How to use empathy in Data Gathering?

How to use empathy in data gathering?

Nowadays, people want more than carrying out transactions or consuming information and material goods. The radical changes in our society, caused by different agents such as COVID-19 and the economic crisis, have shown that people derive a sense of identity from each brand or business in which they choose to participate.

In the world of advertising and marketing, data collection has become a key point for any strategy. Meanwhile, consumers are increasingly wary of entities that seek for their personal information. This drawback, coupled with the expansion of regulations like GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act), and the removal of third-party cookies, have made obtaining data more difficult than ever.

To be successful, organizations must go beyond transactional data points and, instead, consider the hopes, motivations, and fears of people, the different layers that make them who they are, to define their purpose, create difference, and generate trust.

For organizations to achieve empathetic and trustworthy relationships with people, the role of data must be reimagined. There is a different way to build that trust: one where organizations do not extract from consumers, but instead create value for people. This is called data empathy. Data empathy begins with understanding who someone is at the emotional level. A company can label a person as a “segment”; nevertheless, to connect, it is necessary to recognize that, above all, they are people, and as people, they make decisions that reflect values, and seek higher purposes.

How is data empathy implemented?

The advice is to begin with different questions that seek to understand people: what do they like to think and talk about? How do they think and behave? Who and how do they trust? How do they decide to spend their money and time? What drives their decisions? A multidisciplinary approach is then chosen to answer those questions. The question of why people do what they do cannot be answered with yesterday's data, tools, and transactional processes. At Brandy we believe that trust is earned, not bought. The path to trust depends on the ability to create and apply data where empathy is the driving force behind the communications that move and inspire people.

The ability to blend, collate, and combine data, custom research, and quantitative methodologies ensures that depth and breadth are achieved. Reaching people effectively means examining how and where they prefer to interact, using predictions to connect the right explanation with the right person. In this way, unique content and experiences can be created to build lasting and trusting relationships, establishing a positive exchange of data value that gives us the right to ask and share more.

Rafael Molina

Media & BI Specialist