Facts alone aren’t good enough.

We all rely on data to inform our decisions. At a personal level many of us keep track of how many megabytes of data we have left on our monthly mobile phone plans, and how many “likes” (or the lack thereof) we might get in response to our social media posts. In business, many organizations have invested significantly in acquiring new sources of data, in addition to adding powerful analytic capabilities to help find insights to reduce costs, improve marketing spend and provide direction for business growth.

Data is good – this I hold to be true. When numbers clearly show us trends, and help us understand trade-offs, it creates the potential for new possibilities. Numbers can certainly even help us understand what to avoid. But, sometimes the “facts” we believe arise from data can be misleading, or even simply misinterpreted. And this can create some interesting issues.

As a frequent flyer, I found the following completely relatable. Some, if not all airlines years ago decided to stop including checked luggage in the price of a ticket. (Dare I say I’ve been a business traveler for so long I remember when checking a bag was free?) Want to check a bag today? There’s an additional cost for that. I imagine someone years ago looked at the data and said, “if we charge an additional fee to check a bag, we can increase our overall revenue”. And I can imagine that argument being sold as a “fact”.

The reality is that the time it takes to board an aircraft has doubled over the last decade, according to research by Boeing. It now on average takes 30 to 40 minutes to board about 140 passengers on a domestic flight, up from around 15 minutes in the 1970s.

While it is a “fact” that checked-baggage fees have undoubtedly increased revenue, the chaos that ensues when Zone 4 and 5 passengers board only to realize there’s no space for their roll-on suitcase or duffel bag is nothing short of exasperating (especially for Zone 1 and 2 passengers!). In this case the “fact” didn’t consider the full experience.  

A more recent story I came across has to do with Netflix and advertising for its hit show Grace and Frankie. The "facts" showed people would be more inclined to click on ads that did not feature Jane Fonda. But, the higher-ups at Netflix nixed removing her from their advertising despite the "facts". (And rightly so in my opinion.)

These stories illuminate an important point to me; even though we have no shortage of data, the reality is that “today, facts alone aren’t good enough”.

Perhaps more compelling is that if we look more broadly, society is itself telling us that “facts alone aren’t good enough”. If “facts” were good enough:

• We arguably wouldn’t have as much political discord as we currently do in the U.S. What’s a fact? What’s fake? What's a flat out lie? These questions, and the corresponding answers are unquestionably complex.
• There would be no “debate” over whether vaccines are effective – just look at the recent outbreak of measles in the NY area.
•  “Flat-earthers” wouldn’t be newsworthy, ever – nor would there be an inaugural flat earth cruise promising to take people to the edge of the earth.

Society is clearly telling us that “facts alone aren’t good enough”. Data is good, but maybe not good enough. So what’s to be done?

In my career, I’ve found that the most powerful insights that have helped clients make meaningful and lasting changes for their brands are comprised of a combination of data + discourse. Why? Because I think as human beings we are inherently unable to accept facts at face value. (Personally I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Gen X'er. Any opportunity to challenge convention is just part of my generational DNA.) In addition to gathering and analyzing data, it needs to be brought to life. The addition of discourse can challenge and elevate the interpretation of data. I’ve presented a lot of data, numbers, and percentages to clients, but what we all inevitably remember are the stories that help make that information relevant. Humanizing data and facts, surrounding them with conversation to uncover their real potential is an effective antidote to not accepting a fact at face value.

If you believe that “facts alone aren’t good enough”, then it is important to find opportunities to fuse data + discourse. Do this by creating conversation experiences with your audiences. This can help make sense of data and uncover those ever-powerful “stories”.

Granted, when you do create conversation experiences, it is extremely important to ensure you engaging them with the right questions, which I might take on as a topic in a future post.

I’m fortunate enough to be employed by KANTAR, which has the single largest community of qualitative researchers on the planet. Everyday we work with some of the most highly skilled data and analytics people in the business. We don’t just provide insights through numbers, percentages, charts and graphs. We bring insights to life through several innovative conversation experiences, including:

• BRANDSTAGE – through a joint venture with The Second City, we leverage the power of improvisation to surround and explore ideas through the creation of real-life experiences. https://brandstagesc.com/
• POWERGROUPS – using artificial intelligence, we can instantly capture an analyze the natural language a large population uses in response to a singular question, rather than asking people to conform to a pre-determined set of response attributes.
• SPOTLIGHT FOR CONTENT – KANTAR’s LINK testing for content is the standard for measuring the potential impact of a communication idea. SPOTLIGHT FOR CONTENT helps illuminate target audience reactions to those ideas through user-generated video resulting in hard analytics and personalized feedback.

I'm curious - what ways do you find opportunities to fuse data + discourse?