to double down on TV ads targeting teens, or to ease up on Sunday inserts for elders. But marketers who allow for a little art and creativity in how they examine and interpret that data are often rewarded with a clearer, truer vision of customer habits, which means less money wasted on ads that don’t work.

“There is a human element to sitting down,
looking at data, and finding the story,” says Scott
Turner, executive vice president of agency and
advertiser sales at research firm GfK MRI.
“That’s the art of it — really understanding the
context and teasing out the insights from all
these data resources.”
Nearly a decade after Walmart’s insight
regarding Pop-Tarts, nearly every company has
access to the mountains of consumer intelligence
that, when examined correctly, can lead to similar
insights. But all too often those interpreting the
data aren’t taking the time to unearth the stories
hidden in those piles of information.

“There’s all this focus on the science part of it right now,” Turner says, “but you don’t just press

Experts in data analysis tell endless stories of companies that failed to see the big picture when it comes to interpreting their consumer data. A little creativity, they say, can make all the difference.

4 | May 2012 ANA Thought Leadership Series

a button and have big data tell you the answer.”
Experts in data analysis tell endless stories of
companies that failed to see the big picture when it
comes to interpreting their consumer data. A little
creativity, they say, can make all the difference.

Take, for example, Rent-A-Center, the furniture rental chain that allows people who can’t afford to purchase necessities like a couch, television, or washing machine to bring them into their homes at a reduced cost. For years, the company had operated under the principle that its core customer was Hispanic households earning less than $75,000 annually. Naturally, the company tailored its advertising to Hispanic families in middle- to lower-class neighborhoods.

Rent-A-Center wasn’t wrong about its customers. But four years ago, Ansira, a St. Louis–based customer engagement agency, ran a segmentation study that helped it to quickly discover that there was more to the picture.

“They believed that Hispanics were their core customer, and that the average customer agreement was for 13 weeks,” says Michael Harrison, executive vice president and chief strategy officer at Ansira. But while the data showed that Hispanics used Rent-A-Center more than any other demographic, the average length of agreement for Hispanics was just four weeks — much shorter than Caucasians and far shorter than African-Americans, whose average length of rentals was much closer to 13 weeks.

“So Hispanics were coming and going away,
and Rent-A-Center was focusing significant
dollars on that market,” says Harrison. “This
analysis demonstrated to them that the profitabil-
ity of Hispanic consumers was much less than
the others.”
Rent-A-Center quickly shifted its media buy
to more realistically reflect customer habits.

The key, Harrison says, is to approach the data with a story in mind — people want ready-to-eat food during a storm, for example — then apply the scientific method to prove how accurate you are.

“We talk about the right and the left side of the brain when looking at data,” he says. “You need to be inquisitive and try to set up a hypothesis, then disprove it or prove it as you go through the process.” Harrison notes that the