Marketing Managers: 3 Ways to Leverage Big Data into Big Success

For marketing managers, it is becoming increasingly imperative to combine big data with an integrated marketing communications strategy in order to increase brand awareness, relevance, and growth. As an undergraduate student in the Integrated Marketing Communications program at Northwestern University, I have found two articles that highlight two brands that have executed highly successful marketing campaigns through the creative use of data. 

The article, “Big Data as a Marketing Strategy – Spotify’s 2016 Campaign,” by Lior Schneider at Overdrive Interactive analyzes the huge success of Spotify’s data-driven campaign, “Thanks, 2016. It’s been weird.” In this campaign, Spotify shared funny, interesting, and culturally relevant insights from user data. For example, a billboard in London read, “Dear 3,749 people who streamed ‘It’s the End of the World as We Know It’ the day of the Brexit vote, hang in there.” The brand took an integrated marketing communications approach by presenting these insights across different forms of media, from billboards to sponsored advertising on social media. All in all, this campaign strengthened and raised awareness of the Spotify brand, as it generated high levels of engagement and conversation from Spotify’s users and target audience. 

Source: http://crossing-technologies.com/big-data-analytics/

Further, the article, “Dove’s New Billboards Criticize the Way the Media Discusses Female Athletes’ Looks,” by Adweek's Kristina Monlios explains how Dove created a machine-learning algorithm to detect sexist quotes about female athletes in real-time in order to increase Dove’s brand relevance and to re-establish Dove as a thought leader in conversations about beauty and body. Similar to Spotify, Dove took an integrated marketing communications approach by not only sharing insights on its social media channels, but also by live streaming negative commentary regarding female athletes’ appearances on digital billboards. The campaign encouraged people to join the conversation, challenge sexist rhetoric, tweet at media outlets, and use the #MyBeautyMySay hashtag. The campaign was widely successful, as it turned #MyBeautyMySay into a globally trending movement that reached and engaged millions of people. 

Based on my review of these two articles, as well as my relevant studies in the Integrated Marketing Communications program, here are three action items to consider when creating your next marketing campaign: 

1. Become Data-Driven –  Do not restrict big data to just behind the scenes; instead, create data-driven campaigns to share valuable insights with consumers. 

2. Be Relevant – Create campaigns with insights that are culturally relevant and interesting to your target audience.  

3. Always Engage – Create a campaign that does more than just market your brand or product; create a campaign that engages, surprises, or inspires your audience, whether that be through humor, social change, or really any method of your own choosing. 

As you prepare your next marketing campaign, think about how these three action items can leverage engagement and growth for your brand. 

  

Justine Ivanov is an undergraduate student currently pursuing a Communication Studies major, an Economics minor, and an Integrated Marketing Communications certificate at Northwestern University. 

She hopes to work in marketing upon graduating in June 2019. 

To contact Justine, you can find her on LinkedIn or Twitter.