The industries that fuel our world’s economic well-being are being attacked by a growing legion of analytic supervillains. Has the time come for Analytic Heroes to prepare for battle? If your organization is faced with one or more of the challenges in this infographic, share it with those who are working to overcome them. -  Posted by Dr. Insight 

  

 

 

 

 

The “web” seems to know weird things about me. Take my old friend Netflix – just the other day, I was thrilled and shocked to see that Netflix had sifted through the rubble of my son’s nonstop Dora and Diego consumption (you parents understand this) to make a couple of streaming recommendations for moi that, quite simply, made my day.

Don’t get me started on Google, whose creepy and prescient ads – “Never Fly Coach Again” (how do they know?!) -- amaze me every time!

And, just the other day, eBay was trying to sell me seriously rad trail running shoes. Now, I shop with eBay a lot – to the tune of Thomas the Train and Kate Spade – but I’ve never once bought anything sport-related from the site. I am a person, by the way, who seriously appreciates rad trail running shoes – and buy them, I did.

What do all of these companies have in common? Besides the fact that they know more nitty-gritty things about me than my own mother, the commonality is that they all use Big Data analytics. Not big data. Big Data. Note the caps. Heard the buzz word, but – like gluten free and OTT – you still don’t quite know what it means, how it works, and how IT organizations can execute? 

Let’s start from a simple definition. Big Data refers to the data exhaust that people like us – your audience, viewers and site visitors – leave behind as they navigate through your online services. Take my Netflix scenario – for every search I execute, click that I make, or trailer that I watch, I am leaving fingerprints. The path I take through Netflix – from the moment I log on, to the moment I watch something (or don’t) leaves a trace. Those traces in aggregate – often rendered as multi-structured bits of data in click-streams, or web blogs, or comments on social media sites or social networks – are Big Data.

 
How do you make sense of Big Data vs. little data (to steal a phrase from Peter Yared’s recent post on CNET) ? Well, “little data” – the rows and columns we’re all used to today - focuses on the “what.” What viewers watch; what buyers buy; how many, how much. Big Data – coined such not so much because of its size, but because of its complexity and dynamic-nature (um, dynamo?) – helps us explore why.

Is your interest piqued? Want to know why your content distribution and online publishing friends know so much about you? Want to know more things like this about your audience when you’re distributing your content? Check-out this upcoming FREE, Live Webinar featuring eBay – a company among the titans of Big Data Analytics. You can click here to learn more and register.

Colleen Quinn 

Utility consumers are definitely not alike; spanning the spectrum of age, orientation, needs and preferences. With utilities rolling out smart meter initiatives that support grid optimization, many consumers are still unaware of what it is, what it means, and why they should care. Recent research shows that 48% of consumers asked were unfamiliar with the term “smart meter” and 51% said they’d never heard the term “smart grid.”

Although overcoming this gap in understanding may seem daunting for utilities, the same research from the Smart Grid Consumer Collaborative found that once consumers learned more about both terms, they were supportive. This presents a valuable opportunity for utility marketers and customer service professionals to generate acceptance for smart grids by focusing communications on educating consumers about energy management, dynamic pricing, and demand response.

Creating messaging that consumers will find relevant is based on segmentation; the ability to group consumers by preferences and needs. The best way to gain an understanding of the preferences and needs of your utility’s customers is consider what you already know about them and present a short survey to uncover missing data.

Start with demographics and smart meter data. Smart meters provide foundational information that can be used to inform and direct program offerings, such as patterns of energy usage, peak usage patterns, time of use, and more. Billing and payment trends will also provide valuable insights.

Once you have those baselines, design a survey to discover your customer’s interest in the following three topics to create a segmentation strategy. The example questions beneath each topic should demonstrate how the answers can help you develop content and communications with higher relevance for specific segments.
 

    Environment 

• Do you believe global warming is real?
• Do you think more needs to be done to help people avoid wasting energy?
• How important is it to you to protect the environment for future generations?

    Educational 

• Do you know what a smart-grid does?
• Would you participate in a time-of-use (ToU) program?
• Do you know how smart meters can be used to impact the environment?

    Economic 

• Do you take measures to save money on your electric bill?
• Do you know that energy management can save you money?
• Is your electric bill pushing your budget comfort zone?

By scoring the answers, you will be able to create a segmentation program with three tracks of messaging that address the consumer’s highest interest area. It is evident from the variance in the topics of the environment, education and economic concerns, the same messaging will not appeal to all of your customers.

When you review your smart meter data in correlation to the survey answers, you should be able to discover patterns that will provide insight to the combination of messaging and program offers that will have the highest impact on customer response.

