The Human Disconnect With Data Mining And Marketing

As I have shared in the past, I have a second home out in the country that I escape to at least a couple of days a week.  The “Farm House,” as I term it, has a nice room set up as an office and I get a lot of work completed when I use it.

About two miles from the Farm House sits a large Walmart.  I sometimes dash over to that Walmart to grab a mix of groceries, house & home stuff and garden supplies.

Yesterday I was sitting in a Starbucks and a recent grad from Emory’s Goizueta Business School was sipping coffee adjacent to me. His specialty was database modeling.  He was telling me how impressed he was with Walmart’s recent purchase of Jet.com.

Jet.com was not a cheap buy.  Jet.com never made a profit.  Jet.com ran a set of ads that featured folks with purple hair and exploding heads. 

At the Walmart near the Farm House, there’s a significant share of shoppers who have purple, green, orange and pick hair.  Perhaps that is where Birds of a Feather Flocking Together justifies what I consider a waste of investment dollars.

The multi-colored hair I see at Walmart fits well with the profile of who shops a lot at Walmart.  A high percentage of the Walmart shopper base sports Nielsen PRIZM nicknames like “Young & Rustic,” “Campers & Camo,” “Multi-Culti Families” and “Lo-Tech Singles.”

About a year ago, I purchased a set of working shoes from the Walmart store by the Farm House.  They were cheap, but functional and actually comfortable too.

When they wore out, I went to the store to find another pair with no success.  Once I got back to the Farm House, I went online and found a similar pair on Walmart.com and purchased them. 

They have since arrived and are actually very comfortable and durable too.  Especially when I go out and work in the yard around the Farm House.

What happened next though has not only been interesting to observe, but furthermore is where I think so many clients I work with end up. 

Data “Miners” and “Modelers” are manic-depressive players on brand marketing teams. Part of what they do is helpful.  Much of what they do, that corporate teams then employ, are downright dangerous.

I heard that many data miners test out as ISTJs when they take the Myers-Briggs test.  Introverts who use sensory assessment – the numbers! --- to drive rational pathways of thinking further set up in a “just do it” and move on path of resolution.

So what did Walmart do after I purchased those shoes online?

They started a stream of Emails to me that featured similar looking shoes and boots.  Next came a series of Emails and banner ads featuring everything from flannel shirts and Jiffy Mix to toilet paper and baby diapers.  Then came another round of Emails on boots and belts. 

The data model that the data miners built is using something to drive the outbound content, but it fails to accurately portray me.  It links a physical transaction with rational behavioral analytics to then engage in a personal, customer-building exchange.

I once had a dog that wanted to hump about anything with four legs.  I guess that hound shared a similar linear line of rational assessment.

A couple of our clients went out and hired a database “strategy” firm to manage their direct and online marketing. 

One of the clients already has called and asked me if I can assist in taking what the database firm has done and make some sense out of it to apply it more into their day-to-day marketing strategy.

Another travel-lodging client has shared that their database “strategy” firm will not allow them access to their customer records that have since been statistically modeled into predictive algorithms.  The client went on to say that the algorithms are not driving booking gains yet.

Okay.

Yesterday I received a call from an Environics sales manager.  Environics is a firm we partner with in Canada that owns a sister neighborhood lifestyle system that works in tandem with Nielsen PRIZM.

The sales manager, a very nice young woman, attempted to expand the service mix in our current license arrangement.  She told me that there was a whole host of statistical modeling resources we currently do not use.

I attempt to refresh and update when doing so will enhance our client deliverables, so I asked her what specifically did these resources do that would enhance what we have done over a good number of years. 

She went on to say that the additional resources allow us to micro-analyze geographic trade areas in factor-building modeling.

Wow. Factor-building modeling.

When I asked how that type of modeling could be applied against multiple site locations like a chain of 600+ retail sites, she was stunned and could not explain how because once a model is built for one site location it does not easily duplicate in application against another set of sites. Micro-analytics and linear rationale perhaps at its best.

When I experience what I have just shared in this blog, I actually get excited.

Human behaviors and human cultures drive the vision-mission-purpose of EXPERIENCE and why I started the firm in the first place. 

Humans are not rational beasts.  They are both driven by experiential dynamics and emotional context. Two factors that are not always predictable… and certainly not linear, but instead dimensional.

My Farm House is located in a Nielsen PRIZM neighborhood nicknamed, “Country Squires.”  My city flat is located in a Nielsen PRIZM neighborhood nicknamed, “Movers & Shakers.” 

It’s unfortunate that the marketing, sales and database miners at Walmart failed to add that dimensional part of my human persona to its linear data-driven interactive exchange.  

The flannel shirts connected with me some.  Featuring them in a setting around a backyard fire pit along with some nice Brie and Jack Daniels in some retro-cocktail glasses would have not only activated my wallet, but probably an endorsement post to my fellow Facebook “Country Squire” gents.

Something tells me though that the data “Miners” and “Modelers” might not have any idea that Bourbon and Brie share more in common than the “B” in their names.

We do a good amount of number crunching and statistical analytics here at EXPERIENCE.  But… whenever I find myself in the midst of numbers, I purposely get out of the office and move out into the neighborhoods around where my clients’ customers hang.

I strike up conversations about their day-to-day lives as well as prompt them to tell me stories about experiences that drive my clients’ brands.  And I take time to put the calculator down and listen and observe. 

If you are reading this and work in a corporate high-rise, I encourage you too to do the same. 

I know it sounds basic and simplistic.  And yes, there are ways to do this also in social media channels where a person can “hang” and track dialogue too.

But the human experience is what truly drives brand culture and brand cultures supersede rational relationships.

All said, I hope more database Miners and Modelers expand what they do. It certainly builds a linear drive to my iPhone and website!