Paul Marcum, GE’s digital marketing chief, sees a big role for agencies in Big Data. “I’m going to be outsourcing to agencies for as long as I can foresee,” he said. He pointed out that agencies have a chance to lead the way as long as their compensation models don’t don’t stand in the way of that effort. Marcum also said agencies have to recognize clients are always going to have to own the data.  

In the morning keynote for OMMA Data Driven Marketing event Paul Marcum, global digital director marketing & programming, GE, warned audience members not to be seduced by the promises of social data/Big Data vendors. In connection with the company’s “Brilliant Machines” campaign launched in November, he said GE was a little frustrated with the vendor hired to analyze social data coming from the campaign launch, providing recommendations three days after the project manager had already started making adjustments to the campaign. If the insights you’re getting aren’t faster and cheaper than common sense conclusions, then it’s not worth it. Otherwise, …

Kicking off OMMA DDB, Paul Marcum, Global Digital Director of Marketing & Programming at GE, is giving attendees a "fairly open-kimono look" at the brand, and its bullishness on big data. "We believe in big data's potential," said Marcum. Simply put, when you're operating at GE's scale, a 1% or 2% increase in productivity through the use of data can have a huge impact on the bottom line, according to Marcum. Bullish on the industry at large, Marcum predicts that the audience at OMMA DDB will be three times the size, this time next year. That said, how can companies …