Big Data has huge implications, but it’s been around us a long time.
Let’s start at the beginning – birth, where you’re assigned an NHS Number (in their own words: a Unique Patient Identifier). Any healthcare you receive will be assigned to it. As you get older you acquire a National Insurance number and, if you are self-employed, a Unique Taxpayer Reference too.
Each magic number references a series of footprints, relating to your health, your work, and the health of your business respectively, and all of them are individual to you. Those numbers can also serve other purposes. Your NI number, for example, is associated with any housing benefit, student loans, voting registration and with opening an ISA.
While those numbers represent separate aspects of people’s lives, storing, cross-referencing and interrogating the entire dataset can reveal new datasets, correlations and trends. Big Data and its interpretation offer a higher degree of certainty in an uncertain world. Life, car and house insurance depend upon it.
When it comes to retail, consumers, advertisers and brands all want the same thing: meaningful ads that result in satisfied sales. The trade-off for consumers is making that data available in the first place.
The Challenges
Trust – Consumers need confidence in the integrity of organisations acquiring and using their data. Get it right and it’s an easy decision – click or don’t click. Get it wrong, as high value US brands Mattel and Viacom found out recently, and it’s an expensive lesson in privacy law and a potential PR disaster.
Value & Reward – Consumers know that data isn’t collected for fun. Their shopping preferences and behaviour have intrinsic value and, while developing a relationship with a brand has a feel-good factor by association, what consumers really want is to become friends with benefits. The more advertisers and brands understand their target audience the easier it is to fulfil that desire, whether it’s discounts, exclusives or cross-promotions.
Resistance – There will always be a section of the community that resists progress. Yes, we can call them Luddites and scoff at their Nokia 1200s, but their concerns are legitimate. Even if we’re not heading for the totalitarian, computer-controlled future of the 1970 sci-fi classic, Colossus: The Forbin Project, our lives are increasingly being mapped and tracked. Advertisers need to make a compelling case for data capture or they risk disenfranchising potential customers.
The Way Forward
Choice – Opt-ins can be as simple as a cookie pop-up on a website, but what about the opt-outs? As consumers become more data savvy they will increasingly become the gatekeepers of their own information. The Internet Advertising Bureau’s survey earlier this year revealed that over 50% of respondents might be willing to turn off an ad blocker for the right content, so content and context go hand-in-hand.
Transparency – How is the data collected, stored and used? What safeguards are in place to protect privacy? What is the shelf life of the data? How easy is it for consumers to change their minds? (Who hasn’t had the experience of asking to be removed from a mailing list, only to find you’re still receiving bumf months later?)
All the above questions will be much easier to answer if the industry agrees standards and best practice for data management. It will also leave it better prepared for any future legislation addressing data privacy. As an interesting aside, Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights already includes the telling phrase: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy…
Relevance – Consumers want to feel special and recognised as individuals. No, not in a Monty Python way! When they experience nuanced advertising that speaks directly to them, they find it easier to buy-in (pardon the pun) to the paradox of Big Data: It’s easier to understand the needs of an individual when tiny bits of information are collected en masse.
Perhaps Dr Seuss put it best:
“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”