Big data ou big idea?

How not to drown creativity in the data ocean?

A precious Grail supposed to decipher the key to the expectations of Internet users and identify them very precisely. A company located at the other end of the world would therefore be able today to know your tastes and flatter your desires as if they had secretly consulted your closest confidant. It is on this unstoppable promise that Facebook and the others began to control and then sell the precious data, which all advertisers on the planet want to tear themselves away from, in order to optimize their sales. In the current era of marketing, it is clearly difficult to slow this race, especially in the short term. Simply because its potential, well used, has truly virtuous effects. Except that in reality, the process is often badly led. The conviction of brands is diluted in the desire to please. The fear of taking possible risks is extrapolated by the emergence of this intoxicating big data. In the end, the long-term effect on consumers is quite surprising.

Surprise your audiences!

To stay happy and progress, humans need new things, accidents, surprises, contrasts. The richness of a life is made up of unexpected discoveries. Why do we love to travel to the other side of the world if not to experience the excitement of the new and the unexpected? Nothing is more captivating than an unknown flavor on our palate. Nothing is stronger than a new musical genre that we discover like a punch in the stomach. In the end, nothing is more tempting than a new proposal that goes beyond the scope of our personal tastes.

Not only do cultural shocks please us, wake us up, but they sometimes change us profoundly, to the point of becoming a small part of our rich identity. Is it not the ultimate dream of any brand on earth to gain the approval and long-term commitment of its new followers?

So certainly, let’s not pretend to belittle the usefulness of data, but we must remember that success begins with a new and unifying conviction. A leader does not adapt his vision to please everyone. At least not at first. Nothing like a proposal hired to emerge, rather than isolating everyone in a form of soft indulgence. We praise data too much with the illusion of messages adapted in real time to each individual. What impact can you have when you politely slip into a mold? Rock band Metallica said they play the best of local playlist on Spotify in concert. When we reinject to an audience exactly what they expect, can we still talk about creation?

Laurent Habib, president of the AACC, said in a very fair way in a recent interview: “When the algorithm and the data lead the decision-makers to the same solutions, the same interfaces, the same products, the same arguments and the same media, then technology destroys a fundamental value of our society. ”

The idea before data.

All successful companies and projects have in common the ability to identify and offer a creative and innovative vision of their field. Intuition, or random discovery, is at the heart of progress. The communication strategy goes hand in hand. Creativity, scientifically defined, is the ability to use its synapses to unexpectedly connect all of our knowledge, our general culture. In this sense, data that is too rigorous, too exclusionary, even becomes a danger. To be creative, you have to know how to cross the most unexpected ideas. To provoke emotion, or even to capture attention, is the art of surprising, by offering a new combination of the value that one is cap