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1. IL L UMIN
BY G O A T E D
B
OGLE
THINK QUARTERLY

3. By mapping individual neurons in the brain with red, green and blue
derivatives of fluorescent protein, Jeff Lichtman and Joshua Sanes
invented the art of ‘brainbows’ in 2007 at Harvard Medical School. This
image shows a transgenic mouse hippocampus magnified by 40 times.
Image courtesy of Livet, Weissman, Sanes and Lichtman, Harvard University.

5. Welcome to
THINK QUARTERLY
tHe DAtA ISSUe
At Google, we often think that speed is the
forgotten ‘killer application’ – the ingredient
that can differentiate winners from the rest.
We know that the faster we deliver results,
the more useful people find our service.
But in a world of accelerating change, we all need time to reflect.
Think Quarterly is a breathing space in a busy world. It’s a place to
take time out and consider what’s happening and why it matters.
Our first issue is dedicated to Data – amongst a morass of
information, how can you find the magic metrics that will help
transform your business? We hope that you find inspiration,
insights, and more, in Think Quarterly.
Matt Brittin
managing Director, UK & Ireland operations
Google
05

6. ConTriBUTorS Simon rogerS Ulrike reinhard Sarah BraCking
Think Quarterly represents Simon Rogers is the editor Ulrike Reinhard is the editor Sarah Bracking is the author
the imagination, insights of guardian.co.uk/data, which of WE magazine, a digital of Money and Power and
and knowledge of a global encourages users to visualise publication focussed on Corruption and Development,
community of contributors raw datasets. He has edited two emergent net culture. With and is a Senior Lecturer in
from journalists and academics Guardian books: How Slow Can Peter Kruse, she co-founded Politics and Development at
to industry experts and Google you Waterski? and The Hutton the What’s Next? Institute the University of Manchester.
insiders. They’re united by a Inquiry and Its Impact. In to research cultural value She is a member of the
passion for cutting-edge ideas 2010, Simon received a special preferences and social International Institute for
and seeking out the points of commendation from the Royal megatrends. She interviews Democracy and Electoral
fundamental change in the Statistical Society in its awards Hans Rosling on page 16; Assistance and has worked
new era of digital business. for journalistic excellence. writes about the online with the Norwegian Agency
He interviews Vodafone CEO video ad boom on page 34; for Development Cooperation.
Guy Laurence on page 10, and speaks to Peter Kruse She writes about ethical
and chooses his top 10 data about harnessing collective investment in the developing
websites on page 28. intelligence on page 50. world on page 22.
06

7. holly Finn Tony Fagan nigel ShadBolT riCh PleeTh
Holly Finn is the former Tony Fagan is the director Nigel Shadbolt is a Professor Rich Pleeth spent three years
editor of the Financial Times’ of the Quantitative Research of Artificial Intelligence at working for a large FMCG
‘How to Spend It’ pages, team at Google, which focusses the University of Southampton. before joining Google in
and a former leader writer on understanding consumer He was one of the originators 2010 as a Product Marketing
at The Times. She moved to behaviour on the web and of Web Science – a systems Manager, with a particular
Silicon Valley five years ago improving Google’s advertising level approach to the web focus on strategy and
and is a contributor to the US system. Prior to working for that recognises the social innovation. He lives in Fulham
edition of Think Quarterly. Google, Tony managed a and technical factors that in south west London, but
Off-hours, Holly is building team that built analytics and shape its development. Since you’ll most likely find him
a site dedicated to the latest infrastructure at eBay. He 2009, he has been at the heart cycling around Richmond
research and insights about holds Master’s degrees in both of the UK’s Open Government Park at the weekend. Rich
IVF, for both women and men. statistics and engineering. Data project, launching data. is editor-at-large of the UK
She interviews her Google Tony answers the six quant gov.uk with Sir Tim Berners- edition of Think Quarterly.
hero, Chief Economist Hal questions that every CMO Lee. He discusses the benefits He writes about Near Field
Varian, on page 30. should be asking on page 40. of open data on page 44. Communication on page 56.
contact thinkquarterly@google.com
The articles appearing within this publication reflect the opinions and attitudes of
their respective authors and not necessarily those of the publishers or editorial team.
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© Google 2011
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07

8. ConTenTS
Contents pages can be bossy
– telling you where to go and
what to do. But they can be
useful, too. After all, what is a
contents page but data about
the book you’re holding? Still,
we thought we’d have a little
fun with it. You can peruse this
book in the usual linear fashion,
but look a little closer and new
data relationships emerge.
Don’t just read: explore.
PAGE 10 16 22 28 30 34
EXECUTIVE A DATA STATE DATA FOR THE LUNCH FULLY
INSIGHT OF MIND CHANGE KNOWLEDGE WITH HAL VIRAL
SIMON ROGERS ULRIKE REINHARD SARAH BRACKING SIMON ROGERS HOLLY FINN ULRIKE REINHARD
OPEN DATA OPEN DATA OPEN DATA GRAPHICS GOOGLE CREATIVITY
DATA OBESITY CREATIVITY DECISION-MAKING TOP 10 STATISTICS ADVERTISING
GUY LAURENCE INTERACTION PRIVATE INVESTMENT GOVERNMENT BUZZMAN
VODAFONE GAPMINDER FOUNDATION SOCIAL CHANGE DATA OBESITY FRENCH CONNECTION
SOCIAL CHANGE GAPMINDER FOUNDATION EXPERIMENTS YOUTUBE
GOVERNMENT GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT HAL VARIAN VIRAL MARKETING
HANS ROSLING CORPORATE
RESPONSIBILITY
08

9. 38 40 44 50 56 60 62
FROM STICKS AD OPEN FOR SOFT VALUES, FREE YOUR LONG FLIGHT THE MOBILE
TO CLOUDS VALUE BUSINESS HARD FACTS POCKETS AHEAD REVOLUTION
GRAPHICS TONY FAGAN NIGEL SHADBOLT ULRIKE REINHARD RICH PLEETH GRAPHICS GRAPHICS
OPEN DATA GOOGLE OPEN DATA DECISION-MAKING GOOGLE PUZZLE OPEN DATA
SOCIAL CHANGE STATISTICS DECISION-MAKING SOCIAL CHANGE SOCIAL CHANGE TRANSPORT
ADVERTISING PRIVATE INVESTMENT PETER KRUSE TRANSPORT
EXPERIMENTS GOVERNMENT NEXTPRACTICE INTERACTION
COLLECTIVE INTUITION NEAR FIELD
COMMUNICATION
MOBILE INTERNET
09

