The Big Data Trend and It's Importance In Marketing Research.

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 Big Data Trend and its Importance in Marketing Research

Esteban Betancur Guarín

Nicolas Villa Arano

Juan Daniel Celis Calvache

EAFIT UNIVERSITY

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS

INTERNATIONAL MARKETING

MEDELLIN

APRIL 11TH 2016

The Big Data Trend and its Importance in Marketing Research

Introduction

Every time we are more surrounded by advertising, and much of this advertising and much of this advertising is not as relevant to us at the time it is presented to us (Breeuwer, 2015). That is the moment when we begin to wonder some questions like: Should I have to be care about the 30% percent of discount on cars Toyota repairs that Groupon sent me yesterday when I don´t even have a Toyota car? So in conclusion, the advertisement is irrelevant for that person. Based on these perceptions is when the concept of Big  Data appears.

Big Data is a marketing phenomenon that has been approximately occurring since the internet’s inception back in the early 1960s but gained real importance in the early 2000s. The term has been used since then. It refers to the collection of huge data sets that are so large and intricate that it becomes very complicated to process throughout the use of traditional data processing applications. To give out an example or scale of how much information is generated nowadays, Eric Schmidt, the Ex-CEO of Google, declared that more information is generated in just two days than all the information that has been generated in all human history before the year 2003 (Breeuwer, 2015). Another example to show how much information is being created is an interesting prediction that CSC (Computer Sciences Corporation) made throughout research they conducted. They estimated a 4300% increase in annual data generation by the year 2020. Unstructured data such as digital photos, videos and social media are growing at rate that is faster than structured data. This however doesn’t mean that Big Data only deals with unstructured data; it deals with both structured and unstructured data, because the term refers to all Data in general.

Industry Analyst Doug Laney in the early 2000s expressed the mainstream definition of big data known as the three Vs: Volume, Velocity, and Variety. Volume refers to the collection of data from many sources. Velocity indicates exceptional speed of streams of data, meaning that it must be treated with time-precision.

Variety demonstrates that data comes in all types of formats (structured or unstructured). SAS Institute, which is an American developer of analytics software, includes two extra factors regarding big data: Variability & Complexity.

Despite all the advantages big data has to offer, managing and controlling all this data has created challenges that we today are facing such as: knowing what type of information is necessary to collect, knowing how to analyze that information, and knowing how to get valuable and realistic ideas with this information (Breeuwer, 2015).

Mick Hollison (CMO, Sales and Marketing Strategist) discusses 5 ways in which big data will affect 2015 (the article was written on January 9, 2015) and the following years:

1. Large enterprises will be the first to widely adopt big data and predictive analytics technologies, but small and medium businesses will get on board soon thereafter and will benefit even more (Hollison, 2015).

 2. Marketing spend will become significantly more precise by leveraging insights from big data to accurately target prospects and deploy account-based marketing strategies (Hollison, 2015).

 3. Salespeople will gradually adopt data-driven methodologies to target high-value prospects, keep existing customers on board, and expand existing opportunities (Hollison, 2015).

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