Blowing up the Dashboard: Rethinking Data, AI and the Real Customer Journey with Philip Armstrong

What if everything you thought you knew about being “data-driven” was wrong?In this episode of Playbook Broken, host Marc Sirkin talks with Philip Armstrong, SVP and Go-to-Market Head of Insights & Analytics at Truth in Data (and formerly of Nike), about why most dashboards fail, how to overcome data paralysis, and why AI might be breaking more playbooks than it’s fixing. Philip unpacks how Fear of Better Options (FOBO) shapes customer behavior, why no one truly “owns” the customer journey, and how generative AI is changing the meaning of intelligence inside organizations. Together, they explore what it takes to rebuild a playbook that actually helps people buy.This conversation dismantles the illusion of perfect data and exposes why “being data-driven” so often means pretending to be. Philip’s pragmatic approach—treating data as an informed opinion rather than a command—offers a smarter, more human path forward for marketing, analytics, and AI adoption.Timestamps00:00 - Introduction – Meet Philip Armstrong: ex-Nike data leader redefining customer intelligence at Truth in Data.02:00 - Fear of Better Options (FOBO) – How decision paralysis sabotages conversions and why incentives must target emotional reassurance.05:00 – What’s Broken – Why throwing money at tech stacks doesn’t create adoption, and why dashboards rarely inspire action.08:00 – Ownership Crisis – Who really owns the customer journey (spoiler: no one), and how silos kill accountability.12:00 – AI’s Double-Edged Sword – Machine learning’s untapped potential vs. generative AI’s hallucinations, blind spots, and the danger of “average” insights.18:00 – Personalization Limits – Why 1-to-1 marketing still fails, even for Netflix and Amazon.24:00 – Metrics That Lie – Open rates, attribution models, and other vanity KPIs that marketers cling to.27:30 – New Rules – Why smaller qualitative insights often beat massive data sets and how to find meaning on the edges.31:00 – When Data Meets Creativity – Inside Nike: how Philip learned to frame data as a “seat at the table,” not the only truth.36:00 – Takeaways – Redefining data-driven decision-making for the AI era and connecting with Philip online.This podcast is produced by MarTech, a Third Door Media property.

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