In order to achieve a level of audience knowledge that leads to meaningful, personal and relevant communications, marketers dream of being free to access and use consumer data without limitation. Yet, whilst marketers seek more data, consumers sometimes shy away from the idea of a sophisticated and ubiquitous ‘big brother’ society, created and ruled by technology. There’s a level of tactfulness required to ensure consumers don’t feel vulnerable and out of control. Data privacy, by its very nature, is a permanently hot topic.
The rules around data privacy are reviewed and re-written all the time. Edward Snowden’s whistleblowing case sparked a fresh wave of calls for stricter international regulations on privacy. The US Federal Trade Commission lead the latest rise in public interest when it published a set of new guidelines and the UK government has promised new communication legislation. The EU, meanwhile, continues to issue directives on privacy matters.
Governments and international legislative bodies feel rightly compelled to respond to public cries for more robust privacy protection, but there is another side to the coin. Despite the conceptual objection to being ‘tracked’, the vast majority of us happily consent to giving away personal data on a daily basis – usually without thought – in the quest for convenience and to feed our growing appetite for “everything, everywhere, right now”.
We may protest to the contrary but in reality the privacy bar is low. Our data is a commodity that we trade each day in return for a better user experience. We value our privacy until we get something better for it.
Consumer expectation is at an all-time high. We freely log into advertiser websites via our smartphones, tablets or laptops. We expect a consistent and easy experience, that technology will make our lives easier and that our experiences will not be interrupted by barriers. If this isn’t the case, we’re likely to take to Twitter or Facebook to complain about it.
Whilst we often fail to make the rational connection between what we want and have come to expect from our online experience as consumers, it is unquestionable that marketers need to be transparent with their data collection. Yes, they need data to meet our demands for a seamless on and offline experience, but it needs to be clear to the consumer why the data is being collected, how it will be used and that they are engaged in a data exchange with the advertiser. Marketers have to act responsibly with consumer data if they are to avoid privacy standards that stifle innovation at a time when the industry can’t afford to stop innovation.
The era of brand-led communication is gone: consumers hold the cards now and dictate to brands and advertisers the terms of engagement. In many ways, their actions are compellingly different from those suggested by the headlines on data protection. Many consumers see marketing as a service – for each piece of data they hand over, they expect an incremental increase in the value provided to them.
Marketing is only effective when it adds value and solves problems and data is key to this. Without it, brands are lost for direction, often spurting irrelevant content in random directions. This is not added value – it’s spam, and no one wants that.
By Barbara Marino, EMEA Commercial Director at Datalicious.
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