Infomagination

Who wants to be a Million Dollar Trader?

I don't know about you, but my current favourite bit of Monday night telly is Million Dollar Traders (9pm, BBC2).  Whilst it doesn't quite have the body count of the new series of Dexter (ITV4, 10pm), I couldn't think of a more perfect reality TV show for a nation in the throws of economic meltdown.

In the programme, eight ordinary people are given a million dollars, a fortnight of intensive training and two months to run their own hedge fund.  In a piece of immensely bad luck for the traders (but a miracle for the programme's viewing figures) the economy starts to slide within the first few weeks of their run.  Watching this rag bag bunch of novices trying to turn a buck in such unpredictable circumstances is gripping viewing that also provides a thoroughly digestible peek into the volatile, interlinked nature of the global economy.  This clip shows how a missile test in Iran affects oil prices, which in turn damages British Airways' share price.

What's clear from the programme is that trading is a rapidly changing game, where action must be taken - and fresh bets placed - at the first sign of an event.  At the game's heart is the trader's console, where information about the world's markets is fed through in real time and share prices are sketched out like the lifeline on an ECG.  It's this up to the second data that makes trading so fast paced and reactive.

The thought for the rest of us is that, with time, increasing digitisation and technological advances mean that marketing data will only come through quicker and more plentifully.  Marketing dashboards, which bring together key data sets so that organisations can assess their ongoing performance, will get closer and closer to real time - and we will get closer to having our own version of the trader's console.  At the same time, digitisation will also help our communication to become quicker and more targetted, giving us a trader's ability to react. 

Whilst there will always be a need for ongoing ideas that glue a brand's comms together, the ability for brands to react to events and information quickly, with timely, targeted comms - and optimise campaigns iteratively, as circumstances change - is a tough task that's all set to separate the winners and losers of the future.  Re-shaping comms agencies around speed of response will be a major challenge, but one with the potential to bring serious rewards for those who can pull it off.  Fast strategy is one thing - but how about throwing the rest of it in there too..?

As the Million Dollar Traders have found out, life in the fast lane can be pretty stressful.  But where there's risk, there's also reward and - as Dexter would tell you - if you make the right calls at the right time, you can really make a killing.

It's not Information Vs Intuition. It's Information X Intuition.

 

With all this chat about data, you might be forgiven for thinking that I want to turn the industry into a club for number junkies - or that I place more importance on information than intuition.  To set the record straight though, that's really not the case.

Personally, I love intuitive planning and I'm totally convinced that "doing what feels right" will continue to create much of the world's best marketing in the future.  The subconscious is just about the most powerful data processor there is, after all, so we'd be mad to ignore it (as Mr Gladwell quite rightly points out in Blink).

I do think the industry needs to have less of a downer on data if we're going to succeed in our rapidly changing world, though.  The quicker we embrace intuition and information as complimentary, rather than competing, elements the better.  Enriching intuition with information should make us more creative, inspirational and effective, not the other way around. 

I don't think this means we all suddenly need to get all techy, but I do think it means we'll have to welcome a few more techy people into our teams.  These people needn't be geeky, mechanoid data albatrosses hanging around our intuitive necks, though - just sparky, numerate types who offer us another point of view, plus valuable insight and expertise, whilst working to the same creative ends as the rest of the team.  That's why I call them Data Punks.  

I ran into the Planning Director of the direct agency Partners Andrews Aldridge a little while ago and she told me that the way they do things there is to pair intuitive/creative planners with data planners.  As data becomes more important throughout the comms industry, this kind of thing could definitely be an interesting model to explore elsewhere.  Creatives work in pairs, after all - and wherever there are different skill sets and points of view then you can be sure that clashing them's gonna set off shed loads of sparks...