Sam Coates

What does social intelligence mean to you?

It’s ultimately about people – how we interact, how we communicate, our relationships, and what motivates us. Social Intelligence provides us with a window into the lives and context of consumers far beyond our own personal frame of reference; it gives us the mechanisms to understand human traits and cultural trends, and can in turn more effectively inform the way in which we approach our consumers, our strategy, and our communications.

I think for some the phrase ‘Social Intelligence’ (or at least ‘social listening’) can conjure up images of copy-pasted Twitter quotes cobbled into a PowerPoint deck. The reality is that technology has facilitated a huge progress leap in recent years, whether that be audience profiling through analysis of social preferences and activity, pattern identification and clustering using graph network methods, or insights into visual trends gained through AI-powered image analysis.

The huge breadth of application of these kinds of social data perhaps goes without saying, but for me ‘Social Intelligence’ also reaches beyond the remit of social listening tools alone. I believe that effective social intelligence approaches need to consider and incorporate as diverse a set of social and public data sources as possible – it is about understanding people and their behaviours, and we can do that not only through current and upcoming social channels, but also complementary channels and datasets that show interest and intent such as search, press, web analytics, consumer panels, and behavioural science and primary research methodologies. Social listening is a powerful tool in its own right, but a multi-disciplinary approach to social intelligence can facilitate even greater strategic insight.

What motivates you in your work? What makes you want to keep working in social intelligence?

I love the inherent excitement and sense of discovery that social intelligence allows. We never know what we’re going to find, and we’re often developing new and untested methodologies in flight. This combination creates a feeling of ongoing change – it doesn’t allow for boredom, and provides a relentless opportunity for innovation. I’ve worked with NGOs, charities, FMCGs, luxury brands, global consultancies, industry bodies, global sporting organisations and beyond, so I’m never short of variety, and the challenges we help to solve are rarely the same, meaning there is a constant feeling of freshness to the work we do.

The nature of the work itself also appeals. Working with different teams and capabilities across the global Ogilvy network means that I get the opportunity to answer interesting, diverse – and often impactful – strategic questions. Working closely with clients allows us to follow the process through from research to results, which in turn delivers great professional satisfaction.

In both my personal and professional life I feel most rewarded when I am learning, developing, or overcoming a challenge. The rapidly changing social landscape, and the fantastic team that surrounds me at Ogilvy, has allowed me to continue to grow and develop over the course of my career, delivering a breadth of exposure and experience that I’ve rarely seen in other roles.

Finally, I said at the top of this Q&A that social intelligence is all about people – and so is the job. The people that gravitate to our field are frequently curious, insightful, interesting (and interested), and working with, developing, and learning from my team over the past few years has been a genuinely rewarding experience.

What do you think makes you successful in your work?

I’m not a great fan of trumpet-blowing and prefer to let the work speak for itself, but if I have to pull out a few attributes then let’s start with attitude and outlook; specifically a combination of curiosity, positivity, & excitement in innovation. I don’t think you can be a good researcher if you can’t find interest in the work you’re doing, and I certainly do my best work when I’m personally invested in it.

On the flip side I can sometimes be stubborn and am perhaps a little overly honest (and no doubt an occasional pain in the backside as a result), but with that comes a pride and persistence that I believe has helped me to continually push the quality of the work and insights that we deliver. I don’t believe this makes me unpleasant to work with – quite the opposite I hope, though you may need to ask my team for a more honest answer on that front! Instead I hope that this focus (and ensuing enthusiasm!) can be infectious, and I like to think that an approachable and honest nature is one of the personal factors that has contributed to our growth in activity and influence across the Ogilvy network.

Finally, one of the key traits I learned from a past life in consulting is to take a holistic view of the challenges that face us. I spoke earlier about the potential that can be unlocked through effective collaboration, by going outside of established siloes, and I believe that one of the strengths in my career has been the ability to identify and cultivate those opportunities.

