Data is a dirty word among creative agencies, but Jules Hall is adamant the agencies that will continue to hit the nail on the head are the ones that actually use it.

Speaking at the Travel Daze conference in Sydney yesterday, the CEO of creative agency The Hallway couldn’t stress the importance of using data in creativity enough.

“The best creative agencies realise this is the most exciting, interesting thing that’s happened to our industry,” he told the conference.

“And in the mobile space, we’ve got so much data. We know so much about our people, which enables us to get super smart in how we talk to them.”

But it leads to a different kind of advertising than what many agencies are used to, he said.

“Rather than single ads, it gets into this space; hyper-dynamic, hyper-contextual, hyper-personal, hyper-massive-load-of-buzzwords.”

With everything moving to mobile, he stressed it’s more important than ever brands get in front of the consumer in the first instance. And they do that by using data.

“We’re spending roughly 170 minutes a day on mobile,” he said, citing a Google stat. “Which is still slightly less than television, unbelievably. But it’s a lot of time on our phones.”

We’re not always open to messages from brands though, he remarked, but there are many times throughout the day when consumers slide their thumbs around the screens in specific search of something.

“It’s on the mobile that the dream starts. It’s increasingly critical that brands are winning their customers at that early point – that first point in their journey.

“A lot of people are thinking about this. Not that many are doing it. And less are doing it well.”

The media spend in mobile isn’t following the upwards trend in mobile usage either, added Hall. Bringing up a graph to the audience, the mobile ad spend was about a quarter of that of TV, despite the usage time being relatively similar.

“People haven’t realised the opportunity,” he said. “There’s a massive opportunity for advertisers to connect with their audience through mobile, and not the way you historically would have thought you’d do it.”

It’s a similar message programmatic agency Rocket Fuel found in a recent study.

While we’re well and truly into everyone’s favourite saying ‘year of the mobile’, ad spend just isn’t there.

“It’s well known that consumers are switching between smartphones, tablets, and computers throughout the day,” said JJ Eastwood, APAC managing director for Rocket Fuel.

“Consumers routinely conduct research on one device and take action on another. They’re not tied to one device, so why are marketing plans?

“Marketers need a solution that looks at people not devices.”