Remember when Big Data was a problem?
Though its origins are somewhat murky, the phrase “Big Data” gained mainstream popularity as shorthand for a set of problems unique to extracting value from massive, complex data sets. Once an ecosystem of tools, research and best practices emerged to manage and make sense of this kind of data, the phrase gradually flipped from negative to positive in connotation.
What’s happening right now in the visual content space is eerily similar to what happened with Big Data. Marketers are facing two—seemingly contradictory—problems.
Problem 1: Not enough visual content.
When marketers decided they wanted to be data-driven, a lot of them found that the data they had access to came up short. It didn’t tell them what they wanted to know, there wasn’t enough of it, or it was fragmented, locked away, or formatted in too many ways to reconcile easily. They wanted more good data, and they still do.
Something similar is happening with visual content. Consumer demand for visual content is growing far faster than a typical brand’s capacity to meet it on its own (or with the help of agencies). At Olapic, we call this the “visual content canyon.”