What are the key skills that have contributed to your success?

If the previous question focused perhaps more on the personal traits that have helped me in my career, perhaps this response should focus more on the specifics; the tangible and intangible skills that I’ve picked up over the years.

In terms of the former, it seems perhaps a little trite to mention, but attention to detail is so fundamental in our walk of life. It may be social data… but it is still data. Accuracy is paramount, and so is the way in which we present our work, whether that be to peers or to clients. Small oversights and errors have a disproportionate impact, and we need to pay equal attention to the macro and micro considerations in our work if we are to effectively build trust, and ultimately convince those around us to heed what the data is telling us.

I am not a particularly technical person, but I do believe that a desire to understand the technology that underpins our work is important. In the same way that you may not need to be a trained mechanic to understand what’s happening when your car goes on the fritz, it definitely helps to understand a little of what’s going on under the hood. If you are interested enough to understand how the underlying technology works then you can in turn understand its limitations – and therefore adapt and overcome them, and maximise potential.

While these considerations – accuracy, accountability, understanding – are all important, they alone won’t suffice. We trade in insight, not numbers, so a strategic eye, an ability to interpret what the data is saying to us, is what I believe we need to elevate our output beyond a dashboard full of figures. We are data people; but we also need to be strategists and creative thinkers.

What makes social data special compared to other data sources?

A few considerations immediately stand out.

• Scale. We can understand the opinions and motivations of hundreds of thousands of people, track them across multiple years, and compare global and local opinions across the majority of world markets at a glance. We can analyse social conversations, interpersonal relationships, long form content, and visual imagery; furthermore rapidly growing capabilities in AI, video, and audio analysis – alongside a proliferation of social channels – looks set to open yet more doors in the coming years.
• Diversity. Social penetration continues to reach new highs, providing access to diverse cultural tribes and a breadth of multi-generational audiences. We can provide insights covering a macro global view, right down to niche local communities.
• Transparency. The data we use is public by design. We’re looking at real opinions, voiced in the real world. It provides a clear view into unprompted and unedited consumer opinion. Ultimately it is the world’s largest consumer panel, and we can tap directly into it.
• Pace. We can understand real time trends, capture and flag events as they happen, and pre-emptively plan for reactive opportunities or crises. We can take huge swathes of data and rapidly analyse them using cutting edge AI / machine learning and NLP techniques. We can clean, cut, segment, and categorize in flight, allowing us to focus our time on deriving insight, not managing cumbersome processes.

What does being a social intelligence pioneer mean in the context of your work?

In an ever-changing industry full of pioneers it can be hard to stand out, but for me there are a few key considerations when it comes to social intelligence.

We can’t be complacent. Finding a solution that works isn’t enough – technology and the market evolves, and to stay at the top of it so must we. That means taking a holistic view, not being afraid of change, and embracing new capabilities and skills into our teams. I’ve found that as our capabilities grow more advanced so too do the questions we are asked. There is always room for growth and improvement.

We are lucky in some ways, as we have a wealth of data at our fingertips that allows us to make clear, concise, evidence-backed recommendations. However, this can lead to difficult conversations, and we can find ourselves telling clients and peers things they may not want to hear. If we are to be pioneers in the field we can’t shy away from this. Delivering tangible impact requires trust and truth, not box-ticking and self-reinforcement. Equally, we shouldn’t look to make excuses for the limitations of our technology, or hide behind smoke and mirrors – instead we should be inspired to find the best solutions for our clients. That may mean we need to go outside our comfort zones, and to me the pioneers in the social intelligence field are those that are not afraid to continue to push forward in the face of industry challenges (Cambridge Analytica anyone?).

Finally, pioneers might lead from the front, but they don’t work alone. The greatest pioneers are the ones that raise the people around them up with them. There is no point (or, frankly, fun) in developing knowledge and delivering success if you are incapable or unwilling to share it with others.

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