For example, if you see a pattern of lower energy use, on-time payments and an affirmative answer to environmental questions, those consumers may be more receptive to information and programs designed around conservation, sustainability, and “green” messaging.

Focusing communications on a consumer value proposition applied to consumer segmentation raises a consumer’s willingness to respond which provides utilities with the opportunity to influence change and the adoption of your smart meter and smart grid programs. Relevance, driven by segmentation is a key strategy utilities can use to encourage behavioral change and energy savings.

Bryan Truex, Sr. Director, Utility Analytics 

Teradata’s Consumer Goods business includes many former industry practitioners with backgrounds in a variety of domains. Clients have come to depend on these experts to identify ways in which Teradata solutions can address their most urgent problems and best opportunities. Given a blend of industry perspective and technology know-how, our Consultants possess a wealth of knowledge – a portion of which will be served up here in a series of short Question & Answer sessions with several of our ICs (Teradata terminology for Industry Consultants). First up is Roy Beckelhymer (roy.beckelhymer@teradata.com or on Twitter @Beckrl3).

Can you provide a bit of background about yourself, including why you decided to join Teradata?

I have quite a bit of experience in the Consumer Goods industry -- more than twenty plus years with companies such as Kraft Foods, Campbell’s Soup and The Coca-Cola Company. For Coca-Cola, among my roles there included managing Latin America marketing. This provided me a lot of global experience and perspective. During my time in the industry I worked in a variety of areas, including sales and marketing with an emphasis on trade promotion management, account management, new product introductions, profit and loss management, pricing and packaging management, strategic planning and international brand management. I also have done a lot of financial analysis, including mergers and acquisitions with Fortune 500 consumer goods companies and divisions.

I joined Teradata because so much of what defines a successful Consumer Goods organization is based on data – that is integrated, timely, multi-source, accurate, and made available across all functional groups. Information is the cornerstone for developing consumer, shopper and customer insights. There are just not a lot of solid options for IT organizations or their dependent business users when it comes to a platform for detailed data analysis. Teradata fills that gap.

There has been a lot of recent press about Consumer Goods companies committing more effort to Digital Marketing. How do you see this fitting in with brand management, shopper marketing, trade promotions and retail relationships?

Digital marketing is definitely the “shiny new object” right now for CPG, but for good reason. It offers a partial solution to the challenge long facing CPG – which is connecting directly with and influencing consumers without depending on their trade partners. While mobile and social media certainly offer direct paths to consumers, it’s really important to consider how these channels connect with the shopper’s journey from home, while on the go, and in the store environment. For that reason, digital marketing in many ways offers a way of supercharging traditional trade and brand management functions within CPG. It’s through the collection, normalization and analysis of consumer marketing data from multiple sources that CPGs can be better armed to create more effective marketing across brand, trade promotion and shopper marketing efforts. That’s a Big Data problem we are seeing among our CPG clients.

Big Data is a hot term in our industry right now. How do you talk to Teradata clients about Big Data and what it means for the Consumer Goods industry?

We find some a bit confused with respect to Big Data. It’s not just about volume and storage requirements, but being able to handle the diversity of data types emerging from non-traditional sources – be it channels like social media or even machine sensor data. With Big Data analytics now available from Teradata via Aster Data, we can offer a solution to handle both the diversity and volume of data available, to say nothing of the analytics to make use of Big Data to draw out new insights – which is the ultimate goal.

Can you describe any recent client projects you thought were especially interesting and really highlighted the value of Teradata? You don’t have to mention the client by name.

We’re seeing a lot of clients begin to embrace the value behind the downstream data they have available from their retail partners. It’s no longer about looking at data from just one large retailer, but instead looking across all trading partners to assess the best approaches to allocating budget for activities like trade promotions. The expense behind these relationships is huge and only growing so it’s becoming more important than ever to explore ways of optimizing them. There are numerous added benefits to integrating this data, such as being able to apply analytics to uncover the optimum price variances for promotions given factors such as actual demand.

Of all the Consumer Goods trends playing out in 2012, from digital marketing to food safety, do you predict one in particular will see a lot of traction? Why?

I think we will see a lot of experimentation around digital marketing but a steady transition toward capturing and integrating this data as a step toward leveraging it for all manner of high value purposes – from consumer insights to helping research and launch new products to simply grasping a true understanding of the ROI of the investments. In general, CPGs have a wealth of data available from many diverse sources, and I think all are embracing the concept that data holds the key to success across the entire organization, from marketing to trading partners through the supply chain. 

