In a data-driven world, the creative use of data can imply building sustainable relationships with the right audience, creating customer loyalty, improving brand visibility, staying competitive, and even staying creative!
The importance of data in the creative industry may not be immediately obvious, but let us tell you how befriending data can take even a creative industry’s efforts to a revolutionary level!
A few years ago, Broadway entered the Big Data game by hiring a digital marketing company, Arts & Analytics, with the aim of attracting and retaining audiences. The company developed a predictive analytics software solution whose goal, as founder and CEO Gallagher puts it, was “to connect artists to their ideal audience: an audience who appreciates what they do, and comes back for more..” As Gallagher understood, the trick to finding new prospective clients, is using demographic profiling to find other look-alike customers.
Once you’ve connected to the right audience, how can data help you stay relevant?
Let’s take an example of tech trends in the fashion industry wherein trendsetters have been using analytics to identify precisely what customers and prospective customers are talking about on social media and to predict consumer sentiment and preferences, thereby allowing them to align their creations to customer demands and eliminating the risk of failures of shots-in-the-dark. Stitch Fix, for example, is using algorithms to identify trends and styles missing from their inventory and to suggest new “Hybrid Design” garments on the basis of combinations of consumers’ favorite colors, patterns, and textiles. For this fashion industry innovative player, data science predicts styles that customers would like – even if the clothes themselves haven’t been designed yet!
Does using analytics mean the end of creativity though?
Check out the sequel to this post for an answer!
In the meantime, if you are in the creative industry and want to know how to use data to your advantage, get in touch with us!
