okay for promotional messaging but will not likely achieve a high “buzz” factor or win major creative awards. That may be true, but there is little doubt that what direct marketing may lack in creativity, it makes up in delivering measurable outcomes and insights that help improve subsequent campaign results.

Other forms of advertising communications such as print and out-of-home campaigns also provide evidence of campaigns can adapt the creative messaging to capitalize on the context of the placement. Absolut (vodka) and BMW have effectively use such campaigns that borrow from the media placement context or geography to enhance consumer message relevance, and improve advertising effectiveness.

Yet, when it comes to TV advertising, there is still this overarching fear that focusing on anything but the power of the underlying creative idea may actually inhibit campaign results. A proof point that is sometimes offered to support this perspective is that successful campaigns are singularly focused on a powerful idea. While there is undisputable value in having a powerful underlying campaign concept, great campaigns are also said to have “legs” able to support multiple and ongoing creative execution.

So why not leverage Big Data to enlighten creative development? Data-driven insights may help identify a powerful underlying idea that may have broad target appeal, or far more likely, the data may reveal insights that can inspire various ways to express a powerful creative concept to make it more appealing and meaningful to specific consumer target segments or viewing occasions. 

The next time your creative team is putting together “the next big idea”, check to see if it passes a hypothetical Big Data test. Does the concept support message differentiation based on key consumer segments? Is the big idea able to support tailoring of messages to make them more relevant based on placement or geographic context? If not, maybe it is not such a big idea after all.And if you actually have access to Big Data, or any amount of data that may be relevant to better understand your target consumers, you can begin to apply a more practical approach to your creative assessment. How does the idea stack up against specific, identified consumer segments? What can be done to make the idea more relevant to each target consumer segment, across mediums and placements? These are all questions where relevant data can help drive and refine just about any powerful campaign idea.

In the end, we will come to realize that Big Data and Big Magic are not mutually exclusive forces. Together they can be used to craft advertising that is more relevant to viewers and more effective for marketers. Big Data may not help bring on magical grand slams, but appropriately used with Big Magic, it will likely result in advertising campaigns that predictably deliver singles and doubles. And that is a game winning formula.

Just before the holidays, we introduced the new leaders in media and data who have joined our company to help us help the TV industry meet the evolving demands of data-driven advanced advertising.

We welcomed Scott Falconer as Chief Operating Officer and Dave Nussbaum as Vice President of Media Solutions at a time when Visible World continues to work with companies across the TV industry on advanced solutions for customizing delivery of targeted TV advertising.

Over the last few years, we have been building a team which has the critical understanding of audiences and data and how they interact to make advertising more relevant and for TV audiences. Both Scott and Dave have already become integral parts of building out the TV industry’s evolution toward more advanced ways to engage audiences.

Scott joins Visible World following a career in technology that spans mobile, internet, video, and telephony. Among a career highlighted by positions at Booz Allen Hamilton and Goldman Sachs, Falconer also brings to Visible World highly practical perspective gained through his consumer marketing experience as Executive Vice President of Nutrisystem as well as Executive Vice President at AOL Mobile.

Dave will lead business development as part of Visible World’s ongoing work to provide platforms that deliver and addressable TV solutions. Nussbaum’s background in targeting and measuring audiences and his insight into applying audience behavior and demographics will enable Visible World’s clients to continue creating advertising campaigns that are more effective and efficient.

We’re looking forward to working with both Scott and Dave in 2012 and into the future as we all work toward evolving TV advertising.

Addressable television technology is a very real part of the advertising ecosystem, and Visible World’s work to enable it tru2way compatibility is a perfect example. Earlier this month we announced how we’re making it even easier for operators to deploy addressable technology and that highlighted our commitment to deliver ways for our cable partners to enhance their advertising capabilities. 

Visible World announced the release of a tru2way compliant addressable advertising solution that makes it easier for cable operators to deploy addressable advertising in their systems. That advancement was a powerful combination of tru2way’s scale and Visible World’s addressable advertising system. We’re enabling marketers to target their television commercials to relevant audiences based on customized demographic segmentation data. The advancement further showcases how cable operators can now easily meet the growing demand for marketing their own targeted messages, services and products across the platform.

