Why big ideas need big data

This essay proposes three fundamental ways in which Big Data can be utilised to aid creative thinking.

Why big ideas need big data

Marie MaurerOgilvy & Mather

Does Big Data inspire or hinder creative thinking?

This essay was entered into The Admap Prize 2015. For more information visit the Prize page.

Big Data. It's enough to turn a pleasant conversation into a foot-shuffling 'cheque please'. These two innocuous words make me close browsers, delete emails, put off writing Admapprize essays. It's not just the painfully ubiquitous marketing rhetoric of 'big' – big idea, Big Awards, big thinking, ad infinitum – 'Big Data' is reductive, to the point of telling you nothing....

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