Valuegraphics by David Allison Spotlight for DMCNY
Valuegraphics Spotlight for DMCNY
The ever-ebullient David Allison is a master juggler—figuratively, that is. Along with his broad role as founder (and chief marketer) of The Valuegraphics Database, Allison is a globally sought-after speaker on all things customer data. Over the course of his marketing career, he’s worked as a brand marketer and an agency lead, and even dabbled in sales as an account manager.
Allison is a fervent evangelist when it comes to the power of using the right customer data in the right way. Here, he shares highlights of his marketing journey, his take on the industry, and his predictions of what’s yet to come. –Ginger Conlon
Why marketing?
OMG. Really? OK. It’s a slightly embarrassing story, but as long as you promise not to tell anyone, I’ll share it… The shallowest of reasons possibly imaginable pushed me into marketing.
I was a teenage fashion model. Yikes. It makes me cringe to say that out loud! But there’s the thing: I enjoyed the experience so much that it made my teenage brain start to wonder how I could make a career out of this long after I was “too old” to be a model anymore. I thought to myself, “Well, I could be the one who creates the campaigns and hires the models.” Soon after I went to university to study journalism and marketing so I could do just that.
What has been a key turning point in your career so far?
Choosing just one is hard. I was very proud to have built a successful marketing firm and employ a lot of people: we created a lot of jobs, trained a lot of people who have gone on to do very cool things, paid for a lot of mortgages and braces-on-kids-teeth, and all sorts of stuff. That was stressful but very gratifying.
The key turning point, however, has got to be building The Valuegraphics Database, the first-ever global database of what everyone on the planet cares about; that is, what we value. We can use this data to disprove demographic stereotypes and help everyone look at their target audiences based on the values they share, the things that make them human. It’s super-powerful, and right now, when there is so much divisiveness in the world, it’s an important tool to help us all realize how much we have in common with each other.
What do you think are the most important qualities for a marketer today?
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