Why marketers need to use data with empathy to connect with people

In the advertising and marketing worlds, the battle for data has grown fiercer while consumers have become ever more distrustful of entities seeking their personal information. Along with that pushback, the expansion of regulations such as GDPR and CCPA and big tech’s elimination of third-party cookies have made data harder to obtain than ever before. Yet even as first-party data remains the Holy Grail, the industry is shackled to an outdated approach to data-gathering that is bound, in the end, to fail—because it is built around a one-way extraction of data that treats people as consumer automatons and their data as useful solely for commercial gain. Today people want more than to impersonally transact and consume. Seismic shifts in our society—brought on by COVID-19, the economic crisis and a global outcry over racial injustice—have shown that people derive a sense of self from every brand or business they choose to engage. They expect organizations to play a meaningful role in their lives and solve both personal and societal problems. To succeed, organizations must move beyond transactional data points and instead consider people’s hopes, motivations and fears—the vast layers that make them who they are—in order to define purpose, create differentiation and build trust. For organizations to achieve relationships with people in which empathy is relayed, value is exchanged and trust is formed, they must reimagine the role of data. This calls for a new approach, one that reverses commoditized concepts such as “data is the new oil.” Such thinking erodes, rather than builds, trust. According to recent Edelman research, people are four times more likely to share their data with a brand they trust versus one they do not. There’s a different way to build that trust—one in which organizations aren’t extracting from consumers but creating value for people. I call it data with empathy. A distinctly human approach: Data with empathy So, what is data with empathy? A theory? A practice? PR fluff? Data with empathy is a philosophy and process, an input and outcome, with tactical implications that produce real, tangible results. It understands that data alone is not human, but what we do with it is. Data with empathy starts with understanding who someone is at an emotional level. An organization may label people as investors, activists, buyers, policymakers or any other “segment.” Yet to truly connect with them, we must recognize that first and foremost they are people—people who make choices that reflect values and fulfill higher purposes. Whether buying a 99-cent can of Goya beans or a $200 pair of Nike shoes, people interact with organizations that communicate beliefs that resonate most strongly with their own. Beginning with intrinsic human layers leads to richer, actionable insights. Those insights are then used to act with empathy by creating relevant, earned content and experiences for people that are so compelling, they genuinely resonate, generating earned signals. Cyclically, those signals fuel deep understanding of the person, enabling organizations to drive even more impactful communications. At this point, a two-way relationship is formed, establishing a mutual data value exchange in which trust is the foundation. It’s the difference between delivering an e-coupon to track someone’s purchase and engaging with them in programming surrounding paternity leave, for example, an issue a particular brand and father might both care deeply about improving. The former indicates how to momentarily buy a piece of media to optimize the next sale, the latter is an example of data with empathy and building shared, long-term value. How to implement data with empathy Data with empathy requires bringing together expertise and skills that combine understanding culture and human emotion with robust science and quantitative techniques: Data with empathy: The virtuous circle At Edelman, we believe trust is earned, not bought. The path to trust depends on an ability to create and apply data in which empathy is the driving force behind communications that both move and inspire people. This process drives real business impact too—from the language and imagery to use to which influencers and spokespeople best tell a brand’s story. It enables an organization to change how and what media to buy and where to place it, identifying which messages will resonate most strongly in each moment. Most distinctively, it empowers organizations to engage with people differently, activating them in new ways as ambassadors or pilot groups, with an ability to reach even more people who think like them, not just look like them, at scale through deep understanding. This learning is continually applied to fuel new, emotionally relevant, earned content and experiences that continue to strengthen the relationship. It’s a virtuous circle where trust yields data, data enables empathy and empathy drives trust. When done right, data is not the new oil or gold, nor is it the new form of currency. Data is the gift of empathy. About Edelman Edelman Data & Intelligence (DxI) is a global, multidisciplinary research, analytics and data consultancy. We use data and intelligence to help organizations build trusting relationships with people by making communications more authentic, engagement more exciting and connections more meaningful. DxI brings together and integrates the necessary people-based PR, communications, social, research and exogenous data, as well as the technology infrastructure to create, collect, store and manage first-party data and identity resolution. DxI is comprised of over 350 research specialists, business scientists, data engineers, machine learning experts and data strategy consultants based in 15 markets around the world.

Why marketers need to use data with empathy to connect with people

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