Quant Marketers and Black Boxes Replacing Mad Men??

Now that the miners in Chile are free, and the sludge in Hungary is abating, the top news topics of the week have been social media and politics (argh...that last phrase needs to be updated...how about calling it "bobblics" (as in "bobble head")?

Since our theme for several of the past postings has focused on social media apps from the perspective of MadMen marketers, Bloomberg LP's Ryan Flinn wins the coverage award of the week in connection with the story he filed today: Marketers Mine Facebook, Twitter Posts to Duck Brand Snafus

Ryan Flinn's story: profiling a contest sponsored by a consumer product company soliciting quant-centric marketing companies that would mine social network messages to determine the answer to what is seemingly a simple question: "Why do men wear stuble?"...The hoped-for prize: a slug of new contracts from the consumer product company for the quant company that demonstrates the greatest skill at delivering top analysis of granular messages purged from social media sites...

I thought I knew the answer to the $64 million question right away. As plain as the nose on my face..or our face. Let's see...men have stubles because the recession is forcing men to cut back on shaving cream so they don't have to cut their facial hair..?? mmmm...men wear stuble because women say it feels good on their...?? whatever.  mmm...men wear stuble because its something they can scratch in public, without making  a scene.. ?? I'm thinking...nah!...that's not why men wear stuble!

But before shouting out my answer to my computer screen, I wanted to get scientific back-up, so I reached out to (8) gals in my network..living in different parts of the country and ranging in age from 18-55; pretty much the same profile/demographic of the social media applications that were interrogated by a two-ton computer system.

The answer I came up with was [not surprisingly] the same answer provided by the winner of the above-noted contest.

The moral to the story? For brand marketers reading this snippet: it could have merely cost you 2 hours of my time (a fraction of the cost of the study's undertaking, and a fraction of the cost of future 'market research' that you'll be investing in) to get the same answer that Hal the Computer can deliver.

Don't get me wrong; I'm a traditional madman, but I also love granular data and black boxes; their utility is confirming what intuitive experts have concluded. Spend wisely, not lavishly.