11. ExEcutivE
Guy Laurence, ceO Of VOdafOne uK,
KnOws a thinG Or twO abOut infOrmatiOn
OVerLOad. feeLinG stressed Out by statistics?
he has the cure fOr data impOtence.
wOrds by Simon RogeRS
pOrtraits by SpenceR muRphy
a few seconds after midnight on new year’s have a relationship with numbers, i have
eve, 2010. numbers start flying across a a relationship with customers,” says Guy
bank of screens in a large darkened room. Laurence, the 49-year-old who took over
London: 1,170,000; Glasgow: 115,000; as ceO of Vodafone uK in 2009. “i focus
manchester: 75,000; Leeds: 70,000… the totally on human responses to things;
numbers scroll on as the black-clad tech if you smack someone in the face, what
team look for signs that the system might would they do? if you kiss them on the
not be able to cope. cheek, what would they do?”
it could be a scene from futurist cult Laurence took over a company widely
film Minority Report, but the room is seen as stagnating in third place in the
actually a real one – at Vodafone’s state- uK’s competitive mobile market. today,
of-the-art network Operations centre Vodafone is viewed as a powerful success
in newbury, berkshire – and the figures story, with more than 19 million customers
represent the number of texts sent in across the country. when you’ve got that
the first 30 minutes of 2011. this is pure many customers, the big question is:
data in action. how do you industrialise something that
the man responsible for this scene is works for each one? “you can always kiss
obsessed with data – because of what the one customer on the cheek – but how
numbers can help him do, rather than with do you kiss 19 million customers on the
the ones and zeros themselves. “i don’t cheek?” he asks.
iNSiGHt 11

12. Laurence carries only a few numbers in feel a network,” he says, “but at the nOc information that companies once believed
his head: his company’s ‘net promoter score’ we absolutely live and breathe data in real was commercially confidential is now
(which tells him exactly how well Vodafone time.” managing 90 million calls and 80 routinely published – or leaked to websites
is really doing with its customers) and million texts on an average day is a tricky like wikileaks.
the competition’s market revenue share. business; a typical 24 hours sees Vodafone Laurence says he is ‘relaxed’ about
“when you run a £5 billion company you carry 45 terabytes of data, equivalent to increased demands for transparency.
can’t avoid numbers – but if you start with 11.25 million music tracks. “companies will become more transparent
numbers you’ll never innovate,” he says. Vodafone’s approach is to use data to as a necessity – customers now see that
“you have to take the action you think will manage demand before things happen. the as an essential part of the trust equation.”
work and the numbers follow.” company’s plans for the royal wedding in the bigger impact may come from the
even when he’s about to fly off with his april include adding extra temporary base technology that is making access to
family to live rough in the masai mara for stations to cope with heavy network usage. this data a mobile phenomenon. “this
a week, for Laurence, it’s all about focus. he when take that tickets went on sale just industry is de-linking access to data from
left school with one grade e a-level, having before christmas and the band’s official physical location,” he says. in a world where
fluffed his exams by setting up a candle- website crashed due to demand, Vodafone shoppers can check out the competition’s
making business after he realised that was prepared for the surge of fans texting prices while they’re in your store, keeping
“making money was much more fun”. it’s one another to check whether they’d got control of data is no longer an option.
a pattern repeated when he quit his degree their tickets. but for now, managing the information
to work for independent music publisher One of the walls at Vodafone’s out there is the priority. access to
chrysalis. eventually he became head of operations centre shows connections to information was once the big problem, says
distribution and marketing outside america 217 countries to monitor how much traffic Laurence. then it quickly flipped, through
at mGm. his job was to work out which is coming in from abroad in real time. technology, to data overload. “we were
markets a product would work in. the data shows that different cultures are brought up to believe more data was good,
he will tell you, for instance, that a ‘asymmetric’, says Laurence. “you can see and that’s no longer true,” he argues.
baseball movie will only work outside the polish mothers are texting their sons over Laurence refuses to read reports from
us if it’s shown in Japan. he worked on the here to see if they’re okay, but the sons are his product managers with more than five
bond films, including GoldenEye, selling not texting back,” he says. “but the french of the vital key performance indicators on
them to reluctant cinema owners who hadn’t are almost symmetrical – so as the texts go them. “the amount of data is obscene. the
screened anything from the franchise in six out, the replies come back in. as situations managers that are going to be successful
years. “the last film had been [classified as] unfold in real time in egypt or bahrain we are going to be the ones who are prepared
a 15. therefore anyone under 21 had never can see how that affects the network, too.” to take a knife to the amount of data…
seen a bond film in a cinema.” so mGm even a bill being sent by email triggers Otherwise, it’s like a virus.
made it cool – selling the film to teenagers, a whole chain of data events: customer gets “where did it all go wrong?” he
dads and mums simultaneously with bill, most open it; some have a query and call continues. “my kids weren’t taught that
targeted campaigns that fuelled interest. the centre. forty thousand bills go out an huge volumes of data were great. was
as Laurence explains, it’s all about making hour but if the centre gets hit with too many there a university professor who stood up
the data work. “i triangulate an objective queries, billings are dialled down to reduce and said, ‘if you have over 100 indicators
assessment of the new technologies coming calls in. it’s about fighting the data overload. you’re a good boy’? because whoever that
in, a subjective assessment of the public’s and we are truly overloaded by data. professor is, we need to shoot him.”
reaction to new propositions, and then i take a Governments around the world are Laurence has just won a wager with his
punt.” this ‘triangulation’ is the combination unleashing a tsunami of numbers on their team over the number of Vodafone Vip
of hardheaded data analysis, coupled with citizens. that has huge implications for members who bought tickets for concerts.
business nous. data is something that big businesses with lucrative government his team, based on the data, bet on one
informs his hunches – but never rules them. contracts. in the uK, the government number. their boss, based on what he
setting up the £5 million network recently published every item of public knows about people, thought it would be
Operations centre (nOc) in newbury spending over £25,000. search the database higher. data plus hunch equals a powerful
was the first expression of this approach at for ‘Vodafone’ and you get 2,448 individual combination. Or, as Laurence concludes:
Vodafone. “it’s very difficult to touch and transactions covering millions of pounds. “data on its own is impotent.”
12

13. 13

14. Guy Laurence
u n V i ta L s tat i s t i c s

15. What is your earliest memory? What do you Want Who is your inspiration?
that you can’t have?
pouring corn flakes into a bowl at the anita roddick from the body shop. rip.
age of four without asking permission a teleporter.
from my mum.
What Was your greatest mistake?
When did you last feel ashamed?
What’s your signature dish? not taking enough risks.
i tried to do my 15-year-old daughter’s
Given my cooking abilities, signing the chemistry homework and failed.
bill in a restaurant. What gets you out
of bed in the morning?
What are you searching for?
if you had to stay in one an alarm clock and the fear of being in
place, Where Would it be? my ipod. One of the kids has borrowed it. the house when the kids wake up if they
went to bed late the night before.
the colombe d’Or restaurant in saint-
paul de Vence, france. When Were you last surprised?
Which piece of music
Last week. a customer sent me some alters your state of mind?
When Was your last cookies to say thank you for showing them
moment of clarity? around our network Operations centre. in a positive sense – Lady Gaga at 7am
if everything goes wrong in my current on the m4. in a negative sense – wagner
the last time i spent time with a career i might become a tour guide. at any time on any motorway.
customer. fortunately, that’s quite often.
What is your greatest What do you Want to
What does success extravagance? be When you’re older?
look like to you?
Quality wine. i don’t play golf, go to the about 10kg lighter.
spending an hour on it, and not being pub, stay out late with the lads or go to
able to improve it. casinos, so the deal with my wife is that
she doesn’t ask how much the wine costs. tell us a joke...
What is your biggest failure? i like simplicity in life. i heard this
What do you see in the mirror? urban myth a long time ago and it
i agreed with myself that i would get stayed with me. when nasa first
fit as soon as things calmed down at pierce brosnan on a good day, started sending astronauts into space,
work. we had the conversation in 1982 Jeremy clarkson on a normal day they quickly discovered that ballpoint
and i’m no further forward. and Quasimodo on a bad day. pens wouldn’t work in zero gravity. to
combat the problem, nasa scientists
spent a decade and $12 billion developing
When did you last let yourself go? hoW much is enough? a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside
down, underwater, on any surface and at
creatively, whenever i can; financially, i don’t know yet, but i promise to tell temperatures ranging from below freezing
never; mischievously, every day. you when/if it happens. to 300°c. the russians used a pencil
15

