Tips for the data besieged

An advertising industry overwhelmed by data considered how to navigate the tsunami of information at an IPA event in London. 

Signals in the Noise considered how much audience measurement can be trusted, accountable and transparent, hearing from the likes of economists, broadcasters, regulators and data officers. 

Why it matters

“Data, data everywhere, not a drop to drink,” observed one speaker, a line that would have baffled Samuel Taylor Coleridge. For the modern marketer attempting to put messages and money into a kaleidoscope of platforms and channels, working out whether these myriad sources do what they say they do can make it difficult to see the wood for the trees.

‘The big spreadsheet in the sky’ is a myth

Tim Harford, who writes the Undercover Economist column for the FT, noted the tendency to believe that all this data comes from “the big spreadsheet in the sky” – but not all data is created equal. Which is why returning to the first principles on data is vital, even for seasoned practitioners.

What you need to know

Harford outlined the following three ideas:

• Data production is a choice. What we choose to count and how we choose to count it matters enormously. While we often think about torturing statistics to get them to say what we want them to, the bigger mistakes come from the source of the data (or the lack of source).
• Data needs to be taken seriously to be trustworthy. Just saying it’s trustworthy won’t cut it; providers should seek to make it comparable and as transparent in methodology as possible.
• With the above in place, a little rigour goes a long way. Only once you’ve done the basics can the devastating insights of data wizardry can happen. But, ultimately, if bad stuff goes in, bad stuff comes out.

Bottom line

Harford stresses, both in his columns and in his views at the event, that data needs to be taken seriously in organisations – to be thought about in advance and gathered consistently and transparently, not for winning an argument with a really nice simple stat. 

After all, as Chris Ladd, head of media at Nationwide Building Society, noted later: every CFO expects verification because every single financial release that they have put together has been audited, seriously.

Reported from IPA: Signals in the Noise by SPT