Big Data. Little Stories: The Power of the Personal Narrative in Research and Beyond
By: Kathy Justice
Big data. Data analytics. AI and Machine Learning. All are great resources for monitoring and measuring consumer decision making and behavior. These tools are impressive in their volume and velocity and, again, with the most recent GRIT report, we can see their relevance and an increasing reliance upon them to interpret our present and predict our future.
It’s no wonder we want to fuel our understanding of how humans work, think, and behave with hard data and algorithms. As we become more enmeshed with technology we anticipate it will both define and explain us to one another. But as Esther Choy reminds us in her recent article “Why We Need Stories Along with Data,” there is an essential element of “understanding” missing from the numbers and statistics. This is a human-scale story―a personal narrative that provides a window into the experience behind the numbers. Choy describes the power of including character-driven narrative to increase compassion in a variety of contexts, but most notably the war in Ukraine. While daily updates on numbers of soldiers and percentages of cities damaged may wash over us daily, it’s the stories of the people impacted by these events―the soldiers on Snake Island or the pregnant woman who lost her life and her child in a maternity ward bombing―that really move us.
The reason human stories are more powerful than data points alone is simple―our brains are wired to respond to them. Both traditional storytellers and innovative neuroeconomists agree that we believe what we feel. Additionally, Choy points out there is significant power in distilling research conducted on large groups into just one person’s story as it provides context for the decisions, emotions, and life events that drive their patterns of living.
At W5, we employ the power of the personal narrative and storytelling in multiple ways. We believe the sequencing of fact and emotion when reporting our research findings is key to creating meaningful yet digestible learnings that reframe our clients thinking, drive consumer empathy, and inspire business decisions. Additionally, the W5 qualitative team is well-versed in the dynamic power of Personas. Personas are a fictional character representing a user or consumer type that actively engage with a client’s product or brand. By weaving facts and statistics about one audience segment (multiple people) into one narrative (a fictional personal story), we create a layer of understanding that exemplifies how life circumstances, personal preferences, and cultural forces drive consumers’ decisions.
Storytelling may feel antiquated in the age of the metaverse and machine learning, but it is alive and well today in so many fields of communications, from marketing to journalism. It’s important to remember that stories illustrate the fabric of humanity in ways big data cannot by encouraging us to feel and remember.
If you are interested in learning more about how W5 can create compelling, humanistic narratives for your research study, read more about our methodologies and practices.