Big data isn’t all it’s cracked up to be

If there’s a buzzword in the marketing and advertising world for 2013, it’s “big data”. Okay, it’s two words, but that’s not important. What is important is that the hot trend isn’t delivering on the promise.

Every day there is a new post about the impact of big data on marketing. In fact, most people in marketing leadership are concerned about what they are going to do about big data. It is challenging to understand and as a profession, we are working really hard to make heads and tails of the ones and zeroes. The Holy Grail that big data promises to deliver is that we marketers will have insanely tailored insights about our consumers so that we can get our messages in front of them at that zero moment of truth.