Don't shape the future with data of the past

I know I’m a big fan of data, and I’ve used it to make countless everyday business decisions. However, this blog post is made for a different purpose: To warn you about it.

Many marketers out there have gotten bitten by the “first-party data”-bug. For any marketer that is great! It provides you with the information you need to make decisions based on current needs. You keep up with existing consumer trends, and you can ensure that you will not be worse than all the other marketers doing the same stuff.

Since the big ‘cookie death’ I’ve spoken to many marketers who tells me about how they intend to change the way they market to ‘how the customer wants it’. However, that is nothing but a shortcut to mediocracy. If the majority starts to do ‘how the customer wants it’, you will all do the same thing. We create similar content, we have the same campaigns and we’re inspired by our customers to do the exact same thing our competitors do. This is when you become a follower. Because those who lead. Those who take the majority of the profits. Those who are the most successful. They are the ones who dictate ‘how the consumer wants it’. They are the creators of the trends.

I’m trying to warn you: If you are a truly ambitious marketer. Don’t be a follower. Learn what data to rely on, and which to ignore. Many great marketers fall short looking at consumer behaviour today, trying to follow the trends they believe will prevail, instead of focusing on creating the trends of the future.

If I had asked what people wanted, they would have said faster horses

- Henry Ford

One of the great struggles of our time is our lack of innovation, our lack of willingness to look into the future, and say “I want this to be different from the past”. When we look at numbers, we stop thinking about the future as something we create. We stop thinking about the future as something we can change. We start thinking about the future as an extension of what exists. That is when nothing new happens, and we all compete on the same premises.

When was the last time you looked at numbers and concluded ‘I’m gonna do something radically different, that will create trends, that will change consumer behaviour so that I become the king of my category’. Average marketers are satisfied with the remaining scraps of profits left by the category king, but the best marketers know that you don’t win fighting for scraps. You win by being radically different. You win by creating your category. You win by creating the trends of the future. And you can’t do that by looking at existing behaviour.