16. A
DATA
STATE
oF MIND
interview by Ulrike reinhard
portrait by erika SVenSSOn
i n fo g r a p H i c s b y M O r i t z S t e fa n e r
data superstar
H a n s r os l i n g
explains wHy
a fact- bas e d
wo r l dv i e w w i l l
t r a n s fo r m
yo u r b us i n es s .
16

17. 17

18. 80
70
60
50
40
30
Average life expectancy after birth
LIFE EXPECTANCY
20
10
01 02 03 04 05 06 07
FERTILITY RATE
Fig. 1 Average number of children per woman
18

19. How did a public health official from understand what is happening in terms of
sweden become the world’s most famous potential new markets in the middle east,
statistician, a television personality and a africa and so on, they are out. so the bigger
regular guest speaker at corporate events? and more international the organisation,
as an undergraduate, Hans rosling the more fact-based the ceo’s worldview
studied statistics and medicine at uppsala is likely to be. the problem is that they are
university, sweden. He earned a phd, spent slow in getting their organisation to follow.
two decades studying in africa and, as
chairman of the Karolinska international tq why is this?
research and training committee, has
collaborated with universities in asia, rOSling companies as a whole are
africa, the middle east and latin america. stuck in the rut of an old mindset. they
throughout his career, rosling has think in outworn categories and follow
maintained a fact-based worldview – an habits and assumptions that are not, or
understanding of how global health trends only rarely, based on fact. they need to
act as a signifier for economic development break out of that to understand the world
based on hard data. today, he argues, the way it really is. for instance, in terms
countries and corporations alike need to of education levels, we no longer live
adopt that same data-driven understanding in a world that is divided into the west
of the world if they are to make sense of and the rest; our world today stretches
the changes we are experiencing in this from canada to yemen with all the other
new century, and the opportunities and countries somewhere in between. there’s
challenges that lie ahead.
alongside his son ola and daughter-in-
“My basic idea is a broad spectrum of levels and we have
to realise that asia, brazil, latin america
law anna, rosling created the gapminder that the world and, to some extent, the middle east are
foundation to facilitate that process.
using trendalyzer (a bespoke software
has changed catching up with the countries we used to
call the ‘west’.
tool later sold to google), the roslings so Much, what but even when people act within a
have reinterpreted static health data as people need isn’t fact-based worldview, they are used to
moving, interactive graphics. the results talking with sterile figures. they are
are revelatory, bringing a new awareness More data but used to standing on a podium, clicking
of the social and economic history of a new Mindset.” through slide shows in powerpoint rather
global health, and demonstrating that than interacting with their presentation.
creative applications of data can yield the problem is that companies have
extraordinary results. a strict separation between their it
department, where datasets are produced,
think qUarterly you’ve long been and the design department, so hardly any
a proponent of hard data and statistics. presenters are proficient in both. yet this
in what sense do ceos need to change is what we need. getting people used to
their mindset in order to develop a more talking with animated data is, to my mind,
fact-based view of the world? a literacy project.
hanS rOSling my basic idea is that the tq what kind of data should we be
world has changed so much, what people looking at to gain this new mindset?
need isn’t more data but a new mindset.
they need a new storage system that can rOSling what’s important today is not
handle this new information. but what just financial data but child mortality
i have found over the years is that the rates, the number of children per women,
ceos of the biggest companies are education levels, etc. in the world today, it’s
actually those that already have the most not money that drags people into modern
fact-based worldview, more so than in times, it’s people that drag money into
media, academia or politics. those ceos modern times. i can demonstrate human
that haven’t grasped the reality of the world resources successes in asia through health
have already failed in business. if they don’t 1980 2009 being improved, family size decreasing
19

20. 1800
and then education levels increasing. rOSling we found that the most
that makes sense: when more children important thing when presenting our data
survive, parents accept that there is [on graphs such as the Health and wealth
less need for multiple births, and they of nations, which tracks 200 years of global
can afford to put their children through life expectancy versus income per person
school. so pfizer have moved their in a four-and-a-half-minute video] was not
research and development of drugs to to put time on the x-axis. we made time
asia, where there are brilliant young move, and when you see the movement,
people who are amazing at developing the data becomes like a football match
drugs. it’s realising this kind of change – you can see who is catching up or, for
that’s important. instance, that a country like bangladesh
that’s why ceos ask me to talk to is reducing its child mortality rate faster
their staff – so they can learn to look at than sweden ever did [see fig. 2].
these interactive videos and gain this bangladesh is still at a low level
new mindset. then they’ll realise what economically, but at the same time there
has changed. in my first ted talk in 2006, is a huge internal market with cheap
i made al gore get up on stage. i showed distribution and only one language.
that in vietnam today they have the same so if you are a company with ambition,
average family size as the us, and the you have to be in bangladesh. it’s one of
same health as the us in 1980 [see fig. 1], the 10 biggest countries in the world, but
and their economy is growing faster than people’s mindset leads them to believe
the us. al gore told me, “i didn’t have that bangladesh is a hopeless place
the slightest idea.” the problem isn’t that in need of aid. what is so strong with
specialised companies lack the data they animation is that it provides that mindset
need, it’s that they don’t go and look for it, shift in market segmentation. we can
they don’t understand how to handle it. see where there are highly developed
countries with a good economy and
tq How has gapminder managed to a healthy and well-educated staff.
present data in such a way that you’re able
to change people’s preconceptions? tq are there any points of resistance
20

