Resumo

Humans have always attempted to “datafy” the world and modern Information Technology (IT) has facilitated this process (Strong, 2015; Davis, 2012). Big data has the potential to transform our ability to look at consumer and marketing practices over time; while, traditional marketing, generally deals with transversal studies which are not easily replicable. By examining strategies and dynamics of how business evolve, big data represents new means to leverage profit, productivity, competitiveness, and market knowledge (George, Hass & Pentland, 2014).

Starting from the following research problem: what are the methodological advances that big data could offer to marketing research? The aim of this theoretical essay is to discuss what methodological advances big data could offer to marketing research by comparing the big data approach to traditional marketing research methods.

It is discussed the main attributes of traditional marketing research, such as its scope; applications; main sources of data collection and most used techniques (both qualitative and quantitative). As for big data, it is presented the implications of this research field on marketing research, with highlights to its main advantages and contributions as well as some restrictions and limitations.

While traditional research deals mainly with structured data and analysis, big data is more iterative and exploratory, dealing with semi-structured and unstructured datasets which therefore requires more complex analyzes. The applications vary from traditional surveys (primary source on traditional marketing research) to brand sentiment perception (prescriptive structural model). We are rapidly entering a “postdigital” world, simply because almost all marketing activities a firm might consider now can have some kind of digital aspect (Lamberton & Stephen, 2016).

By aiming at understanding what methodological advances big data could offer to marketing research, the present theoretical essay attempted to compare the big data approach to traditional research methods in marketing. While traditional marketing research can gather data from both primary and secondary sources, Hall (2018) states that big data emphasizes extracting predictive information about customers and sales from large databases (relying solely on secondary sources: mainly internet and social media). It is likely that big data will become an integrative part of marketing research.

Strong, C. (2015). Humanizing big data: Marketing at the meeting of data, social science and consumer insight. London (England): Kogan Page Publishers. George, G., Haas, M. R., & Pentland, A. (2014). Big Data and Management. Academy of Management Journal, 57(2), 321–326. Hall, S. (2018). Examples of Data Mining Vs. Traditional Marketing Research. Small Business - Chron.com. McDowall, J. S. (2018). The Future of Marketing: An Investigation into Disruption and Innovation. PhD Thesis Doctor of Philosophy in Marketing University of Waikato. New Zealand. 311p.