The search titan’s philanthropic arm has announced a service to help track the spread of flu. Simply by monitoring searches regarding flu-like symptoms, it can estimate how prevalent flu is in different areas. The researchers behind it claim there is a correlation between Google searches and doctor’s visits, allowing them to predict weekly levels of flu activity with only a one-day time lag - far quicker than it takes health authorities.
So far, so heart-warming. But just consider the possibilities for our own industry. If Google’s search statistics can detect outbreaks of influenza, what other gems could be unearthed within them? It’s not just search - the websites of brands or, increasingly, media owners can yield huge amounts of data regarding consumer preference and emerging trends. An airline, for example, that sees fluctuating interest in certain fares or destinations in line with news events. Or the online catch-up service of a TV station that can measure interest in its programmes independently of ratings services based on small panels. All this data is probably there already, just waiting for somebody to use it.
This sort of insight is increasingly being seen as valid market research around which marketing and media strategies can be built. In the US, Tribal DDB’s global CEO, Paul Gunning, argues that the sort of analysts who have until now been examining campaign results can become consultants advising clients at the start of a campaign. “That’s the biggest trend for us,” he says. “There’s a bigger emphasis on the front end. We need to think more broadly and deeply than the next advertising brief.”
The companies this will really challenge are the research agencies. Of course, this sort of data is purely numbers-based - it’s not about depth of qualitative analysis. However, both for brands and media owners, there are now new sources of data out there, and different sorts of company able to supply it.
So is this the future for digital agencies in Asia too? Unfortunately, for now, the answer is no. The problem is that the reality rarely matches the theory. In Asia especially, online data can be rather opaque, and the digital agency sector lacks the depth of talent to exploit it to the full. The sheer deluge of data the web can provide means that some serious number-crunching is in order. There aren’t many companies that can match Google in terms of resources, and it’s not as if there’s going tobe a lot of money available to brands or media owners to invest in the right people and processes in the near future. As with so much in the digital sphere, the potential runs far beyond the industry’s capacity to do anything about it.
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