Book | While Reading 'Data Branding'

A book I happened to find at the library, "Data Branding." While reading, I spotted some eye-opening passages and want to jot down a few.

First impression
Ah — data is now being branded too?! Honestly, I was a bit like that. And the typefaces I saw on the first quick scroll-through weren't really to my taste.

But at some point I halted my page-flipping — and suddenly, time for reflection... Yes, once again I got a chance to reflect on the preconceptions and judgment habits that come from age, experience, and career.

There are many passages that left an impression, but being careful about spoilers, let me carefully pick two.

One was about attitude — the approach.

From a research paradigm to an investigation paradigm. To solve real-world problems with data, what you need is not "Research" but "Investigation." Instead of the existing view that looks at data through the frame of research, we must look at all the data in the world anew from the viewpoint of detectives and investigators — then we can solve real problems. Data analysis must become an investigation, not research. Research focuses on understanding the situation and describing the status quo, whereas investigation focuses on solving problems — like catching a criminal.

- Data Branding, by Kim Tae-won, p79

A great keyword. Before focusing on the technical side — data analysis, literacy, migration — I think this is something to think through. I strongly agree with the need for the shift and the keyword, but I feel a slight temperature gap on the interpretation.

My personal reading is as follows.

- Personal reading -

Research (focused on problem solving):
understanding the situation, analyzing causes and impacts, exploring improvement based on similar cases
what they do (what — observing outcome-based actions)
what they talk (present inconveniences and their awareness state)

Investigation (focused on problem definition):
analysis and storytelling (profiling) of stakeholders' recognition and interpretation of the situation
what they think (needs)
what they feel (mental model)

And the other one was directly related to practice.

Our general thinking about advertising and marketing effects has long been a one-way structure in which consumers receive the message, passing through staged hierarchical effects — the so-called marketing funnel. The logic goes: message → awareness → interest → preference → purchase. But this one-way message-centric marketing success formula has already broken down. The existing linear funnel — based on awareness, interest, preference, and purchase — can no longer explain today's digital-era consumer in even the slightest way. With the digital paradigm shift, consumers go through unimaginably complex choice processes.

Purchase behavior in the digital era is unpredictably multi-step and still changing wildly this very moment. It can now only be explained not as a linear hierarchy but as a complex, interconnected "network structure." Consumers who can easily find the information they want no longer listen to marketers. They can search anytime, anywhere, and buy what they want. After buying, they share their experiences in various ways. In short, purchasing in the digital era is a kind of journey that occurs in the infinite repetition of searching and sharing — a Consumer Decision Journey.

- Data Branding, by Kim Tae-won, p53

The author says that in the digital era (not "digital marketing"), marketing activity must go beyond linear funnel analysis and shift toward a consumer decision journey based on network structures.

I resonate with this. It felt like it cleanly organized something I'd been unable to articulate in my head. In the past, when thinking about how to extend funnel usage, I mostly thought about splitting funnels per user type rather than an "everyone (average)" funnel, but as the author says, the fact that a user's needs are met through a process involving many stakeholders and decisions should not be overlooked.

Data Branding http://aladin.kr/p/kyaz6

For reference, Aladin rating 9.1