What are Big Brands doing with Big Data?
big da·ta
noun COMPUTING
extremely large data sets that may be analyzed computationally to reveal patterns, trends, and associations, especially relating to human behavior and interactions.
“much IT investment is going towards managing and maintaining big data” Definitions from Oxford Languages
Where did Big Data come from?
Data Scientists began using the term Big Data when their information collection began to outgrow the excel sheet they were storing it on. It no longer made sense to analyze data in traditional means. With the advancements in technology and cloud computing, data became a living structure that was constantly growing and changing. This vast amount of information paved the way for advancements in machine learning and artificial intelligence.
Today this technology is used in countless industries including healthcare, medicine, finance, agriculture, communications, manufacturing, sales, marketing, and so much more.
In a Ted Talk in 2014, Kenneth Cukier, the author of “Big Data" already knew that “Big data is an extremely important tool by which society is going to advance”. I really enjoyed his explanation of what Big Data truly is and how it can be used.
What we find is that when we have a large body of data, we can fundamentaly do things that we couldnt do when we only had smaller amounts” — Kenneth Cukier
With the expansion of data collection throughout the online experience and beyond, data analytics has become more powerful than ever with information regarding a person's interests and behavior online. Most people would not be able to filter and make sense of big data which created a need for analytics and data modeling software that helps users organize and draw inferences from the mass information.
What about your privacy?
Where is this data coming from and who is letting it happen? Well, we have been allowing it as individuals when blindly agreeing to privacy policies and terms and conditions constantly. Only recently we have become aware of how much information large companies actually have on us and how they might be using it against us. It's one thing for a company to know that we like the color pink and another for our personal health and financial information being stored and exchanged without us knowing.
Data information being used for marketing purposes has faced a lot of pushback. There are rising concerns of user privacy online with legislation like CCPA and GDPR in California and the UK. These acts work towards protecting user privacy and the transfer of their data with unauthorized third parties. I spoke about these privacy concerns and a big change happening online with Google changing the way user data is used for targeting ads a few weeks ago in my blog about the end of third-party cookies.
Monetizing your information
Companies like Facebook, Amazon, and Google are hugely successful because of how much information they have and the way they are using it. By knowing online user behavior they are able to effectively place and retarget ads to lead to increased conversions and sales. These companies leverage the data in order to create their own platform fr advertisers to target consumers in a way they were not able to do before. In return for our data, these companies created a system of a fully personalized experience. With machine learning, we are recommended products we need based on who we are.
How Brands use our Data?
Social Listening: Software can now convert people's attitudes and opinions into quantifiable data online. With various tools and factors, a brand is able to calculate something called social media sentiment or “online mood”. These are incredibly important insights that can help a brand understand what consumers are feeling and saying about their brand online. This can help mold future decisions for brand marketing and social media campaigns.
One-Click Ordering: Amazon has integrated one-click ordering because they already have your billing and delivery data integrated into their system which allows you to products faster than anywhere else online. Amazon actually secured a patent for a one-click ordering button in 1999 and it expired in 2017 allowing other online retailers to adopt similar systems. We can also see this being used in the apple store where once our fingerprints and now our faces can put through the authorization for a download and purchase of an app or in-app purchase. In exchange for giving these companies our personal information, they were able to speed up the process or making a purchase online.
Price Optimization: Many e-commerce retailers are known to use some form of price optimization or dynamic pricing but an industry that is known to do this best is the airline industry. The price of a ticket can change at any moment based on demand, supply, and who is shopping for the product. This is done to maximize revenue while also selling all available seats on a flight. Over time their pricing software AI has gotten smarter by watching how consumers choose a flight and what they consider to be worth their money.
Recommended for you: We can see data analytics in our daily digital life in more ways than you would expect. Streaming services keep you interested by constantly suggesting new movies, tv shows, music, and podcasts based on your previous history. Netflix has built an entire platform based around providing a consistent stream of relevant content that keeps users engaged and willing to pay a monthly fee for entertainment. Spotify is also well known for using its user's listening habits. A clever way they show off their data is with their annual Spotify wrapped where users get an inside peek into what their data says about them. Users look forward to seeing how their results and typically share them on social media as well which is brilliant marketing if you ask me.
Trend Forcast: With an increased amount of ways to condense user behavior and opinions into simple to understand data brands are able to derive upcoming trends and prepare for them in order to stay relevant in the market. Pinterest, a mostly visual search tool provides businesses with upcoming trends based on the data they collect in their platform. They are able to convert images and engagement as well as their own search data to create complete reports called Pinterest Predictions broken down by generational audience and Categories which include Beauty, Finance, Hobbies, Parenting, and Travel. They also break it down in a way that is easily digestible and enjoyable to process, which is rare in the data science world.
These are just a few ways our data is changing the digital landscape. As with any technology, there are pros and cons however I believe that Big Data is here to stay. With some fine-tuning and some necessary regulations to ensure user safety, I think that access to this data is valuable and with change the way we market and grow businesses. We saw how big brands are using data to optimize their products and sales and similar tools and techniques can be used in almost any business. By knowing where to find data and how to use it effectively even small businesses can benefit from it. Big Data is going to help brands adapt and change to consumer needs quickly and I think that is beneficial to both the consumer and the business.
