Should publishers always follow what algorithms tell them? ELLE’s editor-in-chief Lorraine Candy doesn’t think so – and said her creative team is much more likely to trust human intuition over data.
Speaking at Magnetic’s Spark 2016 on Tuesday, Candy, who has been editor-in-chief of ELLE for the last 12 years, said creative teams have a “very strong instinct” when it comes to what consumers want.
“With that team, we do work with data and insight because I would be absolutely insane not to see what people are looking at,” she said.
“[But] sometimes the data isn’t accurate, or it isn’t what we want to do…so we ignore it.”
Candy’s comments come following Facebook’s controversial decision to replace its entire trends team – the news division that curates popular stories for its users – with a machine-based algorithm.
It marks another turning point in the evolution of publishing whereby data, analytics and machine-learning are increasingly influencing editorial decisions.
However, Candy, sticking to her more traditional editorial guns, said it’s the editors that act as “walking algorithms”.
“As a fashion magazine we are looking six months ahead…and having to absolutely predict what will happen in that time…and also tell the consumer what is new.
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“So it’s not just predicting it and reacting to things that happen, it’s actually telling them.
“That is years and years of journalistic experience…We are the walking algorithms.”
Speaking about publishers’ relationship with Facebook – a subject that has been hotly debated elsewhere this week – Candy said collaboration will be key in moving forwards.
“The world is about collaboration and we have to be much more open and we have to think in a different way,” she said.
“We have to give that content out to draw people to our brands…and to make more money.”
However, Candy doesn’t think that Facebook will always be a main driver of traffic for publishers.
“I love Facebook; we work hard on delivering to the algorithm that they maintain – but I can’t imagine Facebook will always be a main source of traffic driving,” she said.
“There will be other sources. There wasn’t Facebook before Facebook, new things will be coming through.”
