Last summer we saw two and a half extraordinary weeks of Olympic sports within France’s national stadium. Athletes demonstrated their medal-winning feats with the Eiffel Tower, the Seine River and the Palace of Versailles serving as a backdrop. These incredible Paris sites were not the only exciting visuals during the 2024 Paris Olympics. The New York Times published miniature running and swimming animations, AI generated data visualizations were highly sharable images demonstrating key events in great detail and simplifying mass amounts of data into easily digestible data visualizations. As the world looked to understand how these athletes achieved their greatness, these data visualizations swept social media and streaming platforms. They were included on the Official Paris 2024 Olympic website.
The resonating of these data visualizations speaks to something much larger happening in analytics today. Organizations have access to and need to make sense of the incredible amount of data (2.5 quintillion bytes) being generated every single day on our planet. The overall global datasphere is expected to reach over 200 zettabytes well before the end of the decade. In other words, the datasphere holds more bytes of data than there are stars in the known universe, and it’s growing rapidly.
Consequently, many companies and brands are overwhelmed by data, often accumulating it without knowing how to use it effectively or even if they can. Making sense of all this data will require some sophisticated tools which will certainly include modern AI driven data visualizations as people learn better when there are also visual elements of the presentation of information.
The New York Times, by providing us with the information and data from the 2024 Olympics are ostensibly taking advantage of data visualizations to better describe the events and get fans more excited about the games and brands can take note. As we approach other cultural moments like holiday retail or the NFL season, brands can take a page from the Olympic data visualization playbook and work to make sense of the mass amount of data at their fingertips.
Data visualizations offer specific benefits to the Olympic games: they provide an extra dimension beyond official race times, illustrate unexpected events, and make summaries more engaging than text alone. They allow quick insights into individual performances and can be shared on social media and streaming platforms, reaching those who may not follow traditional broadcasts. Visualizations also celebrate all competitors, not just the top winners, fostering a sense of recognition and satisfaction for everyone involved.
We can tell these data visualizations were appreciated and valued based on a sample of viewer comments, such as “This was a neat visualization”, “Love these graphics! Thank you for these”, “Cool graphics. Congratulations to Canada”, “I love these animations. They’re so fun to watch”, “Such a cool way to do the visualization! Go Canada!”, and “I am glad these visualizations were created because all of the media focused on Summer McIntosh after the race.”
Analyzing the 2024 Paris Olympic visualizations can offer businesses key insights. Data visualizations reveal critical values and patterns, aiding in effective data communication. Beyond that, these visualizations can open new distribution channels and attract customers by digitizing products or services. They might even be developed as new offerings themselves. Additionally, data visualizations can promote equality within organizations and help businesses narrate their stories, not just showcase their products. Using AI for innovative data visuals can set a business apart from competitors.
We are all hoping to see even more interesting data visualizations for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. Until then we will put data visualizations to great work uncovering opportunities to improve and grow our own organizations.
This article originally appeared in AW360: https://advertisingweek.com/how-data-visualizations-create-a-clearer-view-of-the-global-datasphere-and-help-brands-succeed/ and written by David Fogarty, SVP, Data Excellence and Privacy, Association of National Advertisers.