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This is Sammi.
He’s our sourcing brain and we’ve been training him up to help us get to the most meaningful data and content to support insight and brand strategy driven decision making.
Growth of online a social datasources seems to have triggered an obsession with big data sources… being able to quote how many millions of billions of datapoints that deliver a finding may sound impressive. But is it?
Does size of data source really deliver the value suggested when it comes to insight and strategy driven decision making?
We believe not. OK, size is important when it comes to building large language models, or if you are tracking social media activity. But for insight? Back in ‘the good old days’ before the proliferation of online data, principles of sampling were at the heart of all research. It’s still there in consumer research today. When we do traditional consumer research (qual or quant) we speak to a sample of people who are the most meaningful to talk to given the challenge. And we talk to them about specific topics for the same reason.
If someone told you that you magically had access to everything anybody thought, said or did would you want that mass of data? How much of it would be meaningful? How much of it would you want to base your decisions on. How would you find what was important under the weight of content?
Just because we CAN track everything online does it mean we SHOULD?
Again we suggest not. Online sources have been flooded with increasing volumes of fake data and meaningless noise. With the proliferation of generative AI this is only going to get worse.
We believe in the principle of focussing on smaller samples of High Intention Content, chosen for it’s potential to give a foundational meaning to insight and brand strategy based decisions.
There benefits of working with a smaller sample of High Intention Content…
You can control it
You’re deciding what data goes into your analysis and why, not just hooking yourself up to a firehose of data and hoping for the best. If you are using larger data sets you can sample and filter them to ensure only high intention content gets through
You have transparency
Everyone who uses the data, works with the data and make decisions on the basis of it has a common understanding of what it is, where it comes from and why its meaningful in the context of insight and brand strategy
It’s representative of something
With a sample of sources different voices can be represented… big brands, emergent brands, cultural, social media, consumer and more. A single source of truth with real range and depth without overwhelming
It’s human and real
You can ensure that any data included be it brand, cultural, consumer or cultural, is written by people, for people… and contains the prominent messages
It allows more sophisticated analysis
When you’re working with smaller data sets the running of more sophisticated analysis becomes more accessible in times of time and cost. You can build more value into something that is already more meaningful
You can benchmark
With a sample a smaller sample of more meaningful data its easier to create and apply a wide range of benchmarks to place any analysis in the most appropriate context and so interpret it better
Ultimately any insight and strategy work is only as good as the foundation of data on which it’s based. We believe High Intention Content is that foundation
If you want to know more about what High Intention Content is, how we collect it and how it dries the impact of our insight and strategy work do get in touch.
