One of the more compelling presentations at last week\u2019s Beet Retreat in the City was given by Nancy Reyes of TBWA\\Chiat\\Day New York. To show how data can not only inform creative but also actually constitute it, Reyes walked the audience through two campaigns from the Netherlands that sought to comfort lonely people and reduce the incidence of domestic violence.<\/p>\n

In this interview with Beet.TV contributor and Furious Corp.<\/a> CEO Ashley J. Swartz during a break at the Retreat<\/a>, Reyes acknowledges that there\u2019s been \u201ca pretty sturdy debate\u201d over the role of data when it comes to creating advertising campaigns.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpecifically, does data prevent creativity from happening because it\u2019s all about measurement or it\u2019s all about numbers? And also, does data take humanity out of the creativity, which is one of the things we always in the industry pride ourselves on,\u201d says Reyes<\/a>, who is managing director of the advertising agency<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The bottom line for Reyes\u2014who began her career at Ogilvy & Mather and D\u2019Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles\u2014is that if data are used to inform campaigns from the start as opposed to strictly measuring campaign results, the utility of data is unquestioned.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really feel like there are ways for data to inspire the work to be better and to be that much more poignant,\u201d for example \u201cdata unlocking creative that would never have been possible without that data.\u201d<\/p>\n

To demonstrate how data can inform campaigns, Reyes explained her agency\u2019s work for the postal service in the Netherlands. By examining the type and volume of mail to certain residences, the agency was able to locate people who were most likely to be lonely and encourage the general public to reach out.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the point is that they were able to ship some letters to those lonely people to make them feel great over the holiday season,\u201d says Reyes. \u201cBut we wouldn\u2019t have known who those people were and really if they were truly lonely people who lived alone if it wasn\u2019t for the fact of data helping us through that example.”<\/p>\n

The second campaign involved data not only providing insight and inspiration but becoming the creative itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s one of the things that we struggle with a lot in our business,\u201d Reyes says. \u201cAn idea can be really beautiful and simple, and then lots of people jump on top of it and mess it up. But sometimes data itself is the story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Helsinki has the highest per capita incidence of domestic violence globally. Using 911 data, \u201cWe know exactly where those people live,\u201d so over a 48-hour period the agency studied the concentration of calls.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo really, all we needed to do was put posters and television ads and radio ads in those specific areas, because one of the things that we found out was that when people know other people who are going through a similar experience they are more likely to seek help,\u201d Reyes explains.<\/p>\n

She believes \u201cdata is at the center of everything we do from now on. But I think it\u2019s more beneficial to think about it in the beginning of any kind of campaign or effort than it is where it\u2019s been today, which is mainly at the end.\u201d<\/p>\n

This video was produced at the Beet Retreat in City & Town Hall<\/a> on June 6, 2018 in New York City. The event and video series are presented by LiveRamp, TiVo, true[X] and 605. For more videos from the series, please visit this page<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the more compelling presentations at last week\u2019s Beet Retreat in the City was given by Nancy Reyes of TBWA\\Chiat\\Day New York. To show how data can not only inform creative but also actually constitute it, Reyes walked the audience through two campaigns from the Netherlands that sought to comfort lonely people and reduce […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":53295,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[]},"categories":[7289],"tags":[5088,5092,5143,5883,6730,7265,7297,7298,3839],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53293"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}