You may already have the creeping
realisation that everything we do is being tracked and somebody somewhere is
creating databases of our actions. If you have Sky TV they know who you are,
where you live, how old you are, what you like watching and so a behavioural
view of your likes and dislikes which is of course extremely powerful.
If you go online regularly you will
know of online cookie driven behavioural advertising where ads from a site you
visited once seem to miraculously follow you around the world wide web as you
visit other sites. Most sites drop cookies, little bits of code, on your
computer as you visit them that then follow where you go and allow ad servers to
deliver more targeted advertising to you. I, for example, am currently faced
with pie dish ads from John Lewis or Debenhams wherever I browse. Guess what I
have bought recently! The way to stop this BTW is to regularly delete your
cookie cache via your browser settings.
The ability for brands to collect
more and more data will only continue. The Nike Fuelband, which sports
enthusiast wear on their wrists to track movement, is just one of a range of new
portable computers. The much heralded Apple Watch and announced “me too”
competitors from Google and Samsung continue this trend. The pinnacle of this is
Google Glass the glasses with the onboard computer that allows you to search and
share wherever you are while wearing the glasses like headpiece, set for release
this year. Google it if you want to be amazed.
If done properly this is a massive
opportunity that will radically transform businesses but it’s nothing new. I
have already mentioned Sky but the best example of all time is Tesco and its
Clubcard. They have arguably pioneered the use of data and clearly shown what
can be done if you track user behaviour and use it to better target consumers
with things they like. Everything from recommendations and offers, to an online
shopping system pre-filled with your usual purchases, all checked through your
club card and all possible because of clever use of big
data.
I am not even going to touch of the
privacy issues that will invariably happen when people actually start to realise
what is being collected and who can access the data. Privacy aside however, the
biggest issue has always been what companies and brands are actually going to do
with all this stuff. It is all well and good collecting vast databases of
customer data and behaviour's but unless you use that to deliver better products
or services or more targeted less wasteful advertising it’s a big waste of
server storage.
The trend for collecting more and
more data will continue and I believe that like social media, the far reaching
consequences will only be understood by a few at first. Quickly followed by
others setting themselves up to “help” companies build data strategies to manage
and benefit from this new opportunity. One thing that is certain is that in a
few years time, companies and marketing teams will have a greater proportion of
data analysts and clever mathematical genii than ever before. With the potential
huge rewards of proper use of well gathered data, that is not a bad
thing.
Tim Youngman is director of
marketing for Archant - www.about.me/timyoungman Twitter:
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