Good morning, Marketer, and what about the consumer in the privacy debate?
We devoted a lot of space last week to discussing privacy and the potentially huge impact on addressability if privacy really does become paramount for consumers and legislators. A lot of the talk was about the advertising industry, about brands and publishers, about ad tech. But let’s try being customer-centric for a change.
What does the consumer want? The consumer wants access to lots of free (or very cheap) online content. The ability to continue to use critical services like email and online calendars, news outlets and — less critical, although you wouldn’t know it — social media, all without paying subscriptions. I also suspect (and you can test this by browsing incognito) that consumers like a relevant, personalized web experience. What they don’t want is to see the same ad in every channel every day.
I don’t think the consumer gets all those privileges if digital marketing takes the kind of hit the IAB has been raising alarms about. And here’s an interesting twist. Most people think it’s okay to collect first-party data and use it for targeting. But if you’re collecting that data in different channels, from different devices and not doing any additional tracking, one consumer might look like five or six different consumers with the same interests. And boy are they going to see that same ad a lot.
Kim Davis
Editorial Director
