The term “integrated marketing” is “loosy goosy”, said Dana Todd, SVP of marketing at Performics, during a panel discussion at the SES Conference on March 22.
The panelists at the “Integrated Marketing: What Does That Really Mean?” session endeavored to answer that question in a debate that centered on which is more important, the big idea or the big data.
“It’s about performance, [because] if we as marketers look at things in a silo, then we’ll miss out on everything else,” said Lars Feely, group search director at Neo@Ogilvy. “Our clients always look for a success metric … and we try to look at ‘of the moment’ data, something you can capture and find pretty much anywhere.”
For Mark Huffman, integrated production manager at Procter & Gamble, the big idea – which is all about “deep human insights” – is paramount. Huffman pointed to a recent Febreze “Breathe Happy” campaign, which was inspired by a big idea that was literally developed by two marketers on the back of a cocktail napkin.
“Would big data have ever gotten us to this big idea?” Huffman asked. “I think not.”
“Two creatives sitting in a bar two drinks deep, okay. But that good idea comes from an understanding of products and consumers,” Feely said. “To me, ideas like that are the best things on the planet because they push you in a direction. But it’s also: Here’s the data that backs up why we should do this.”
Ultimately, it’s not “either/or”, said Brenda Fiala, VP of strategy at Wunderman company Blast Radius.
“What’s really powerful is the depth of data you can get these days, which means looking at Google Analytics, but also behavioral analytics,” said Fiala, who noted that the platform for marketing is no longer just a website, but an ecosystem that must be defined and activated to produce business results for clients.
Giovanni Rodriquez, digital and social strategist at Deloitte Consulting, pointed to the need to “explode a couple of myths” about big ideas and big data in general.
“There’s a little misdirection here, because really what we know about consumers is not all that big all the time,” he said. “Some of the data is really small and comes directly from the consumer.”
