The coveted Michelin star rating is perhaps the world’s most prestigious culinary award. If you’ve ever had a Michelin-rated meal, you would find it incorporates elements of art, gastronomic science and taste. But really, when you think about it, it starts with the same foundation as just about any meal: protein, vegetables and a starch. Given the ubiquity of these ingredients, it’s fair to ask: Why isn’t everyone a Michelin chef? The answer is simple: it’s what you do with the ingredients that count.
The same holds true for consumer data. It’s not just the type or amount of data that matters. It’s what you do with it.
Mixing in the data blender
Publicly available consumer data comes in many forms: social, transactional and perceptual. As marketers look to build out their influencer marketing strategies, they will need to create the optimal recipe for mixing these together.
Social data is generated from user comments and social posts that are publicly available and can be leveraged via tools such as social listening. Some of these conversations may reveal persistent trends in consumer approval or highlight “red flags” such as multiple conversations regarding a product flaw.
Transactional data such as market research reports from companies like Qualtrics and Nielsen adds another dimension to a product’s overall data ecosystem. It provides third-party validation for what’s on the minds of various consumer segments.
Perceptual data, such as online articles and print/TV media, presents another data set for integration. However, these reports must be carefully reviewed for context and sampling methodology. Contextual relevancy is a deterministic factor, as one bad news article might not speak for the whole picture of a brand or company.
Still, in each case, a data architecture that integrates these data types must be a part of a brand’s overall intelligence framework to identify and maximize the impact of influencers.
Know your bubbles
Let’s look at a few examples of how data can be blended and how human analysis can be used to create influencer strategies that deliver actual business results.
Soap may not be the most exciting consumer packaged good, but it certainly produces interesting consumer data. After all, it is still something that everybody uses.
Last year, VizSense worked with a Fortune 100 client that involved the relaunch of a well-established soap brand. Our analysts began collecting and sifting through millions of data points and used our proprietary technology to help determine the most relevant influencers for the campaign.
They came up with a few key observations. First, scent—or in CPG parlance, “flavor”—matters. Reference to flavor was a preeminent narrative of many consumers on this product. Second, men liked this product more than women. According to the data sets we collected, most of the opinions were shared by men. Finally, after controlling for several other factors, there was a proclivity for sports enthusiasts to use this product.
This analysis allowed us to work with sports-inclined, male micro-influencers to talk about the scent of the product. According to the brand, the end result was a 30 percent sales lift for the soap product during the 10-day campaign.
Murmurs and buildings
Any data scientist would tell you that the most accurate data model is one that can be applied across different population sets. Last year, VizSense wanted to apply our data model to a vertical that isn’t necessarily considered innovative when it comes to influencers—commercial real estate development.
Boston Properties (BXP) is one of the largest developers and owners of Class A office properties in the U.S. One thing that sets BXP apart is how it integrates new types of retail and restaurant concepts into its billion-dollar property portfolio.
VizSense partnered with the BXP team to identify ways to drive more foot traffic into its retail locations in the Boston area. The project started with collecting data from the top three piazzas in Italy, places where foot traffic and food have met for hundreds of years. We then compared what was being said to what was happening at popular Boston locations.
Ultimately, we discovered that more people in Boston were talking about food and beverage than at all three piazzas in Italy combined. We were then able to create a micro-influencer campaign leveraging Boston-area influencers to promote the Eataly marketplace (at a BXP property) and the concept of “aperitivo,” a kind of happy hour 2.0 where a drink and light meal can cap off the day. The result: over 20,000 clicks on Eataly’s aperitivo site, greater foot traffic and more sales, showing that this kind of campaign works as well for physical spaces as it does for consumer products.
These two examples illustrate that data isn’t the only common ingredient in taking companies from average to Michelin-star enterprises. The data “chef” has to be a visionary who uses the insights to postulate new product formulations or launch new campaigns. Like Michelin chefs, brand teams need to surround themselves with the best ingredients and technologies to win in today’s competitive landscape.
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Dr. Jon Iadonisi is the founder and CEO of VizSense, a Dallas-based Influencer marketing and sales intelligence firm that works with Fortune 500 clients to deliver highly specialized marketing and sales campaigns. Jon is a computer scientist and former Navy SEAL who has invented new capabilities for the Special Operations Community and Central Intelligence Agency.
