Stories in the Era of Big Data

Last year news stories started to appear about the work that Cambridge Analytica did for the Trump campaign: the company drew up psychological profiles of millions of Facebook accounts which it then used to tailor dozens of different versions of advertisements to suit the profile of each user. These reports described the process as Trump’s secret weapon for winning an election most deemed beyond his reach; a claim that has been questioned by the company’s other clients.  

The Cambridge Analytica scandal overshadows two questions that are key to the future of advertising: firstly, what are acceptable means for a company to obtain information about clients and potential clients? Secondly, what role does Big Data play in the future of advertising? Today, I’d like to focus on the second question.  

The outlandish depictions of Cambridge Analytica as the Trump campaign’s secret weapon arise out of a void. Google and Facebook, giants of internet user information, have for years drawn up user profiles so subtle that they resolve the problem of how to get a message to consumers at a stroke.

The German philosopher Byung-Chul Han calls this blind faith in Big Data ‘dataism’ and compares it to a similar phenomenon from the past: claims that the newly invented field of statistical analysis would rescue human knowledge from the clutches of mythology. However, he says, “Data and numbers aren’t a narrative, they’re a mathematical calculation. Meaning, on the other hand, is founded in narrative. It is stories that lead us to the discovery of the self.”  

Today, Big Data offers us an unprecedented amount of information about consumers and it’s true that this allows companies to understand them better and create more efficient communication plans, where messages are focused on those most likely to be receptive to them.  

But the essence of advertising is still the same: telling stories that reach consumers. Consumers who we know better than we did before, who are more receptive to our messages, but who are only going to relate to brands through the stories they tell them.