Are you armed for big data?

While most marketers (and, let’s be honest, agency people) are still struggling with the question of what exactly big data is, a pressing fact is that that it’s coming to Asia in a big way. The escalating global demand for big data – whether you like to interpret it as analysis of operational data, VIP retaining, retargeting or social monitoring – underlies a slow but phenomenal change of marketing not only shifting from an art to a science, but also from creativity to relevance.While making content that is interesting and share-worthy is still a prominent ingredient to successful marketing, en par on the scale of importance are relatable pushes that tap into the audience’s interests, past search history, geography and needs.For example, if you see a banner on cheap guided Parisian city tours after an hour of relentlessly checking out attractions, opening hours and local recommendations of what to do in the city, it’ll take a fairly attractive ad to pull your cursor away despite that the travel banner may not be very creative or pretty at all.To reinforce my point, Facebook director of North Asia Jayne Leung, said ads that are associated with the user’s social contacts – such as X liked Y page, or X commented on Y page, have a 50% higher response rate compared to stand-alone suggested posts.And just last year, cosmetics brand Laneige started a campaign management pilot project with IBM, which picks out personal data and past-purchases of their VIPs who haven’t spent for two months straight and sends them a personalised product offering to keep them engaged.It also sifted through existing customers’ data to predict their spending habits to roll out relevant retention programmes, promotions and offers. In just half a year’s time, the result was a 30% improvement in customer retention and response.“We [were] happy with our robust customer database with half-a-million records, and volumes of customer information such as purchase history, income and even customers’ skin concerns,” said Fion Ipp, managing director of AmorePacific Hong Kong, Laneige’s mother company.“But the challenge is how we can make sense of the data to come up with meaningful strategies that better serve our customers and hence help the businesses.”Three months ago, Deloitte Digital, which operates out of the US, set up a studio in Japan as its first entry point in Asia and is already serving clients such as Mercedes-Benz Japan, Fred Perry and Raica.Another big player Accenture Interactive recently hired Jason Chau, a 12-year McCann WorldGroup veteran, as managing director of Greater China.It's a rapidly growing area and the number of global players moving on this space are increasing along side it.So while the creative agencies can still dance around the subject by boasting originality, media buying capabilities and a 360-offering before they are left with no choice but to dish out the big bucks to data companies, or establish a division of its own like GroupM Interaction.