21. fig. 2
CHILd moRTALITY
0–5-year-olds dying per 1,000 born
Bangladesh | Sweden
250
200
150
100
50
0
2010
to this process of shifting people’s a clear division of labour between those
mindsets? who provide the datasets – like the world
bank, the world Health organisation
rOSling at the moment, i’m or companies themselves – those who
quarrelling with sweden’s minister of provide new technologies to access or
foreign affairs. He says that the west process them, like google or microsoft,
has to make sure its lead over the rest of the and those who ‘play’ with them and give
world doesn’t erode. this is a completely
wrong attitude. western europe and
“the probleM data meaning. it’s like a great concert:
you need a mozart or a chopin to write
other high-income countries have to isn’t that wonderful music, then you need the
integrate themselves into the world in the
same way big companies are doing. they
specialised instruments and finally the musicians.
meteorologists are one group that has
have to look at the advantages, resources coMpanies lack a ready grasp of this idea. they receive
and markets that exist in different places the data they a huge amount of data, which they
around the world. process in a highly sophisticated way,
and some organisations aren’t willing
need, it’s that translating it into stunning graphics –
to share their data, even though it would they don’t go and there they are on prime-time tv
be a win-win situation for everybody and
we would do much better in tackling the
and look for presenting the weather while we all watch.
this is exactly what we strive to emulate.
problems we need to tackle. last april, it, they don’t we want our economic indicators, our
the world bank caved in and finally understand how social indicators and our environmental
embraced an open data policy, but the indicators to be communicated on
oecd uses tax money to compile data to handle it.” prime-time television with the same level
and then sells it in a monopolistic way. of efficiency.
the chinese statistical bureau provides this is what we’re trying to do at the
data more easily than the oecd. the gapminder foundation – and this is what
richest countries in the world don’t have ceos want their employees to do – play
the vision to change. with data and give it meaning
i call this the ‘database hugging
disorder’. to heal it, we have to instil gAPmINdER.oRg
21

22. 22

23. Words by Sarah Bracking
I L L U s T r AT I o N s b y M at t tay l o r
CAN yoU do bUsINess WhILe doINg good IN
The deveLopINg WorLd? The ANsWer Is yes, bUT
oNLy If yoU foCUs oN The dATA ThAT mATTers.
Investing in the developing world is opportunities like this are not only
back at the top of the business agenda. manifold and potentially lucrative; when
And it’s about time, too. emerging carried out responsibly they can also act
markets, including the burgeoning as a catalyst for transformation. socially
opportunities presented by some African responsible investments won’t just lead
states, are fuelling an upsurge in interest to private gain – they have the potential
from the private sector. for example, to shape the world.
in 2009, Angola registered a 109 per but the power to effect change is a
cent rise in foreign direct investment double-edged sword; poor investments,
(fdI) as a percentage of gross fixed irresponsibly made, will have just as wide
capital formation. As a whole in 2010, an impact – only this time it won’t be for
developing and transition economies the greater good. When the ripples of
attracted half of global fdI inflows, investment seep beyond private borders,
‘leading the fdI recovery’ according questions of risk and the potential for loss
to the United Nations Conference on or gain become a global affair. Lives, not
Trade and development (UNCTAd). just bottom lines, are potentially at stake.
23

24. he historical challenge of investing in
poorer parts of the globe was magnified
by widespread decolonisation in the
1960s and ’70s. In Africa, expropriation
of foreign-owned enterprises forced
businesses to rethink whether it was
necessary to own rather than maintain
secure access to local assets. over the
next 40 years, companies lengthened
their supply and subcontracting chains,
and generated new types of relationships,
from parallel investing with publicly
funded development finance Institutions
(dfIs), to using state-backed export
credits, and developing other risk-sharing
relationships such as leasing, forward-
contracting and investment agreements.
however, the instinct that having a stake
in a derivative income stream from an asset
in the developing world is safer than an
ownership stake in the actual fixed asset had
to be reassessed after the global financial
crash of 2007-8, since so much derivative
stock was proved worthless or degraded.
At the same time, such arms length contact
with developing countries has often proved
of little use to the countries themselves,
sometimes provoking a backlash against
offshore equity, as happened in buenos
Aires, which banned all investments from
shell companies held in tax havens in 2005.
24

25. so how does one go about making sound amongst those riddled with risk? The most to be a good predictor of transparency,
and socially responsible investments in common indices for investment risk are which in turn is positively related to
this new era? by focusing on the facts. the International Country risk guide from economic growth. The most recent World
The poorest countries often present the New york-based prs group; ratings bank governance Indicators measure
the most challenges to today’s global from the economist Intelligence Unit, the quality of political institutions across
investor, not least because future risk and from eurasia group; alongside the six categories: voice and accountability,
is highly context-specific. Assessing more traditional standard & poor’s, dun political stability and absence of violence,
diverse and fluctuating contexts is & bradstreet and payments data from the government effectiveness, regulatory
generating ever-greater complexities of bank of International settlements. quality, rule of law and control of corruption.
data, and bringing the worlds of business These indices focus on two aspects of
and academia – particularly political political risk: regime (in)stability and the (un)
scientists and international development certainty of the macro policy environment. Development Data
experts – closer together. digesting that but these indicators struggle to keep pace Making the numbers work for you.
data, however, is another story entirely. with nebulous political identities and regime
business data, economic, social characteristics. The predicted ‘top 10 most Almost every aspect of a country’s
and governance indices, corporate dangerous countries’ at the beginning of a socioeconomic reality is documented
social responsibility measures and decade are rarely the same 10 that actually by statistics. but filtering through the
development impact data are combining collapse by its end. evidence of political abundance of information and retrieving
into effective predictive instruments. stability on its own is not enough: while a reliable dataset that answers questions
but hazards remain, not least in the level authoritarian regimes can prove safe places about the world we live in is not always as
of mathematical complexity generated. for investment for a time, sometimes a long straightforward as it seems.
Is the world really this complicated, or is one, a lack of democracy means that change, over 175 governments send data to
the data industry out of control, feigning when it does come, tends to be eruptive and the Imf for the International financial
precise forecasting but exhibiting no unpredictable. businesses can quite literally statistics and to the World bank for World
greater reliability than gut instinct? lose everything. development Indicators, which in turn
The only way through this statistical so how can predictive datasets are used by investment risk analysts. The
blizzard is to look at the figures, one like these be improved? for starters, most well-known development indices,
dataset at a time. institutional quality must be taken into the human development Index and
account, since political risk ‘events’ (i.e. the data collected for the purposes of
mass protest or regime change) are better checking progress towards the millennium
political Risk understood by knowing how political development goals (mdgs) provide
Can it be measured? institutions are likely to react. some can an overview of wealth and wellbeing in
manage rapid change, while others falter. developing countries. It may not be obvious
There was a brief period in the 1950s when Institutional quality measures, which are at first how we can use this knowledge to
the boundaries of the Cold War defined proving reliable, will mark the future world, make better, more effective and ethically
a space that Western governments were and it is in the contemporary design of sound business choices, but even a
prepared to protect for business. but that these that academics and business people perfunctory analysis shines some light. for
world is gone. In its place is a complex are meeting. for example, the freedom example, secondary school enrolments from
political geography where the apparent house index, Transparency International’s World development Indicators are a good
stability of a country can change quickly, Corruption perceptions Index (CpI), or sign of a more productive workforce, of
as has been the case in Tunisia or egypt. the quite specific polity Iv series all depict better governance and the probability in turn
Conversely, countries widely considered institutional quality, and provide context of a stable macroeconomic environment.
dangerous, such as the eastern Congo, and depth to investment and risk planning. These early development indicators
Angola, myanmar/burma, or sudan, The CpI is good for general context, but have recently been complemented by more
are proving profitable for business – as relies on perception, which can lag behind complex impact assessment tools – usually
Chinese and Indian corporations have actual political change. freedom house has in response to demands from the public or
discovered, leaving the rest of the world only a handful of classifications: free, partly donors concerned about a project’s wider
trailing behind. free and unfree. but the polity Iv gives impact. Concern with carbon emissions, or
faced with this unpredictable landscape, accurate measures of the legal constraints assessment of an investment’s impact on
how does one spot a sound investment on a country’s executive, which turns out culture, heritage or happiness might seem
25

