The power of smart data curation in tracking brand performance

By Hannah Tough, Senior Research Director & Quantitative Research Expert.

Big data, data integration, machine learning, real-time analytics, AI – big topics in the pharmaceutical world. Pharmaceutical giants – Sanofi (1) and Novo Nordisk (2), to name a few – are embracing the power of AI to bring together massive data sets, accelerating drug development and transforming their clinical operations. As AI continues to evolve, it promises a world where true data integration happens seamlessly at the touch of a button.

Exciting times! But how can AI help me, a quantitative market researcher, and my colleagues, accelerate our work – specifically in one of our clients’ biggest insight investments – the ATU? Awareness, Tracking and Usage studies are the backbone of brand performance monitoring.

We can’t wait for AI to catch up

The holy grail of AI-enhanced ATUs is the ability to take diverse data sets – our primary market research, and other sources of insight owned by us or our clients – and merge them together into a cohesive, and insightful, whole – giving us the tools to provide our clients with a true 360-degree picture of their brand performance. We are not there yet, but waiting for AI to catch up isn’t an option. We must act now.

AI is amazing at text. Less good at numbers. Thinking back to the pharmaceutical companies above – I’m sure their integrated AI powered programmes were years in the making – a complex web of compliance, data security and ethics I can’t even begin to comprehend! As researchers, our problem is smaller scale, but still comparable. The challenges of data cleaning, and unifying diverse sets into useable formats exist before we can even think about what to point our AI models towards.

We can argue that the goal of ‘true’ data integration is at a respondent level – integrating insights from individuals from multiple sources. A possibility once we can tackle the challenge of informed consent – we need to make sure doctors are clear on what we’re doing, and that they’re OK with this!

Smart data curation

In the future, AI will play a pivotal role in true data integration, automating much of the data cleaning and processing work required, allowing us as researchers to do what we do best. But we can’t afford to sit and wait. The best market research teams are already bridging the gap – using technology, smart curation and strategic thinking to make sure data isn’t just collected but understood.

In a world awash with information, smart data curation is the difference between noise and knowledge. The challenge – and exciting opportunity – is in making data work for us today, rather than waiting for AI to do it tomorrow.

As I see it, the smartest approach right now is curation over automation. We’re not dealing with fully integrated systems that can merge large data sets, but we can stitch together insights through smart curation.

In traditional ATU research, we typically want to know what drives brand uptake. This is not a simple question – it is multifaceted. However, smart data curation isn’t just about adding more and more data points, it’s about integrating what we have in a meaningful way.

Rather than drowning in data, finding context is king. At the heart of it, market research today is about finding the core truths. This is exactly what we’re doing with our ATU studies now. By cross-referencing secondary data and syndicated reports, we are identifying complementary and contradictory narratives and layering external data over our core research insights – creating a more rounded, contextual view of the market. Our ATUs move out of silos, enriched with context, providing sharper, more actionable stories for our clients and their brands.

In a rapidly evolving landscape, the key to success lies in leveraging smart data curation today while preparing for the seamless AI-driven integration of tomorrow.

1. https://www.sanofi.com/en/media-room/press-releases/2023/2023-06-13-12-00-00-2687072

2. https://www.novonordisk.com/news-and-media/news-and-ir-materials/news-details.html?id=915085