Everyone is talking about Big Data these days, but is your data Thick? I recently read in the Wall Street Journal about how today’s companies use powerful computing to leverage Big Data, but what they really need is Thick Data – Big Data gives us the numbers, charts, and basic info we need, but it doesn’t tell us why customers do what they do. “Successful companies and executives work to understand the emotional, even visceral context in which people encounter their product or service, and they are able to adapt when circumstances change. They are able to use what we like to call Thick Data.”
Many companies use traditional qualitative techniques to get at this ‘visceral’ or ‘Thick Data’ – they observe, watch, and listen. And with proven and emerging online techniques, marketers can derive even more meaning as these tools reveal the emotional and instinctive, getting beneath the surface to subconscious and emotional drivers of behavior. We use these techniques to help clients understand why their customers do what they do – they go beyond Big Data to Thick Data. To see thick data in action, check out our upcoming Sustainability webinar this week. Attendees will see how we go beyond standard top of mind associations and perceptions of Sustainability and learn how consumers feel about Sustainability and what drives that behavior.
