B&TB&TB&T
  • Advertising
  • Campaigns
  • Marketing
  • Media
  • Technology
  • Regulars
    • Agency Scorecards
    • Best of the Best
    • Campaigns of the Month
    • CMO Power List
    • CMOs to Watch
    • Culture Bites
    • Fast 10
    • New Business Winners
    • Spotlight on Sponsors
  • Jobs
  • Awards
    • 30 Under 30
    • B&T Awards
    • Cairns Crocodiles
    • Women In Media
    • Women Leading Tech
Search
Trending topics:
  • Cairns Crocodiles
  • Nine
  • Seven
  • Cannes Lions
  • State of Origin
  • NRL
  • WPP
  • Pinterest
  • Thinkerbell
  • B&T Women in Media
  • imaa
  • AFL
  • Anthony Albanese
  • Spotlight on Sponsors
  • AI
  • Meta
  • Foxtel
  • TV Ratings
  • Radio Ratings
  • Sports Marketing

  • About
  • Contact
  • Editorial Guidelines
  • Privacy
  • Terms
  • Advertise
© 2025 B&T. The Misfits Media Company Pty Ltd.
Reading: Forget The Big Data BS & Focus On The ‘Brilliant’ Basics
Share
B&TB&T
Subscribe
Search
  • Advertising
  • Campaigns
  • Marketing
  • Media
  • Technology
  • Regulars
    • Agency Scorecards
    • Best of the Best
    • Campaigns of the Month
    • CMO Power List
    • CMOs to Watch
    • Culture Bites
    • Fast 10
    • New Business Winners
    • Spotlight on Sponsors
  • Jobs
  • Awards
    • 30 Under 30
    • B&T Awards
    • Cairns Crocodiles
    • Women In Media
    • Women Leading Tech
Follow US
  • About
  • Contact
  • Editorial Guidelines
  • Privacy
  • Terms
  • Advertise
© 2025 B&T. The Misfits Media Company Pty Ltd.
B&T > Marketing > Forget The Big Data BS & Focus On The ‘Brilliant’ Basics
MarketingOpinion

Forget The Big Data BS & Focus On The ‘Brilliant’ Basics

Staff Writers
Published on: 20th April 2017 at 9:15 AM
Staff Writers
Share
5 Min Read
SHARE

If Coca-Cola can get back to basics when it comes to handling data, the rest of us should be able to drop the bullshit and do the same, writes Ben Willee (pictured below), general manager and media director of full-service agency Spinach.

Ben Willee

If you haven’t ditched it from your marketing vocab already, it’s time to get rid of the term ‘big data’. WTF does big data even mean? The idea that data has to be big, that it has to involve complicated data mining and algorithms is just complete bollocks. There’s really no such thing as big data – only relevant data.

Sitting through the presentations at ADMA’s Data Day, it occurred to me that many people are so caught up in the bullshit around data – they’re missing the point. So much of this is thought to be the responsibility of boffins in the corner, but Coca-Cola’s Justin de Graaf nailed it when he said he’s not doing anything that revolutionary – he’s just doing the basics really well. And the ‘brilliant basics’, as he called them, boil down to teams that work together to manage all parts of a touch point. He gave the example of data dictating a brief for Coke’s in-house creative team. He said: “Once we gave them that brief, we earned the keys to their heart, because creative teams get crappy briefs a lot. They actually talked about how the brief helped inspire them to build creative and to help generate content.”

It is, as Justin said, pretty basic stuff, but a lot of agencies out there are struggling to get these fundamentals right, especially when the task at hand calls for cross-agency collaboration.

It’s not that they don’t want to collaborate or that there’s a turf war – it’s because they can’t collaborate. Most media agencies don’t know how production schedules work, so they make arbitrary sweeping statements about creative impact and how to change it. On the flipside, most creative agencies haven’t been properly briefed on the role of each channel, let alone the different elements within it. As our marketing becomes more data-driven, this disconnect is a massive problem, especially when you consider Coke’s de Graaf and his point that to do data well, you need to reduce labour intensity. You’ve got to be quick to market, you’ve got to derive your learnings fast and be prepared to steer the ship in different directions. It’s really bloody hard to reduce that labour intensity if your teams, or agencies, aren’t good at collaboration.

Within this siloed model, people are often working with data from a sectarian point of view and they’re never going to get the best results doing it that way. They might be spending a lot of money to execute really sophisticated tools, but arguably they’re only unlocking one-third of the value of those tools.

The basic fact of the matter is that data isn’t about having a black box and pushing a couple of buttons. You’ve got to have a hypothesis to start with. And that hypothesis has to be driven by experience in category – knowing what does and doesn’t work in advertising. But if you don’t know where the gold nuggets are to go looking in the first place, you’re wasting your time. Experienced collaborators will identify and get to those problems more quickly and can use the data to get a better result.

To marketers out there, I say this: if your agency can’t tell you how they manage data in a straightforward way, they’re shit-talkers. If they don’t have an approach to using the data to improve more than just their patch, they’re caught up in big data BS, and you know how I feel about that.

Join more than 30,000 advertising industry experts
Get all the latest advertising and media news direct to your inbox from B&T.

No related posts.

TAGGED: Ben Willee, Designworks, Ratings
Share
Staff Writers
By Staff Writers
Follow:
Staff Writers represent B&T's team of award-winning reporters. Here, you'll find articles crafted with industry experience spanning over 50 years. Our team of specialists brings together a wealth of knowledge and a commitment to delivering insightful, topical, and breaking news. With a deep understanding of advertising and media, our Staff Writers are dedicated to providing industry-leading analysis and reporting, both shaping the conversation and setting the benchmark for excellence.

Latest News

Pia Whitesell Signs On As Ambassador As OLAY Unveils New ‘Hello Better Me’ Campaign
15/07/2025
Justin Randles.
TV, Radio, OOH & Publishing Cut Recruitment Activity & Junior Hiring Trend Shows Signs Of Slowing
15/07/2025
QBD Books Named Official Books Partner For 2025 MS Readathon
15/07/2025
New Study Reveals Marketers Want More With Less In FY26 But Data, AI Concerns Could Cause Headaches
15/07/2025
//

B&T is Australia’s leading news publication magazine for the advertising, marketing, media and PR industries.

 

B&T is owned by parent company The Misfits Media Company Pty Ltd.

About B&T

  • About
  • Contact
  • Editorial Guidelines
  • Privacy
  • Terms
  • Advertise

Top Categories

  • Advertising
  • Campaigns
  • Marketing
  • Media
  • Opinion
  • Technology
  • TV Ratings

Sign Up for Our Newsletter



B&TB&T
Follow US
© 2025 B&T. The Misfits Media Company Pty Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Register Lost your password?