26. irrelevant to the businessperson of the past, und entwicklungsgesellschaft (deg) and can prove corporate social responsibility
but future leaders will not be able to evade the emerging markets private equity and defend against the risk of reputational
demands for quantifiable, evidence-based Association (empeA) framework are damage affecting the customer base.
statements. In this way, data can help us both exemplary systems that measure the ‘Clean’ goods are in demand, and whether
achieve more transparent and accountable impact of a dfI investment. it’s diamonds vetted by the Kimberley
working practices. Adopting measures like these aren’t just process or cocoa trading structures by
but how do we value the quality of air, the about ‘being good’. According to advocates The fairtrade foundation, ethically sound
protection of a heritage site, the treatment of corporate social responsibility, meeting production practices can all be corroborated
of workers? An overall assessment of a the ‘triple bottom line’ of financial, social by datasets. Likewise, guaranteeing an
company’s ‘social worth’ is some time away, and environmental returns – or ‘people, associational distance from child labour,
but those taking the bridgehead approach planet, profit’ – grows the business in the environmental harm and land grabbing
will be thinking about this now. efforts long term. Customers are increasingly is just as imperative, though they do require a
in ‘greenwash’ will no longer satisfy the demanding that their money be put to good much more sophisticated dataset.
informed global public of the future. use; that the businesses they choose to buy All this information already exists.
so how can intangible externalities that from promote democracy, social welfare and It can help you do business and ‘be good’.
affect social welfare or the environment development on the ground – or, at the very Learning how to filter the noise and focus
be measured? An active relationship with least, don’t reverse patterns of progress. on the facts that matter to you is the first
a development finance Institution is a for example, widespread hIv awareness, step. Then an even bigger issue comes into
good place to start. such as that sponsored by Aureos Capital play: how do you make sense of it, digest it
The dfIs are required to produce (with investment from CdC group and and absorb its meaning into the work that
matrices of developmental impact, which Norfund) can reduce hIv prevalence, you do?
means they demand more social value which can be measured by the World bank’s The answer is simple: you need to
from their private sector co-investors. for development Indicators. successes like this visualise what the data is trying to say.
example, the Corporate-policy project make customers happy. The four organisations below are doing
rating (gpr) of the deutsche Investitions- better use of development indicators just that
GapminDeR ‘make data more actionable through design’. Watch to publish a constantly updated map
gapminder.org With a focus on international development, that charts relative poverty and wellbeing
they help government agencies and the across the world. This easy-to-use tool has
If you think global statistics are boring, think private sector embrace the open data helped everyone from the UN to Dell realise
again. Gapminder’s bubbly Trendalyzer tool revolution by making complex datasets easy that evidence-based decision-making can
breathes life into the trends shaping our world. to understand. Quirky toolkits like MapBox be a pleasure, not a chore.
By reimagining obscure patterns of social and Managing News turn tough data into
change as graphs that move organically easy-to-read visualisations or maps, and
over time, Gapminder is smashing through have been used by everyone from Google to HealtHmap
the mythical glass ceiling that hangs over the World Bank. Whether they’re processing healthmap.org
the ‘developing world’ and inspiring more election results in Afghanistan or monitoring
people to absorb the facts. Everything from relief efforts in Haiti, simplicity is key. If the campaign for open data needs a
wealth and health to education and climate poster child, then HealthMap is it. This
is rigorously analysed, then effortlessly online mapping tool aggregates information
interpreted as dynamic graphs that represent statplanet from disparate open data sources to offer a
life in every corner of the globe. sacmeq.org/statplanet comprehensive view of the state of global
health. This year sees the launch of Predict, a
Free to download, StatPlanet is a browser- tool that will help the public track outbreaks
Development seeD based application that creates customised of animal diseases that might affect humans.
developmentseed.org maps, graphs and visualisations from all Pooling information from sources such as the
manner of interlocking datasets. It’s turned World Health Organisation, Google News
The straight-talking brains at Development Transparency International’s befuddling and the Wildlife Disease Information Node,
Seed have created an innovative range of Corruption Perceptions Index into an HealthMap proves that freely available
tools to combat information overload and interactive gateway, and allowed Social information can be a progressive social force.
26

27. 27

28. THE
KNOWLEDGE
sIMoN rogErs PICks
THE 10 BEsT PlACEs To sEE
‘sExY’ DATA oNlINE.
Flowing
Data
flowingdata.com
OWNI
owni.fr
If you’re looking for time series economic
data – and a nifty way of creating a
sophisticated, embeddable graphic – this
is the place to come. Timetric updates
thousands of datasets every day and
provides an easy-to-use interface that
makes it very simple to create your own.
Timetric
timetric.com
If someone, somewhere, is producing
Information a great data visualisation or analysis,
Nathan Yau’s blog will find it. Yau has
is Beautiful an unerring ability to unearth the best
data visualisations on the web. He also
produces graphics, and is a regular poster
informationisbeautiful.net
to the Guardian Datastore Flickr group.
Canadian Patrick Cain is
a ‘journalist who makes
maps for the web’. Based
in Toronto, Cain takes
the city’s data and maps
Patrick Cain’s it – producing guides to
everything from crime
Data journalist and design whizz
David McCandless’ Information is
Beautiful blog is a treasure-trove of cool
Map Blog figures to World War I
deaths and single parent
families. A fan of open
patrickcain.ca
visualisations and mash-ups. His work data, Cain has a record
has also been published in a bestselling of demanding data from
book of the same name, and we’ve got the city’s authorities
a bunch of copies to give away. Email using Freedom of
thinkquarterly@google.com to get one. Information laws.
28