Major US cable operators are deploying tru2way-enabled devices across their footprint, creating a national standardized middleware platform for interactivity and advertising applications. Visible World’s technology easily integrates into these devices, allowing it to be deployed across a rapidly growing number of subscribers.

Our work with tru2way is an amazing step forward in bringing addressable television technology to cable operators, marketers, and advertising agencies. With each advancement, we’re delivering new ways for them to apply highly accurate audience and demographic data to television advertising campaigns. Advertisers can use general demographic data, industry specific data, or their own proprietary data, and use it to deliver different messages to different sets of households. The system works for television ads that are viewed live as well as those that are viewed during broadcast replayed through a Digital Video Recorder (DVR).

Adding tru2way-support is a key step in the on-going process of scaling the addressable advertising footprint to more devices and to a larger audience. Visible World can now provide an addressable advertising solution on a range of middleware solutions across a range of television devices. Those range from basic digital TV receivers to advanced set top boxes with DVR capabilities and include Home Gateways running tru2way middleware.

Tru2way technology provides a powerful platform for new television devices, enabling new user interfaces, new device architectures, and also new capabilities for interactivity and advanced advertising. And as we continue to take advantage of this platform, we also continue to position television as the best medium to not only reach millions of homes, but to interact with the most appropriate audiences.

As marketing, media or advertising professionals, we all suffer from PBS. I’m not referring to the ongoing debate on funding of the Public Broadcast Service.  Rather, the affliction that needs your attention is your own Personal Bias Syndrome (PBS). This condition can be attributed to the way, in the course of hectic day-to-day professional and personal lives, we all tend to assume that the way we enjoy media and embrace new technologies is pretty much the same way everyone else is doing it too. Let me share a few prevalent examples that illustrate how our PBS is out of sync with what is actually happening. You might personally recognize some of these symptoms...

DVR Rules!  – Because we tend to think of ourselves as heavy users of DVRs and watch plenty of time-shifted content, we assume that this is quickly becoming the norm. As incredible as it may seem to us, less than half of TV households have a DVR. Consequently total time-shifted viewing across all TV households remains less than 7% of all time spent watching TV. Beyond that, it is important to note that the rise in watching time-shifted TV content is being driven by greater penetration of DVRs and not by the average amount of time individuals watch time-shifted content. According to Nielsen research, among households that have had DVRs for at least one year, the time individuals devoted to watching time-shifted content has held steady around 26 hours per month which amounts to less than 20% of their total TV consumption. 

Internet Rules!  – There is a persistent banter in the business and trade press that focuses on the rise in online video options that are available to us. As an avid fan of Netflix and TED, I realize that there is a growing amount of online video content that is attracting greater attention.  But just how much time is broader America spending with these online video alternatives? Not much is the answer when compared to traditional TV consumption. Online video viewing amounts to less than 2% of the total time watching traditional TV. Sure it is growing, and rapidly because this growth is coming on top of a very small base. And to further emphasize this point, according to Nielsen’s latest “Three Screen Report”, in terms of total minutes of year over year growth, traditional TV viewing actually grew more than online video viewing.

Youth Rules!  – As a whole, the marketing, media and advertising industry tends to skew relatively young, and as such, we tend to empathize and even worship youth culture. So it is no surprise that we often hear that the differences between traditional TV and online or mobile video consumption are generational. However, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the average 8-18 year old spends nearly 3.5 hours a day watching TV versus 1.5 hours on the Internet, and while the time they spent on the Internet grew, the growth in amount of time spent watching TV was even greater. Recent ComScore research revealed that the average 18-24 year old spent 32 hours per month on the Internet on 2010, but as it turns out 32 hours was also the average across all age groups. It is noteworthy that the research found that the heaviest users of the Internet are persons ages 45-54 with an average of 39 hours online each month.

It turns out that when we look outside of our own Personal Bias Syndrome, and actually examine research data that provides us with a broader perspective, we realize that our own media consumption and technology adoption behaviors do not reflect what is happening in broader America—not even among young Americans. Sure there are emerging behaviors that are important to keep an eye out for as these may be leading indicators. However, we must also keep in mind that the actions of early adopters rarely reflect the future behaviors of the majority of the population, both in terms of degree of adoption or magnitude of usage. Why is this important? Well, as marketing, media or advertising professionals we are supposed to be in tune with our target consumers. So, we must work at keeping our PBS in check.