Being human in the age of data

Over the past two decades, data has taken over completely, and it now shapes our lives at work and at home. We can hardly imagine a day without the mass of data and metrics that modern technology gives us, whether that means setting new KPIs at work, analysing how economically we drive or measuring our popularity on social media. But there is a key question we have to ask ourselves:

In trying to make technology more human, are we the ones turning into machines?

The age of data

Where we once bought calls and minutes from our phone operators, now everything revolves around data. Last year, the world created or consumed 79 zettabytes (ZB) of data, that is 79,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes. The number of internet users grows every year and currently stands at 5.2 billion people. On social media and through content providers, users share vast amounts of data, more than ever before. A modern car, for example, with all its sensors and detection systems, can store as much as 4 TB of data in a single day. And the amount of data will only keep growing. It is estimated to reach 181 ZB by 2025! With such exponential growth, by 2030 the technology and networks that data devices require will use as much as 51% of the world’s electricity capacity.

An age of great advantages … and disadvantages

This much use of data has brought many advantages over the past decade, but also plenty of problems that we have to face collectively.

Invasive profiling and data collection by the global tech giants have made possible not only an unlawful view into our lives, but also a (semi-legal) commodity for resale, and a tool for managing the masses in the name of political or other ideological goals. In response we got the GDPR and Apple’s privacy settings, which try to protect users. Disinformation is spreading, and it does more than spread conspiracy theories: because the internet has become our only source of information, it has real consequences for our lives. For the first time in its history, the marketing industry has had to accept that an algorithm, not us, decides where ads are placed and which digital media are used. We have handed control to the online giants, and all we still have “under control” is a dashboard showing the results of the metrics we chose.

For the first time we are also seeing the negative effects of this kind of exposure on our mental health. Generation Z is the first generation to have grown up entirely surrounded by social media. Research shows higher rates of anxiety and depression in this generation than in any other age group. Finally, we must also be aware of the enormous number of advertising messages that reach our brains. By some researchers’ estimates, we are exposed to between 6,000 and 10,000 ads a day. That is hardly surprising: apart from our close circle of friends, we can barely find any organic content on social media any more. Paid messages have flooded every platform, and with them our entire digital reality.

Of course, not every consequence of the age of data is so bleak. For the first time, we can offer users relevant, targeted messages meant for them alone, rather than for the general population or a very broad target group. With direct feedback from users through social media and other channels, brands can improve their user experience quickly and effectively. The brands that understood this during the COVID-19 pandemic thrived during that time. And thanks to the internet and its tools, we got through the pandemic more easily, despite all the lockdowns and restrictions. We work remotely, we stay in touch with friends and family, and we connect with communities of interest with less effort than ever before, wherever in the world we happen to be.

Measuring for the sake of measuring

With all the data available to us, we have more control and oversight than anyone has ever had. According to the latest count, from this year, the marketing industry alone has around 10,000 marketing automation tools, apps and systems to choose from. We can measure almost anything that can be measured. The problem, of course, is not the data or all the metrics we have, but our relationship with them.

The fact is that media and platforms sell their services the same way they have for the past 50 years: by measuring reach, views, clicks, likes, impressions and so on. And just as the ways of perceiving and measuring brand success have not changed, neither have brands’ goals and KPIs. Can we really compare a funny TikTok video with a piece by a world-famous director on Netflix that has a smaller reach, and therefore a smaller measured marketing effect? Which one would you, or your brand, rather be associated with?

The root problem is the mistaken belief that direct access to the user means access to sales. It doesn’t. Access to the user means access to a person: to their ideas, wishes and needs.

For a long time now, the key parameters in marketing have no longer been understanding the problems in the market and finding solutions to them. Instead, they have been the “misuse” of data to hit monthly, quarterly and annual targets that rest largely on numbers alone. Relying on KPIs and countless other metrics, without trying to analyse what they actually represent and who the consumer behind them is, is the core problem of modern marketing and of the brands that compete in the market. As a result of the intensive adoption of new technologies, we are all just trying to hit our metric targets, and we have forgotten the key factor in marketing: the human being.

Marketing with a feel for people

It is time for a change. A change that technology can no longer dictate. It is time to go back to basics, back to people. Brands are created, led and managed by people. And all the consumers and users of the products and services that brands offer are, believe it or not, people.

We need to change not only our own perception, but how our industry’s work is perceived as a whole. It is something we once did so well, but have somewhat forgotten in exchange for the shortcuts technology has given us. We must not collect data and spy on people. We must notice them and listen to them.

We are not machines, and we are not analysing data. We are trying to use it to understand people. We need to look for motives and patterns, wishes and needs, human ones.

We do not segment. We try to be relevant to people. With our products and services, we offer solutions and answers to the real problems people have. That has been the unchanging essence of marketing ever since it began.

This line of thinking is why the idea of “human marketing” has recently been getting so much attention in marketing and communications. It is marketing that does not try to do away with technology and everything it offers, but to put people back at the front, where they belong.

In our wish to master all the technology that in reality masters us, we are searching for its holy grail: an autonomous artificial intelligence that is supposed to change our world for ever. But the real problem is that we do not actually want to create a new intelligence. We want to use it to replace human intelligence. Which, in all its irony, is a distinctly human trait: why do something yourself if someone else can do it for you?

The fact is that people have not changed much since the beginning of our existence. We can change the world around us, build cities into the sky and connect the entire world population wirelessly, but at our core we are the same as the people of ancient Babylon, Rome or the Viking age. We all have the same human needs, and we only try to express them in different ways, with different tools. We all want safety, closeness and love, to be heard, and to have genuine relationships, whether we look for them at a friend’s party or on social media. In all our enthusiasm for technology and everything it offers us, we have also forgotten the “human” sciences that have guided the development of civilisation until now. As if everything before the internet was just a period of wandering in the dark because we could not quantify anything. Were all that intuition, all that perception, all that insight for nothing? In the times ahead, we need to return to the sciences that study people: anthropology, sociology, psychology, cultural studies and behavioural science. These are the disciplines that will (once again) have to become an integral part of marketing and of how our brands work.

So let us boldly use everything modern technology makes possible and offers us. All the tools, all the discoveries, all the possibilities. But let us do it knowing that a person stands in front of them (and behind them!).

A person who needs to be understood, a person looking for answers to their everyday problems, a person who wants a genuine human relationship, including with brands and with the people who lead and create them. Only then will we win back consumers’ lost trust and build long-term relationships that benefit both brands and the industry as a whole.