NEW YORK — While leveraging insights has become an inextricable part of PR, data only brings real value to the craft of storytelling when used as part of the larger, human-driven creative process, industry leaders said at PRovoke Media's North America Summit, which took place Tuesday in New York.

“Data itself is useless without the ability to interpret and bring perspective and point of view,” Will O’Connor, Mastercard’s senior VP of communications for North America, said as part of a Ketchum-sponsored panel discussion on innovative storytelling. Mary Elizabeth Germaine, Ketchum’s chief data & strategy officer, also participated in the conversation.

When it comes to PR, success in leveraging data comes from gleaning the irreplaceable “human truths” uncovered in it, and using the insights in creating strategy, O’Connor said. “The idea has to be priceless,” O’Connor said. “It has to be data-led, wrapped in creative magic and beautifully executed.”

Few campaigns show how successful doing so can be as Mastercard’s brand-defining Priceless campaign, which started 25-years ago with a McCann-Erickson ad and, while it has evolved over time, helped a credit card company forge emotional bonds with consumers. O’Connor credits the enduring success of Priceless to the core insight behind it — that experience is more important than things — remains unchanged.

Germaine said data also leads to more impactful storytelling by helping PR practitioners better understand the media ecosystem and, in turn, identify the best distribution channels for content.

She also said having data has an empowering effect on PR, especially around measurement, providing the discipline with actionable information that can be used when working with colleagues from ad agencies and the like on integrated campaigns.

That measurement in PR is still elusive is more about the industry’s mindset than reality, she said.

“I think fear is more of what it makes it difficult these days than the lack of access to the right data to allow it,” Germaine said.

“The access we have to data for communications is greater than it’s ever been. I think what makes it difficult is people’s fear of failure so they don’t want to put meaningful metrics in place.

“I do think if PR wants a seat at the table along with all our marketing and communications colleagues, we have to be willing to measure the value or our work through those same lenses,” she said.