Gib Bassett 

Teradata is privileged to build meaningful partnerships with academic influencers that provide unique insights and share our passion for creating business value and helping companies make the best decisions possible. On Feb 22, UCLA’s Professor of Marketing Xavier Drèze lost his battle against cancer. As co-director of the UCLA Center for Management of Enterprise in Media, Entertainment, and Sports (MEMES), Teradata collaborated with Xavier on our first “Battle for the Living Room” roundtable held at UCLA. Managing chemo treatments, Xavier enthusiastically repeated the roundtable at our Teradata Partners Users Group Conference. Xavier’s visionary ideas, get-it-done spirit, zest for making a difference, will be missed. Xavier’s spirit will live on in future Teradata and UCLA collaborations.

Podcast:Battle for the Living Room” roundtable highlights with Teradata’s Colleen Quinn, Xavier and UCLA’s Sanjay Sood 
 

“Without the tools (like TPO) required to simulate outcomes, there is too much trial and error or downright fear of trying some new promotions. The result is that manufacturers have to spend more to try to grow their businesses and support their brands. One way to combat this, however, is through TPO, which shifts focus to the incremental revenue and margin that the promotion will drive, as opposed to the trade funds that a retailer will receive to bolster its margins.”

 “…many companies are still not taking advantage of the available technology that could help significantly improve trade fund effectiveness: only 58 percent have implemented TPM or TPO.”

“More than 85% of the 50 packaged goods companies surveyed by Booz in November and December 2011 agreed that retailers focus too much on shopper discounting, even for programs that are intended to provide additional value beyond pricing.”

“The big challenge, concluded Booz, is for manufacturers to ‘better engage retail partners in the development and execution of shopper solutions that deliver added value beyond price reductions.’ Those that are successful, Booz said, ‘will earn the right to win their categories.’”

Consumers are most interested in self-focused benefits when considering how they engage with services and selecting which products they purchase. This focus does not change when the service is electricity. As customer service and marketing professionals for utility companies work to create engagement and modify consumption behaviors, they must apply their primary messaging to a value proposition that resonates with consumers.

What Electricity Consumers Care About

A number of themes were revealed by the Smart Grid Customer Collaborative (SGCC) during their Excellence in Consumer Engagement Study that analyzed 150 customer-facing U.S. Smart Grid programs. Four takeaways can be applied to create more consumer programs for smart meter deployments:
 

1. Set and deliver on short-term expectations.
   The true benefits from a Smart Grid can be years away. Keep messages focused on setting expectations that can be delivered on within a few months—a year at most—to create a record of follow-through that builds trust and credibility for your utility. Messaging that keeps consumers informed of events that impact them personally, such as smart meter installation, privacy, and billing concerns are examples to consider.
   
    
2. Provide information about primary concerns.
   The SGCC study found that every smart meter deployment that was analyzed had received complaints. Change is difficult and misinformation is rampant when something that consumers just expect to be there takes on a different form—such as electricity. From concerns regarding health, privacy, and pricing to security and even meter-reader job loss, it’s important to ensure that consumers are informed about all facets of change introduced by smart meters. By helping them to establish a comfort level that allows them to ignore speculations put forth by naysayers, a smooth transition becomes possible.
   
    
3. Make the impact personal.
   Saving money has a direct impact on the consumer’s lifestyle where environmental benefits are more aspirational. It is much more difficult to visualize the benefits of carbon reduction in comparison to what an additional twenty dollars can buy each month, for example. 
   
    
4. Minimize the effort to take action.
   Consumers’ lives are busy. Electricity usage is not high on the priority list of things they need to do something about. The simplicity of the programs you design coupled with a high perception of personal impact will be instrumental in driving higher participation and enrollment. But the true tipping point will be based upon the urgency and purpose that your messages manage to convey. As in all industries, the motivation promoted by a call to action must spur consumer response.

It is important to note that messaging and education is not just for consumers, but also must be provided to internal employees. Consistency is critical across each experience the consumer has, including the call center, marketing messages, the meter installer, and even a conversation between an employee and a father during the 7th-inning stretch at his son’s little league game. 

As the research indicates, the smart meter consumer value proposition is based on recognition of personal impact, establishing an informed comfort level about what the change means for them, and seeing that the utility is meeting the expectations they set. 

Moving into the future with smart meter data, customer service and marketing programs will be able to refine the consumer value proposition with segmentation and more personalized insights that can produce even higher participation in new programs that are more effective at changing electricity consumption behaviors.

Bryan Truex, Sr. Director, Utility Analytics