Data and creativity can go hand in hand together, and we now have an amazing example to prove it. If you do one thing today, listen to
JFK Unsilenced -- a campaign for
The Times created by Accenture in Ireland (formerly Rothco).
I can guarantee you will have your socks blown off by how accurately
the researchers have managed to recreate the former President's voice to allow him to give the speech he would have made at the Dallas Trade Mart on November 23rd 1963, had he not been assassinated. I
can also assure you many of the words will ring true about today's politics as he warns against those who "confuse rhetoric with reality." Remind you of anyone?
Apart from being one of the
most compelling audio campaigns you are likely to come across this year, albeit presented in video form, the work is worth for picking out for showing what can happen when creativity and data meet. Mediatel makes the point that by the work winning the top
award for Creative Data, it became the real talking point of Cannes.
Sure, there was a lot of noise around whatever Sorrell had to say and about Omnicom's success, but actually, the real
pointer for the future was that a consultancy won a creative award. What's more, it was a creative award that fused data with creative.
I don't know about you, but I've always been highly
sceptical of the endless tirade of opinion articles and conference speeches that talk about how data can inform creativity. Obviously data, in the form of feedback and responses, can reveal which
creative approaches have worked the best. Otherwise, though, I've always been left a little cold by arguments that try to take the point further.
A good example comes today with the BBC claiming it is using AI tech from IBM to listen in to the various courts at Wimbledon so it can tell if something
major has happened and its editors can then know those moments should be added to the highlights programme. Every year we have some new piece of tech that is apparently being used to bring us the
action from Wimbledon but I'm also pretty suspicious it's a PR exercise for IBM.
Sure, lots of great tech goes into the coverage, but the pressure to announce something new every year means
you could bet AI would be being used for something this year. If it's a big moment, however, surely we have commentators that are there and able to let the guys in the studio know a seed is about to
get knocked out. Do we need AI for that?
JFK Unsilenced is different, however. When the data actually becomes the creative, or at least allows it to be formed, then we are entering a really
interesting phase of digital marketing.
The fact that this has been done by a consultancy -- Accenture Interactive in Ireland -- for The Times not only underscores how data and
creative can go hand in hand -- it is a warning shot across the bows of the holding companies that consultancies just might be the best place to make this happen.