We are now in the crossfire of a peaking hype cycle for big data and its inevitable backlash. One marketer the other night was yelling on Twitter, “Big Data People need to GET OFF MY LAWN.”
I confess, I empathize with his frustration. Of course, I believe that data – the right data, used in the right ways – is immensely powerful in modern marketing. As I wrote in a post about pragmatic marketing, “Relying solely on gut-based, experience-driven decision-making in marketing is foolish in the digital age.”
But I also concluded: “The sensible answer for most companies is a balance of data analytics and human judgement.”