Creativity – The winning edge within the troika in business today

­Anirban Chaudhuri, Associate Professor – Marketing, Great Lakes institute of Management, Gurgaon, writes about how digitisation of the business eco-systems is working all the time to capture the end-user data, process it and work hard to deliver insights. Many businesses today are reinforcing their systems to harness the duopoly of data and tech.

Business today is clearly driven by the precision of data about end-users than ever before. The digital footprint is inevitable to build the business blueprint for growth. The other power tool aiding this data to get generated and nurtured is technology. Digitisation of business eco-systems are working all the time to capture the end-user data, process it and work hard to deliver insights. Many businesses today are reinforcing their systems to harness the duopoly of data and tech.

But is this double engine business express enough to be ahead of the curve in market? The tools that technology offers and the data that get generated from people – are they not available to all in a market that is truly democratized by availability of tech talent?

Here is an interesting story from recent past that would help us realise the third power tool in the play. A global quick service restaurant has been very active in its social media presence. It is witty and always tracking moments where it can reach out to its prospects with interventions that will translate not just in engagement, but also prod them to be leads for business by courtesy of the data driven tech platforms.

Last March, on International Women’s Day, the burger leader put its business marketing machine to come up with yet another witty tweet that read – “Women belong in the kitchen” and an advertisement that soon followed. Was the one-line tweet a voice from medieval patriarchy being let loose or was it a sarcastic millennial making a statement? The tweet backfired as people at large failed to see the pun that followed in the advertisement “a bit too late”! Naturally, a public apology followed and the tweet was deleted. The company failed to make good use of the third power tool – the creativity.

They wanted to speak about the absence of women as chefs – the leaders across celebrated kitchens in star restaurants, hotels and the likes but landed up looking out-of-date.

With receding attention span and multitude of distraction, the role of creativity to act not only as a glue, but also to convey the most efficient message that helps build the right connect. Creativity for business is becoming even more essential than what people are being able to fathom as they can hardly take their heads off the data deluge around them in business. But the change is going to be more palpable with the ensuing shift in the digital environment. The march towards moving away from third party cookies will force businesses to have their own data that can only be generated by having meaningful interaction with the prospects and the users alike. The meaningfulness comes from the creative expressions across the touchpoints of end-user interfaces.

Adding a well thought and finely crafted creative strategy brings the winning edge for business and the troika of data-technology-creativity develops the sweet-spot for the end-user to stick on and the business to thrive.