Data can be a pow­er­ful tool to help brands bet­ter tar­get con­sumers on an indi­vid­ual lev­el and serve up the most rel­e­vant con­tent. But that’s only when the data itself is actu­al­ly rel­e­vant to the brands in ques­tion. And with so many providers offer­ing data, how are mar­keters to know which source is the best fit?

At Ad Age’s recent dig­i­tal con­fer­ence, Julie Fleis­ch­er, senior direc­tor of data, con­tent and media at Kraft, ref­er­enced her now some­what infa­mous com­ment that 90 per­cent of data is crap at a pri­or event and she notes Kraft still believes most data is crap, but it is “all in” any­way.

But that’s only when it comes to first-par­ty data.

Things Had to Change…

Like many brands, Kraft had a long lega­cy of rely­ing on TV to build its brands, but came to real­ize it had to do some­thing dif­fer­ent upon its split from Mon­delez in 2012, accord­ing to Bob Rupczyn­s­ki, vice pres­i­dent of media, data and cus­tomer engage­ment.

“The first thing we did was look at our agency state­ment of work and we lit­er­al­ly had the same one we had in 2000,” Rupczyn­s­ki said. “It had nev­er been updat­ed. We were look­ing at con­sumers and tech­nol­o­gy that were very dif­fer­ent, but an agency SOW that hadn’t changed in 12 years.”

But Kraft is a “$20 bil­lion com­pa­ny that had done the same things the same way for 50 years,” Rupczyn­s­ki said. And so in order to effect change, he had to “scare [upper man­age­ment] a lit­tle bit. There is a dooms­day black cloud over head…consumers will change and so we have to change, too.”

In oth­er words, data was the only com­pet­i­tive advan­tage in terms of under­stand­ing con­sumers in a tru­ly unique way and the brand had to start to acti­vate against that, he said.

“Col­lect­ing data is worth­less, but under­stand­ing con­sumers and doing some­thing dif­fer­ent, that was the approach we had to take,” Rupczyn­s­ki adds.

The Data Source: KraftRecipes.com

For Kraft, the abil­i­ty to under­stand con­sumers and do some­thing dif­fer­ent starts with data from the 100 mil­lion con­sumers it sees every year on its KraftRecipes.com site.

“We can track [con­sumers], col­lect infor­ma­tion and under­stand when they’re cook­ing, what ingre­di­ents they’re using, what hol­i­days and sea­sons they’re celebrating…and deliv­er rel­e­vant con­tent,” Fleis­ch­er said.

In oth­er words, Kraft said con­tent is at the heart of its mar­ket­ing approach and the brand can mine result­ing data to cre­ate more mean­ing­ful expe­ri­ences by under­stand­ing con­sumers on an indi­vid­ual lev­el.

But, Rupczyn­s­ki notes, in an era of con­ver­gence and empow­er­ment, the brand must match the pace at which con­sumers live their lives, which means Kraft must fig­ure out how to deliv­er its mes­sage quick­ly and appro­pri­ate­ly.

Addressability

“Address­abil­i­ty is our strat­e­gy,” he said.

But it hasn’t always been a per­fect sci­ence.

“Last year, we did won­der­ful­ly at get­ting to the right peo­ple and under­stand­ing when to serve that mes­sage to them, but we served all of them the same mes­sage, which was a missed oppor­tu­ni­ty,” he said. “At the end of the day, con­tent has to be put in con­text, but con­text has to be pow­ered by a data lay­er.”

The brand has since piv­ot­ed to tar­get­ing with more appro­pri­ate mes­sages.

But first Kraft had to fig­ure out how to bet­ter dis­sect its data.

“Most all of us are lack­ing in terms of data lit­er­a­cy. It’s not a skill taught in busi­ness school,” Fleis­ch­er said. “[But] if you aren’t col­lect­ing, inter­ro­gat­ing, orga­niz­ing and acti­vat­ing data, you’re wast­ing your time.”

Address­abil­i­ty, on the oth­er hand, allows mar­keters to “get to know con­sumers on a gran­u­lar basis and…reach them indi­vid­u­al­ly,” she said. “90 per­cent of data is crap. It just is. In the world we’re work­ing in, the vast major­i­ty is crap.”

Third-Party Data is Crap

She points to Kraft’s cof­fee brand Gevalia and its K‑Cups prod­uct as a “per­fect exam­ple of the need for address­abil­i­ty – any­one who doesn’t have a brew­er is a wast­ed impres­sion.”

Fleis­ch­er said the brand test­ed four types of data about brew­er own­ers with two ecom­merce play­ers and found only 14 to 20 per­cent of the data was cor­rect about brew­er own­ers.

It, in part, points to the need for uni­ver­sal data ter­mi­nol­o­gy and also expos­es addi­tion­al issues with third-par­ty data, such as lack of knowl­edge about how the data is col­lect­ed and even when it was col­lect­ed.

In addi­tion, she said Kraft’s Crys­tal Light brand want­ed to adver­tise to “trend­set­ters,” but with one data source in par­tic­u­lar the brand ulti­mate­ly dis­cov­ered that “trend­set­ter” was defined as con­sumers who shop for con­tem­po­rary fur­ni­ture.

“You need to dig into it to under­stand the con­text of that data,” she said. “Garbage is garbage, even at scale. You can take data with a stun­ning lack of qual­i­ty and you can’t make up for it by just hav­ing more of it.”

In oth­er words, data needs to be vet­ted, under­stood and inter­ro­gat­ed, she added.

“It’s a remark­ably opaque indus­try by design because it allows ven­dors to sell prod­ucts, but it is hard­er for us to use and rely on,” she said.

What’s more, third-par­ty data sources are the same ones com­peti­tors like Pep­si and Gen­er­al Mills use, she not­ed.

So Why is Kraft Still “All In” on Data?

Despite prob­lems with third-par­ty data, Kraft said it sim­ply can’t rely on the media that got it to this point in time any longer.

“Con­sumers aren’t pay­ing atten­tion to ads,” she said. “We’re at an inflec­tion point as an indus­try at which we can’t 30-sec­ond spot our way out of this.”

That means the only way for­ward is to go back to KraftRecipes.com to under­stand con­sumers, engage with them and get data back for free through the pro­pri­etary lens of the prod­uct.

“Our mantra is enrich, scale and diver­si­fy,” she said.

In oth­er words, the brand wants to enrich first-par­ty data, scale its data so it sees more peo­ple and gets to know them on an indi­vid­ual lev­el and then diver­si­fy that data by under­stand­ing con­sumers through the lens of the prod­ucts and cook­ing behav­iors.

“First-par­ty data is not crap,” she added.

What’s more, con­sumers are will­ing to share a tremen­dous amount of data about health and loca­tion, so brands that don’t have the infra­struc­ture to col­lect, store and ana­lyze that data to deliv­er rel­e­vant con­sumer mes­sages will fall behind, Rupczyn­s­ki said.

“Con­sumers of the future are why we’re all in,” he said.

What’s your take on first and third par­ty data?