Adding creativity to big data

“No great marketing decisions have ever been made on quantitative data,” said John Sculley, a marketing genius who was the CEO of Apple during Steve Jobs’ absence.

Two, three decades ago, marketing strategies were based on experiences and intuition. But in the era of big data, not many people would agree with John Sculley. American department store chain Sears first opened in 1886, and its online shopping mall Sears.com has 60 million online customers. The company uses the power of data and automation to analyze shopping patterns and search data, and take age, interests and lifestyle information into account, to boost sales and customer loyalty.

International hotel group Marriott operates in more than 70 countries in the world, catering to a wide range of customers, and it also benefitted greatly from using data. Marriott analyzed the data of their guests to provide appropriate services at the right time, offering personalized experiences relevant to each guest. The reservation rate on the website and through digital devices increased drastically, and membership in the Marriott rewards program has increased by 50 percent after using big data analysis.

In the past, accomplishing this level of personalization required great manpower and cost. But today, thanks to data, which is called the oil of the 21st century, and marketing cloud tools analyzing the data, making sophisticated marketing strategies have become easier and more cost-efficient.

Creative thinking from insights can bring magical outcomes when combined with data. The seeds of solid data analysis are planted on the soil of creativity; the flowers will be the answer to win the hearts of customers - and their wallets, too.

by Choi Seung-eok, CEO of Adobe Systems Korea