If analytics ruined the game of baseball, as a new book by sports reporter Scott Miller, Skipper: Why Baseball Managers Matter and Always Will, tried to demonstrate, could analytics also ruin today’s data-driven TV media?
In baseball, the analytic era started in 2003, epitomized by Michael Lewis’ book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game (which went on to become a 2011 movie starring Brad Pitt). That was the year that Ivy League graduates took over the game with decisions made using forecasting models. Miller’s book quotes former baseball managers as cursing “this analytics crap.” Other managers, however, used analytics as a way to keep their jobs: “When your playbook is scripted [by data]” commented a manager quoted in the book, ” it’s going to be harder for you to get fired if you stay with the script [even if you lose the game].”
This comment was taken straight from an AI search: “While television networks have long relied on metrics like Gross Rating Points to assess campaign exposure, the true integration of data analytics into the modern TV business can be considered a relatively recent phenomenon, significantly influenced by advancements in data collection and analysis technologies, particularly with the rise of streaming platforms.
Entertainment companies now rely on objective data to drive corporate decisions regarding content creation, distribution, marketing, and audience engagement, optimizing strategies for attracting and retaining viewers.”
Naturally, data and e-commerce companies are now big businesses, as Meta’s AI, called “Veo,” can attest. It will create an entire ad, explain how to target it, and show the version of the ad according to viewers’ geolocations. The same ad for a car, for example, might depict someone driving through a blizzard when it will be viewed by someone in a snowy locale, and show someone else cruising down an urban street if the ad is aimed at city-dwellers.
However, it is unknown if data-driven AI will replace the creativity of, for example, Apple Macintosh’s memorable 1984 commercial, that same year’s unforgettable Volkswagen The Force (Das Auto) commercial, or the Wendy’s Soviet Fashion Show ad from 1985. Plus, AI cannot understand, for instance, sarcasm, a cultural element and a human characteristic that also takes into consideration context and subtle hints.
The analytical logic for data-driven TV ads is there, but the analytical creativity is someplace else.
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