Are The Feed Ads of Wechat Moments Based on Big Data on Earth?

Written by Joey Wang

On Jan 25^th, 2015, Wechat-the most popular Chinese instant message and social network service application, started to feed ads in Wechat Moments. Coca-Cola, BMW China, and Vivo, the Chinese smartphone maker were the first advertisers to conduct the tested advertising. Interestingly, it seemed that the sponsored ads followed some mechanisms as different users had loaded different ads, which dramatically caused a hot topic among Wechat users. All they wanted to know is why did I receive this specific ad instead of others?

Then nearly every guess pointed to big data, a kind of analytic way used to unlock hidden patterns, market trends, customer preferences and other potential business values, etc. And according to IBM data scientists, big data could be broken into four dimensions: Volume, Velocity, Variety and Veracity, which means that big data encompasses information from multiple internal and external sources.

As after analyzing by some passionate users, a conclusion was generated that the rich ones with annual income over 1 million RMB received BMW ads, those who are not iPhone users but able to afford Xiaomi got Vivo ads and those who even cannot afford Xiaomi or teenagers got Coca-Cola ads. Sounds like a joke, but worth deeply thinking, as it did show a clue that the notifications based on users’ demographics and behavior information detected from their chatting history or moment posts such as hobbies, habits, preferences, etc. From this perspective, the feature of Variety can be approved. Also, on the other hand, it is known that with the help of big data analytics, advertisers will have more opportunities to reach different consumers with personalized and provide more precise advertising. All these messages could be tailored to users interests based on the information gained from aspects mentioned above. What’s more, in the third quarter of last year, Wechat has already owns 468 million monthly active users who keep creating large scale information everyday, which ensures the volume and velocity of big data. Therefore, we have the reason to believe that it is big data that gives Wechat or its advertisers a hand to engage with their target or potential customers.

However, when taking the effect of big data into consideration, the fact that big data helps provide precise information to target customers is inevitable. Hence, precision becomes one of the standards of big data. Here we defined precision into two dimensions: precise channel and precise content. Then reflecting on those Wechat ads, which were not sent in a one-to-one private chat way but spreading with the help of Wechat moments’ socialization, they failed to reach the standard of precise channel in a way. Meanwhile, when focusing on the content of these feed ads, all of them are brand advertising instead of specific product promotion, which are actually aiming to raise brand recognition. Therefore, it is undeniable that those ads did not cover precise content, either. From this perspective, did big data real matter? I think it is worth doubting.

Overall, it seems that although the feed ads of Wechat moments have the ability of big data as they did reflect the nature of big data, the applying of big data analytics still needs to be more precise.

KPI And KPD, Which One Is More Valuable?

Written by Joey Wang

When evaluating if an organization or company has meet its business goals or whether it is a successful engaged activity, many of them would like to set a series of metrics to measure performance, among which the most frequently used type is Key Performance Indicator (KPI) as a performance measurement to measure the progress. Generally speaking, key performance indicators are numbers that reflect the outcome, which deliver messages and provide feedback about companies’ business, but they don’t really tell how these occurred and why. In other words, indicators cannot be managed.

However, there is another type of performance metric called key performance driver (KPD), which is aligned to measure different aspects of the business progress that will directly influence results and outcomes. Or we can directly regard KPD as a metric to produce performance, which also means that you can easily figure out who made the largest contribution towards the success. Unlike KPI, KPD tells you why and gives you instructions about what to do next.

Thus we can understand the differences between KPI and KPD: KPD produces performance and KPI measures performance; KPI delivers feedback but KPD provides results; KPI are not manageable while KPD could be well managed. In hat case, here comes a question: which one is on earth more valuable?

Imagine if indicators inform you that your company fails to meet the goal, the first thing came to your mind is to identify issues, find out the reason and fix it, which means that you have to check the monitored KPDs, determine the best actions to correct the problems and improve the way your key drivers perform. Also, those presenting KPIs only represent your past performance and does not guarantee the future results, while when you look at KPDs, you will have a clear version about what to do next step and which part should be put more efforts on to optimize the performance and drive the possibility of success. In a word, KPDs capture information about what is exactly driving and stimulating a business operation and management. They proactively help companies identify processes that are in danger, and processes that are in alignment with companies’ best practices, which are the essential roles that KPIs cannot play. On the contrary, when proper KPDs set, the monitored KPIs will straightly tell you whether it works and reach the objectives or not.

Hence we could draw a conclusion about the relevance between KPI and KPD: KPIs are the numbers that are produced as an effort of the KPDs. In other words, KPDs are the key components in delivering the KPI’s. Without KPDs, we cannot get KPIs.

Therefore, it seems that KPDs are more valuable than KPIs, especially when a company wants to build and lead a practice that consistently performs at the upper levels of its potential, the pursuit for decisive and actionable business metrics should not begin and end with KPIs alone, but have to pay more attention on KPDs. However, looking at the corporates in China, most of them still stay at the stage that is preoccupied with performance indicators but fail to focus on and manage performance drivers, which indeed needs to be adjusted immediately. In a word, if you want to improve the performance and growth of you corporate, focus more on key performance drivers PLEASE!