Smile for the Data, Sweetie!

Marketers are used to mining data as a resource.  But effective presentation of data is increasingly less about numbers and spreadsheets, and more about turning the quant into a quality visual.

Not that Powerpoint isn’t visual, mind you.

‘Data visualization,’ the process of distilling reams of statistics into something aesthetically pleasing and functional, is quickly becoming a buzzword.

Tech companies have been doing this for years. Google Maps and Google Earth, for example, are just enormous amounts of data packaged into a useful and consumer-friendly service. 

Now marketers are catching on. Intel created the Museum of Me website which pulls Facebook photos, videos, and other archived bits to create a gorgeous, if self-absorbed, virtual exhibition. 

For marketers themselves, data visualization tools help synthesize paralyzing amounts of consumer information.  Forward-thinking agencies like R/GA are hiring computer scientists to find new ways to distill and display data. 

Easier analysis means faster insight and decision-making -- and even though number crunchers abound, it’s visuals that stay with most people.  Think back to your ‘how to give a presentation’ lessons -- gesture, smile, and be a presence.  That’s what’s remembered more than the content.

Data visualization creates a demand for those who are able to think mathematically as well as artistically. By using both sides of the brain, we can graph recipes that double as art work and discover new music and apps through interactive maps.

In this highly visual, digitized age, a picture’s worth a thousand words...and a million data points.

http://adage.com/article/digital/powerpoint-data-lure-consumers/227997
http://www.intel.com/museumofme/r/index.htm
http://www.abisolberg.com/#1217452/Sum-of-the-Parts
http://discovr.info
http://mwtech.com/rw/photos/GoogleEarth/

Counterintuitive Counterfeits

The counterfeit industry has long been the shady brother of legitimate, high-end manufacturers. Conventional knowledge says fakes steal sales from genuine brands, but could they actually be good for business?

A preliminary study of counterfeit sales in China (the birthplace of all these fine products) suggests that rip-offs may serve some good after all. 

In the 1990s, China suffered a bout of well-publicized cases of food-poisoning and gas tank explosions. As policing efforts were diverted from counterfeiters towards the drug, food, and gas industries, knock-offs proliferated. Instead of losing business, however, high-end labels saw rising sales in the following years.

There might be several reasons for this:

• Fakes serve as free advertising by signaling brand popularity. All publicity is good publicity, right?
• Owning a fake could eventually lead to purchasing the real thing. MIT marketing professor Renee Gosline calls counterfeits “gate-way” products that allow the owner to form an emotional attachment to the brand.
• A guilty conscience helps propel counterfeit owners to buy the genuine article.

As more brands and corporations go global, the best solution against counterfeits and copycats  is differentiation through quality. For high-end labels, luxury materials that are harder to replicate fetch higher prices anyway.

Imitation may be flattering, but it’s so much better when it’s also profitable.

http://www.slate.com/id/2294927/

http://in-this-economy.com/2009/03/04/fashion-flash-new-black/rich-louis-vuitton-car/