29. Although a lot of the best data work is This brand new site
done in English, Paris-based oWNI is combines an innovative
a collective of geeks and data freaks data search function with
DataMarket
producing visualisations and apps that bright and imaginative
visualisations. It also
manage to be imaginative and innovative.
allows you to create your
The collective’s work on Wikileaks – own, download them
datamarket.com
which allowed people to interrogate the and put them in your
data – won a 2010 online Journalism PowerPoint presentation
Award for general Excellence. or company report.
LinkedIn
linkedin.com
Guardian Datablog
guardian.co.uk/data
It might be better known for its impact on the world of
social media, but linkedIn also has a hugely innovative
approach to data. linkedIn has made collating and using
data a priority, with lead data scientists completely
integrated into the commercial operation.
The Guardian and its Datablog publishes raw data behind the news
London
every day, and encourages readers to visualise and work with it. The
site publishes its data using google spreadsheets and google Fusion Datastore
Tables, and allows readers to search thousands of government datasets data.london.gov.uk
around the world.
The big brains at
Infochimps have come
up with an innovative
way to find, share and
sell formatted data. Both governments around the globe are opening up their
Infochimps
users and the site’s own data, from data.gov in the Us, via Australia, the Uk, New
contributors collate and Zealand and France. one of the best and most useful is
scrape datasets so that
the london Datastore. Created by the greater london
they’re easily accessible. infochimps.com/datasets
With big plans for Authority, it publishes thousands of datasets with the
expansion and lots of emphasis on useful, live data, such as transport and
intellegegent developers economic numbers. Developers are using those figures
onboard, it’s definitely to create interesting apps, such as Matthew somerville’s
one to watch. live train map for the london Underground
29

30. 30

31. Lunch With haL
Hal Varian, CHief eConomist
at GooGle, sinks His teetH into
data obesity and How to treat it.
ot 10 minutes into our lunch at Google HQ in Mountain
View, California, a groupie sidles up. He’s got a guest
nametag and an outstretched hand. He wants to say
hello to Hal Varian, Google’s Chief Economist. Varian,
employee number 441, author of Information Rules,
Emeritus Professor at the University of California,
Berkeley (where he was founding dean of the School of
Information), and a former columnist for The New York
Times is, it turns out, quite a star in the statistics world.
The young man quotes a line from the elder circa 2009. That’s
when Varian famously pronounced that “the sexy job in the next
10 years will be statisticians.” He added: “I’m not kidding.”
Of course, sexy, like funny, is subjective (does a T-shirt that
reads ‘Statisticians do it with models’ make you laugh?). But
Varian’s prediction is backed up by trends. In 2010, the human
race created 800 exabytes of information, from tweets and
Facebook updates to PowerPoint presentations and photographs.
That’s 800 billion gigabytes, or the amount of data you can fit
on 75 billion 16-gig iPads. To put that into context, between the
dawn of civilisation and 2003, we only created five exabytes;
now we’re creating that amount every two days. By 2020, that
figure is predicted to sit at 53 zettabytes (53 trillion gigabytes) –
an increase of 50 times.
Multiply data and you multiply the need for people to make
sense of it. That’s where Varian and the statisticians, analysts and
econometricians who work with him come in.
wo r ds by H o l ly F i n n
i l l U s t r at i o n s b y a d r i a n j o H n s o n
31

32. Data is like food, says Varian. “We used year, while looking to buy a pepper shaker real-time database. And that’s powerful.”
to be calorie poor and now the problem online, he hit upon the idea of a Google Government can, in turn, aggregate
is obesity. We used to be data poor, now Price Index (GPI). It uses Google’s web information, giving businesses insight into
the problem is data obesity.” Google’s shopping database to create a daily their industry and the economy as a whole.
strength, he continues, was to recognise measure of inflation. It could, one day, The trick, in both directions, is
back in 2001 that “we would be handling be a complement – or competitor – to the getting high-quality data. But neither
massive amounts of data, and would official, yet less frequent, Consumer Price governments nor businesses guarantee
need to develop tools for that.” Another Index (CPI). it. Last year, Canada’s conservative
foresight was to hire an economist. There’s a systemic gap, Varian points cabinet voted for a weakened census.
Eric Schmidt hired Varian to ‘have a look out, between the low-frequency data By removing the requirement for citizens
at the auction’, the bidding system for employed by governments and the high- to fill out a ‘long form’ (considered
ads that soon became Google’s lifeblood. intrusive), it reduces its own access to
Other companies were built up around vast amounts of quality information.
auctions – eBay, Yahoo! – but they didn’t “The head of the census bureau resigned
hire experts until much later. Now over it,” says Varian. “And there’s some
Yahoo!, Microsoft, Apple and Intel all discussion of similar things here [that]
have chief economists. the US is considering.”
For businesses that are gorging on a Companies, too, should be concerned
surfeit of information, Varian says the fix “if yoU’re tHe about the quality of the decision-
is clear. It’s the same for data as food: “You
need to focus on quality. You’ll be better
CHief anytHinG, influencing data they are getting, says
Varian. He recalls Lou Gerstner, before
off with a small but carefully structured yoU always HaVe joining IBM, doing reconnaissance.
sample rather than a large sloppy sample,” a problem witH Externally, “he asked people how the
he says. More locally sourced fine dining, company was doing, and everyone gave it
then, less all-you-can-eat buffet. people tellinG a C. Then, when he got to the company,
Varian looks trim enough, dressed yoU wHat yoU he asked the same question: ‘How’re
in a blue shirt and plain khaki trousers,
with brown shoes and a navy sleeveless
want to Hear. we doing?’ And the answer was: ‘All
our customers give us an A!’ So he said,
sweater – the uniform of a mind with more it’s Hard to Get ‘Where’s that data from?’ ‘Oh, we asked
important things to think about than CritiCism.” our sales people to collect it.’
fashion. He takes a similarly practical “If you’re the chief anything, you
approach to his food. always have a problem with people
This on-campus café serves a telling you what you want to hear,”
smorgasbord of exotic treats – including, adds Varian. “It’s hard to get criticism.”
today, Beautifully Braised Short Ribs, So Varian courts it. His team conducts
Local Oysters (Kumamoto, Point Reyes random surveys constantly. The
and Marin Bay), Artichoke Poached in Ad Happiness Survey, for instance,
Court Bouillon, and Espresso Chiffon frequency data of business. Government continually picks advertisers at random
Cake. But Varian arrives at the long is working on it, though. “It’s now using and asks them about their experience. In
white refectory table having quickly supermarket scanner data to predict order to remove some selection bias, he’s
heaped his plate with iceberg and inflation rates,” notes Varian. How did it even hired someone to be (at least some
shredded carrot doused in Thousand predict them before? “They used to send of the time) ‘Chief Nag’ to get results out
Island dressing. He’s also got a hastily people out with notebooks to write it down.” of resistant responders.
plonked-together chicken salad More communication between Google also conducted 5,000 search
sandwich on a white roll with one slice government and business clearly benefits experiments last year, which led to
of tomato. You can take the boy out of both, says Varian. Business can provide 400 search improvements (and the
Wooster, Ohio… more real-time data. “If you look at most same again for ads experiments). Such
For Varian, everything – including his businesses now, pretty much everyone – insistent experimentation is an academic
culinary choices – can relate to data. Last think of UPS, FedEx, MasterCard – has a means to a capitalist end. Or, as Varian
32

