Three lessons from Cannes on using data to reach your customers

Along with high qual­i­ty con­tent, data and ana­lyt­ics have become a marketer’s most impor­tant tools. In the face of what they see as too many mes­sages from too many brands, cus­tomers are begin­ning to lose patience with expe­ri­ences that don’t speak direct­ly to their needs. Indeed, research from Kan­tar found that 55% of UK con­sumers feel “com­plete­ly apa­thet­ic” towards advertising.

My vis­it to the Cannes Lions this year rein­forced this real­i­ty. There was wide­spread con­sen­sus that cus­tomer insight is the key to build­ing real rela­tion­ships with your audi­ence and dri­ving loyalty.

How­ev­er, this is eas­i­er said than done, espe­cial­ly with the bal­ance of pow­er shift­ing from brands to con­sumers, who have more con­trol than ever over which media they con­sume and when. How can mar­keters cut through and remain suc­cess­ful under these con­di­tions? I sat down with experts from Deliv­eroo, Google, and Star­ling Bank at Cannes to crack this question.

Here are my top three take­aways from our chat:

• Lazy data mar­ket­ing is dead

Aida Bej­gane, Head of Field Acqui­si­tions spoke about how Star­ling Bank has built their con­tent func­tion around their data capa­bil­i­ties, and how it has helped them com­mu­ni­cate with their cus­tomers in a more per­son­alised manner.

“We have our cre­ative prod­ucts in-house to be able to adapt the mes­sage quick­ly in response to data,” she explained.

Or, con­sid­er how the Tele­graph Media Group used data to trans­form its approach to con­tent. Work­ing with Adobe Expe­ri­ence Cloud, the com­pa­ny went from being a tra­di­tion­al news­pa­per to a mul­ti­me­dia pub­lish­er, using mobile and dig­i­tal chan­nels like Snapchat to deliv­er news to their audi­ence how­ev­er and when­ev­er they want it.

• Use ana­lyt­ics to dri­ve creativity

The win­ners in every indus­try will be those who under­stand the change con­sumers want to see and can deliv­er it in inspir­ing ways. Data can pro­vide invalu­able insight, but that knowl­edge must then form the basis for more cre­ative and rel­e­vant cus­tomer expe­ri­ences. Cre­ativ­i­ty, tech­nol­o­gy and prod­uct must be con­nect­ed in a vir­tu­ous loop, with inno­va­tion help­ing brands to work faster, make more space for cre­ativ­i­ty, and ulti­mate­ly deliv­er a high­er qual­i­ty product.

Accord­ing to Alice ter Haar, Senior Man­ag­er, EU Mar­ket­ing from Deliv­eroo, tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies can play a lead­ing role in help­ing mar­keters tran­si­tion to a data-led future.

“It’s no coin­ci­dence that this pan­el is filled with tech brands,” she said. “We are invest­ing in data to get to know our cus­tomers and what they want. Deliv­ery-only kitchens were born from this approach – the data helped us per­ceive the food that local areas want­ed most, and the kitchens helped us fill this gap.”

Using Adobe Audi­ence Man­ag­er, Princess Cruis­es were also able to analyse its cus­tomer data to bet­ter under­stand their cus­tomers – who is tak­ing cruis­es, and which activ­i­ties, expe­ri­ences and ser­vices they most enjoy. The company’s mar­ket­ing team then uses Adobe Sen­sei AI to apply looka­like mod­el­ling to this data, help­ing it to find addi­tion­al cus­tomers with a sim­i­lar pro­file and increase the size of Princess Cruis­es’ address­able audience.

• Make your­self essential

There’s a rea­son brands are shift­ing their focus from prod­ucts and ser­vices to cus­tomer-cen­tric expe­ri­ences based on data – they want to know their cus­tomers so well they become essen­tial parts of their lives. Com­pa­nies like Spo­ti­fy and Uber have set them­selves apart by tran­scend­ing the basic ser­vice they deliv­er (music stream­ing and ride-shar­ing, respec­tive­ly). They have become util­i­ties, draw­ing on cus­tomer data to cre­ate high­ly tai­lored expe­ri­ences that have quick­ly become indispensable.

“When expe­ri­ences work they delight you, when they fail how fast you turn!” mused Nish­ma Robb, Ads Mar­ket­ing Direc­tor UK, from Google.

“Expe­ri­ence is what the brand stands for, and build­ing those expe­ri­ences around the prod­uct is more impor­tant than ever. The com­pa­nies able to build brands as a ser­vice will find them­selves more rel­e­vant in the eyes of consumers.”

From Heathrow Air­port to BUPA, brands across every indus­try are lean­ing more heav­i­ly on ana­lyt­ics to get clos­er to their audi­ence, and to rethink the way they work to serve cus­tomers. We are also see­ing a con­ver­gence between “con­sumer-focussed” and “busi­ness-focussed” sto­ry­telling. It’s not about B2B or B2B any more, it’s about B2E: enabling expe­ri­ences for every­one. And a more strate­gic approach to ana­lyt­ics is the best way forward.

Learn more about how Adobe Ana­lyt­ics can help your com­pa­ny bring struc­ture to data and turn insight into excep­tion­al cus­tomer expe­ri­ences. Click here.