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CMOs Should Watch “Revenge Of The Nerds” And “Real Genius”
It was just a few years ago when retail customers were very opaque. We knew very little about them unless they were a member of a loyalty program. The paradigm has shifted to an avalanche of data that is available for marketers to access and use.
One of my favorite quotes from The Filter Bubble was taken from Andrew Lewis on MetaFilter: “If you’re not paying for something, you’re not the customer. You’re the product being sold.” Consumers, as part of our everyday lives, are pushing “click to accept” on free mobile apps, Web services and loyalty cards. Most of us know deep down that there is no such thing as a free lunch, but at what point does this start to generate backlash? When marketers start to take it too far.
We’ve all seen an ad (or a lot more) that we can’t seem to shake for days or weeks after visiting a website. Or, as one of my friends calls it, “Companies stalking me around the Web.” Display ad retargeting must be showing a strong ROI, because more and more companies are doing it. I’m sure that the marketer felt that messaging a consumer about a product or service that someone just looked at on their website felt like a good way to be relevant (they’ve shown interest), but may have gone a little overboard. Do you really want your brand to be known as a “stalker”?
But just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should do something. For years, grocery chains have known about new additions to the family when they see loyalty card members suddenly start to purchase diapers on a regular basis. But most refrain from freaking you out by sending you a “Congratulations on your new bundle of joy!“ card.
Of course, we can’t forget about the policy makers who are also making moves. In February, the FTC released a set of guidelines for mobile privacy policies. Last year the European Union updated a 22-year-old consumer privacy law by releasing the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) aimed at protecting their citizens’ privacy rights with companies operating outside of the EU.
But how does a CMO determine where that line is?
Cards issued by European banks when used online cross border don't usually support AVS checks. So, when a European card is used with a billing address that's in the US, an ecom merchant wouldn't necessarily know that the shipping zip code doesn't match the billing code.
-Marc