33. puts it: “Google is like a university, but
with money.” It’s a cheering thought – and
possibly why, in a recent talk at the 150th
anniversary of MIT, Varian was notably
more optimistic than his peers.
“Economics is really on a roll in
Silicon Valley,” he says. “The good
news is that standard techniques
from economics work very well on
big problems. It’s a little discouraging
working as an academic economist
because the problems that you work on
are so hard. They’re much, much easier
in industry.”
He means all industry, not just
Fortune 500 companies. Varian, a
man who quotes feminist playwright
Edna St. Vincent Millay as easily as
MIT founder William Barton Rogers,
points to the proliferation of what he
calls ‘micro-multinationals’ – small
companies, mostly connected to
universities, working around the globe
and around the clock. “The smallest
company now has access to computing
and infrastructure only the biggest tech
company had 15 years ago. So it’s a much
more fertile environment for start-ups.
We’re seeing all these little companies.
And guess what, some of these little
companies become big companies.”
Information Rules, Varian’s seminal
book with Carl Shapiro, re-popularised
the phrase ‘network effects’ – the value of
a product or service increasing as more
people use it. His next book will focus
on new ideas, including ‘co-opetition’,
the notion of capitalist symbiosis
(Google and news organisations both
championing content, for instance).
Varian is always thinking about what’s
next. Asked to define his job, he says: “To
answer the questions that management
will ask next month.”
So, what is next for the economy?
Is it gaining steam? “Yes,” says Varian
emphatically. And how does he know?
“I inspect the entrails,” he says. Food
is data, and data a kind of food
33

34. FROM
STICKS
TO
CLOUDS

35. A vISUAL
hISTORy
OF DATA
CApTURe
ThROUgh
The AgeS
Why not open me up and check me out?

36. Tally sTicks
20,000-10,000 BC
The Ishango bone, a
tally stick from the Upper
Palaeolithic era, represents
the beginnings of our
understanding of
mathematics and data.
sundials
3,500 BC
Egyptian obelisks show
humans manipulating light
and shadows to measure data
about the time of day.
The book on
PaPyrus numbers and
3,000 BC
comPuTaTion
200 BC
Papyrus, manufactured in
Dating back to the Han Dynasty
Egypt, revolutionises the
of ancient China, this mathematical
way data and language
treatise brings together interest rate
can be recorded.
calculations with government
statutes and law reports.
census
abacus 800-500 BC
2,700 BC
In Israel, a primitive
Ancient civilisations develop census is undertaken
a counting system that enables and recorded in the
complex data manipulation. Hebrew Bible. Social
data capture is born.

37. The domesday sTock
book exchanges
1086 AD 1200s AD
William the Conqueror The earliest stock exchanges
conducts a survey in emerge in Bruges and Italy in
England and Wales recording the thirteenth century. Data about
land and livestock. It takes trades is written down by scribes
over a year to complete. and transported by couriers.
gregorian
calendar
1582 AD
navigaTional
comPass Pope Gregory XIII launches
the Gregorian calendar to
1000s AD
eradicate an 11-minute discrepancy
Chinese scientists develop in the Julian calendar, which is
instruments that attract causing the official date of equinox
a needle north, creating to creep further away from the
a navigational tool only actual cosmological event.
recently superseded by GPS.
ThermomeTer
1600s AD
Cornelius Drebbel, Robert Fludd,
Galileo Galilei and Santorio Santorio
make progress on a device to
measure temperature in real time.
TelescoPe analyTical
1600s AD engine
1837 AD
Scientists in the Netherlands
develop a refracting telescope Charles Babbage develops
that Galileo improves in subsequent the Analytical Engine,
years. The instrument observes and modern computation
remote objects in real time. is born.

38. wireless
Telegraph
1897 AD
Guglielmo Marconi founds
The Wireless Telegraph
& Signal Company,
pioneering communication
between coastal radio
stations and ships at sea.
DaTa
VisualisaTion Telemobiloscope
1857 AD 1904 AD
During the Crimean War, Christian Hülsmeyer uses
Florence Nightingale records radio waves to detect distant
the mortality rates of British metallic objects, inventing the
soldiers in field hospitals. The first radar application.
information is published in
a series of striking graphics,
persuading the government
to improve conditions.
Telegraph gps
1837 AD 1957 AD
The first commercial Sputnik – the first artificial satellite –
telegraph is introduced at Euston is launched by the Soviet Union
Station. It soon crosses the oceans on October 4, 1957, as a global
to every continent but Antarctica, positioning system for precise
making instant global weapon delivery and paves the way
communication possible for GPS as we know it today.
for the first time.

39. google
earTh engine
2010 AD
The Google Earth Engine – a cloud computing
platform – processes real-time satellite imagery
and other Earth observation data. Initial
applications of the platform include mapping the
forests of Mexico, identifying water in the Congo
basin, and detecting deforestation in the Amazon.
clusTer
personal exploraTory
2008 AD
compuTer
1970s AD
Cluster Exploratory (CluE)
is a National Science
Hewlett-Packard introduces
Foundation-funded program
programmable computers that
that analyses massive amounts
fit on top of a desk. The
of data to search for patterns.
personal computer allows
economical collection and
management of data.
supermarkeT meTrics
1995 AD
Tesco’s Clubcard scheme revolutionises
consumer metrics by allowing supermarkets
to target offers and optimise their stocks.
raDio-frequency hubble space
iDenTificaTion Telescope
1980s AD 1993 AD
Radio-frequency identification The Hubble Space Telescope
technology (RFID) takes hold captures images of outer space
in transportation and business. in real time, allowing scientists
Real-time monitoring systems to determine the rate of
are developed to process the expansion of the universe.
new data.

40. FULLY VIRAL

41. Online videO advertising is allOwing
brands tO speak tO audiences On
a glObal scale. big ideas will reap
rewards, prOvided yOu get tO knOw
yOur audience by putting data first.
wOrds by Ulrike reinhard
very minute, 35 hours of footage is
uploaded to youtube globally. with
over two billion views a day, it’s become
the epicentre of a video advertising
boom. last year saw brands embracing
innovative online video campaigns like
never before. tipp-ex’s ‘shoot the bear’
and french connection’s ‘youtique’ led
the way, generating millions of views
and acres of publicity.
these success stories are telling
marketers that big numbers are within
reach. but how do you go about creating
a campaign capable of capturing a
mass audience? is it through deep
data analysis, or could the secret be
something less tangible?
as the following case studies with tipp-ex and
french connection show, real-time data analysis
during and after the process, combined with an
unexpected and interactive narrative, are the
foundations on which a campaign can be built.

