Interview with a Data Miner

Unless you've been living in a cave, or more likely, working in one, you know that the biggest thing in advertising is the advent of Ad Tech. That is, the application of Big Data, and Little Data, to solve today's marketing challenges and fuel the engine of capitalism.

Where does all that precious data come from? We met up with one proud miner, who humbly requested anonymity, "I'm just a small cog in the machine."

How long have you been a Data Miner?

Data Mining is my blood. I come from a long line of Data Miners. Mama was a Data Miner and worked the old Univac machines. And my pops, and his pops, they's all miners too. In fact my Daddy was part of the crew that hit paydirt back in 1965.

What was that?

They discovered that mothers had busy lives. And had their hands full tending to the house, raising babies, cleaning the home, running errands and pursuing their careers. That little nugget gave birth to a whole mess of great data-driven advertising. Some say that was the "Golden Age of Data Mining."

And now you have algorithms.

Them algorithms is like gold. They done led us to a motherlode of rich veins of previously undetected data. And we can hardly keep up. Me and the boys, and some lady folk too, are working 24 hours a day, round the clock, just to keep up with all that good juicy data.

Where does it all go?

It goes to all them fancy offices in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles. That's where those smart alec college gradumecates, sit at those luxurious long tables, eat free bagels and popcorn, refine the raw data and turn it into powerful, award-winning advertising.

Can you give us an example?

You picked the right Data Miner to interview. See these other fellas, they just mine the data and send it off to those big shots making $22.50/hour. I happen to be a student of the game and follow this precious data as it makes its way down the pipeline.

Really?

Remember that great banner ad for Larry's Linament Oil targeted to a 54 year old divorced woman in Tulsa whose thighs were chafing?

Uh...no.

How about that e-mail blast from Fred's Flanges, announcing their new VPC Global 3/4 inch Malleable Threaded Floor Flange?

I missed that one.

That was a classic. Surely you and your staff are aware of the Tik Tok video for Gary Vaynerchuk's Branded Mayonnaise. That came from data we unearthed rightchere. That video and all it's shining data driven banality was repurposed a thousand times into all kinds of micro-messaging on Instagram, Twitter, and Linkedin.

Can't say I've seen that.

Do you want to?

No.