42. hoot the bear was tipp-ex’s web clicking on the video and increase viewing
debut. the briefing given to numbers,” he continues, “we first had
buzzman, the paris-based creative to analyse code and implement certain
agency behind the campaign, technical solutions within youtube’s
TIPP-EX defined its goals as: ‘to raise short-
term brand awareness and to be
on top of customers’ shopping lists. to
guidelines. this is where the ‘nsfw’ in the
video title comes in – it stands for ‘not safe
for work’. we checked all the most viewed
Shoot the Bear go europe-wide and tell the story of how videos on youtube. we analysed people’s
the product is used.’ surprisingly, going behaviour, and when we examined all this
digital wasn’t part of it, but after mining data we were pretty sure that we didn’t
data on youtube’s most popular videos, want a branded video or our own tipp-
Client BIC buzzman came up with a viral ad titled ex video channel. it became pretty clear
Agency Buzzman NSFW. A hunter shoots a bear! that a simple video on the main youtube
Search ‘NSFW. A hunter shoots a bear!’ in the 30-second clip, a hunter in a platform was the right thing to do. a video
forest is approached by a bear. users are with the look and feel of a video shot on
asked whether the hunter should shoot a mobile phone by you or me. the data
the bear, and their decision leads to a taught us that we need to surprise the
second video which sees the hunter reach viewer – and that’s what we did at the end
out of the player to grab a tipp-ex pocket when the hunter starts freaking out. this
Mouse from what appears to be a static ad is where interactivity kicks in. people love
and erase the word ‘shoots’ from the title. being involved – being part of the story.”
viewers are then invited to write whatever with a total layout of around €900,000
they want in the blanked-out space and (including production, advertising
watch as the hunter does exactly what and agency fees), shoot the bear was a
they’ve written. europe-wide campaign unbeatable in cost
“we produced 42 scenes,” reveals efficiency. it went viral from day one: with
thomas granger, Managing director at one tweet per second in the first 10 hours,
buzzman, “with one search query for each and one million views after 36 hours. to
scene. based on a survey, we found that date, the video has had almost 500,000
for each query – let’s say ‘plays with’ as an shares on facebook, been posted on more
example – there were 40-60 words used by than 1,300 blogs and more than 43 million
respondents to express the notion of ‘play’. people have watched it.
so whenever somebody types in one of it’s a winner in business terms, too. a
these expressions, the query leads them survey by tipp-ex showed that the ‘buying
straight to the specific scene. real-time attention’ of potential customers – which
data showed us which scenes were hot and positions the brand as the first product
which were not. that’s a great source for they are likely to buy – increased by 100
identifying what youtube viewers want per cent, while sale volumes were up by 30
and telling us how to react. per cent compared to the same timeframe
“to maximise the chance of people the year before.
36

43. nlike tipp-ex, fcuk is an old hand engage when the video set-up reflects
at e-commerce. their goal was to their own lifestyle, rather than that of the
grow business by reaching out catwalk jet-set.
beyond their website and using “so our decisions weren’t by any
FrEnch connEcTIon new communication channels
in an innovative way. not only
would they reach customers in the us
means based on blind judgments. data
mining gave us clear indicators, which
really helped in creating the right
YouTique and uk, but they’d also develop insights atmosphere in the videos. knowing the
about the way video is used on the web. data, we were fairly sure that people
poke, fcuk’s east london agency, would buy.”
created youtique – a youtube boutique “since we made the experience
Client French Connection – as a place where youtube and ourselves, we were able to take measure-
Agency Poke commerce intersect. it makes clever use ments and now we can optimise for
Search ‘French Connection, YouTique’ of youtube’s pop-up buttons by letting the upcoming season,” adds Jennifer
viewers buy what they see with just a roebuck, director of e-commerce at
few clicks. though the pop-ups tradition- fcuk. “the data tells us exactly the
ally only link to other youtube videos, right length for our new videos, the
fcuk was the first brand in the uk to best spots for calls for action, the best
make an arrangement with youtube starting points, the best way to place
to let them use what youtube calls content and label it to achieve number
‘annotations’, which enable viewers to one search results. these are just a few of
leave the platform and go off to other the lessons the datasets are teaching us.
destinations on the web – in this case to now we’re ready to improve.”
the fcuk website. like the tipp-ex campaign, youtique
“youtube data showed us that people is a winner in business terms, too. it was
were actively searching and browsing among the three most popular youtube
for fashion tips and tutorials, diy channels in the uk for a month. a 100
instructions that showed them how to per cent increase in channel views
dress sexily for a date, what to wear on a meant a significant increase in brand
business trip or what’s the latest fashion awareness while the click-through rates
must-have,” says emma pueyo, creative were among the highest youtube has
director at poke. “and the data also ever seen – up to five or six per cent – and
showed that people are most likely to online sales soared.
data-based web advertising was the big breakthrough of 2010, utilising the power of
social media to transform the relationship between consumers and advertisers. tipp-ex
and french connection have pioneered a new model. the next move is yours
37

44. AD VALUE
Tony Fagan, DirecTor oF research aT google, answers
The six quanT quesTions every cMo shoulD be asking
in orDer To MaxiMise Their reTurn on search aDverTising.
w o r D s b y T o n y Fa g a n
i l l u s T r aT i o n s b y a D a M H ay E S
Welcome to the age of experiments. whether something caused something
At Google, we believe that online else. In marketing, we call them ‘A/B
advertising is a more measurable medium tests’. The idea is simple: test A versus B
than television, radio and print. How can to see which one works better. That gives
we be sure? Because we look at the stats. us the ‘incremental’ improvement – the
Business is about trial and error, but difference between doing something and
with statistics comes a method to make not doing it.
the process work better. With the data We can use these experiments to
generated from search, click-through and address six commonly asked questions
conversion rates, we’re able to address and about running search ad campaigns on
improve ad campaigns on the fly. Google. The answers will give you an
The process is called ‘test-and-learn’ insight into how to make online advertising
and it’s the gold standard for calculating work efficiently for your organisation.
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45. Should I manage my Spend through how much Should I
bIddIng or a daIly budget cap? Spend to maxImISe profIt?
some advertisers choose to manage their spend using auction theory tells us to increase a bid until the
the daily budget cap feature in adwords. This is fine ‘marginal’ cost-per-click equals the value-per-click.
unless you’re hitting your cap, because that’s when we The marginal cost-per-click is different than the
remove you from all future auctions for that day. and average cost-per-click, and is often higher. so if you’re
this is potentially expensive. managing your spend to an average cost-per-click,
if you were to lower your bids so you just meet your you’re paying too much – and making less profit. we
budget cap at the end of each day, you would potentially recently released a few tools to help you with this,
spend the same amount but get more clicks. how? including google bid simulator, which estimates the
when you lower your bid, you lower your position and traffic you’ll get for a keyword at a different bid.
the cost of clicks. This saves money throughout the we ran a second experiment with the same
day, allowing you to participate in more auctions. electronics manufacturer to determine its optimal
we conducted an a/b experiment on behalf of an spend, testing different spend levels by changing
electronics manufacturer to analyse how budget caps bids and adding/subtracting keywords. we found that
affected their adwords performance. by removing the reducing bids by half resulted in 37 per cent lower
budget cap, this advertiser was able to spend 170 per spend but 20 per cent more clicks. using the results
cent more with 170 per cent more clicks at the same data, we were able to draw the ‘marginal cost-per-click
cost-per-click. Pretty good, right? curve’, which plots the marginal cost-per-click against
spend. by selecting the point on the curve where the
marginal cost-per-click equals your value-per-click,
you have your optimal spend.
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