Where is the line between cool and creepy? It's not an easy question to answer, at least when it comes to retail analytics.
Why do consumers like getting personalized discounts at the grocery store but find it invasive for another retailer to tell them that an item they browsed online is in stock -- in their size?
Why do consumers feel special when they get relevant solicitations from one company and upset when another suggests possible purchases based on their buying patterns?
As David Mattin, lead strategist at the independent agency Trendwatching, told me for a post this week, sophisticated customer intelligence poses opportunities and challenges. "Privacy is a key question here," he said. "Consumers are willing to share their data, with two provisos: They will not accept flagrant abuses of trust, and, increasingly, that they expect to benefit."
When IBM surveyed more than 28,000 consumers early this year, it found them willing to tell retailers about their media use (75 percent); demographics (73 percent); identification, such as name and address (61 percent); lifestyle (59 percent); and location (56 percent) in exchange for more targeted and smarter shopping experiences.
No one disputes the fact that data is a huge issue right now, or, as Mattin put it, "consumer expectation around data -- and the innovations that brands and businesses are launching around data -- are key forces helping to shape the consumer arena."
For several years, retailers have been expanding their use of customer data. Using data amassed from loyalty card use, Kroger is just one of numerous grocery store chains offering personalized in-store discounts to give shoppers money off their favorite brands.
Now companies are going even further -- using consumer data to shape products and services before consumers even use them. Mattin cited the Know Me program British Airways launched in July. It uses Google Images to source pictures of VIP passengers before their arrival at the plane or terminal, enabling staff to greet customers personally. "Staff can also use iPads to access information on passengers' previous experiences with BA, meal preferences, and onward travel plans, all to help tailor the passenger experience."
Is that cool -- or creepy? Where do you draw the line?
A countermeasures industry? I think that is what free marketers would dictate happen ... So chances are that, yes, in the USA that is the average person's only hope of protecting their privacy.
True, monitoring how the privacy line is changing will be a challenge, probably the most talked about subject in 2013. When does monitoring one customer's selection become a nuissance when the customer makes a switch? How does a company deploy the right resources to manage? Given Target's baby diaper incident earlier in the year, retailers should see these kinds of questions appear more frequently and more publicly in some instances.
Kq writes Maybe, customers can be provided a sliding scale of permissions they wish to grant to data collecting websites. Selecting from 0 to 10 would give consumers some real control over what they perceive as the appropriate amount of data they want to volunteer.
Well, as I've said in a previous thread, basically privacy is toast. I think big business and the government will find ways around any rules, and the averge Joe or Jane can only try to bollix the snooping as much as possible.
I sorta expect some kind of "countermeasures" industry to arise. There's a market for everything...
I suspect men are a bit more tolerant of any perceived privacy invasions than women. Knowing that companies are data mining my most personal bits of web history doesn't really bother me at all. I've given permission, even if sometimes inadvertently, and as far as I know, haven't been harmed.
But there are those who by nature or nurture just don't want anyone gathering their personal information.
Maybe, customers can be provided a sliding scale of permissions they wish to grant to data collecting websites. Selecting from 0 to 10 would give consumers some real control over what they perceive as the appropriate amount of data they want to volunteer.
Earlier I wrote The whole issue of smartphone non-privacy, and intrusive tracking and snooping by companies and other snoopers, was the focus of a CBS This Morning report this AM. I'll try to find and post a link when CBS posts it
Alexis writes Yesterday out of no where I received am offer from Amex on my phone because I was close to the restaurant it was promoting. Hht fact that oh knew my location was a little creepy!
The whole issue of smartphone non-privacy, and intrusive tracking and snooping by companies and other snoopers, was the focus of a CBS This Morning report this AM. I'll try to find and post a link when CBS posts it, but meanwhile, here are some highlights I recall...
The story started with a reporter stopping a man and child on the street to use their smartphone to snap a photo of them. Via Instagram, the photo was then sent to a CBS consultant who immeditately identified their precise location (and in fact joined them within a few minutes). The main point of this segment was that most people don't seem to be aware of the volume of info about their behavior and whereabouts that their phones are "broadcasting".
The focus then shifted to an in-studio interview with the CEO of Techonomy, who emphasized that a lot of the emergence of snooping capabilities, even with loss of privacy, is embraced by much of the public — younger people especially — because of the facilitation of social interaction and (ahem) sexual pursuits (he gave as an example the SceneTap app). He also underscored that the explosion of smartphone apps illustrates that Analytics/Big Data (which he referred to as "data analytics") is one of today's foremost growth industries. As the segment drew to a close, there was more discussion aboiut the difficulties of trying to preserve some remnants of privacy.
Beth writes That is definitely a waste of advertising money, especially as opera glasses, even if a personal purchase and not a gift, certainly can't be a repeat purchase. Unless you're prone to losing stuff.
Yes it's a waste. Hey, wait — isn't good analytivcs supposed to prevent that? Sounds to me like there's a lot of heavy-duty analytics and algorithmic refining that needs to be applied to all this online marketing...
@Seth that's a good option for marking items as gifts. I would like Amazon to work on a solution like this. There's a way to personalized suggestions there but who cares to spend the time clicking off items that were gifts?
LEADERS FROM THE BUSINESS AND IT COMMUNITIES DUEL OVER CRITICAL TECHNOLOGY ISSUES
The Current Discussion
Visual Analytics: Who Carries the Onus? The Issue: Data visualization is an up-and-coming technology for businesses that want to deliver analytical results in a visual way, enabling analysts the ability to spot patterns more easily and business users to absorb the insight at a glance and better understand what questions to ask of the data. But does it make more sense to train everybody to handle the visualization mandate or bring on visualization expertise? Our experts are divided on the question. The Speakers: Hyoun Park, Principal Analyst, Nucleus Research; Jonathan Schwabish, US Economist & Data Visualizer
To save this item to your list of favorite AllAnalytics content so you can find it later in your Profile page, click the "Save It" button next to the item.
If you found this interesting or useful, please use the links to the services below to share it with other readers. You will need a free account with each service to share an item via that service.
Dynamic data visualizations let analysts and business users interact with the data, changing variables or drilling down into data points, and see results in a flash. Advance your use of data visualization with tools that support features like auto-charting, explanatory pop-ups, and mobile sharing.
No doubt your enterprise is amassing loads of data for fact-based decision-making. Hand in hand with all that data comes big computational requirements. Can traditional IT infrastructure handle the increasing number and complexity of your analytical work? Probably not, which is why you need a backend rethink. Big data calls for a high-performance analytics infrastructure, as Fern Halper, a partner at the IT consulting and research firm, Hurwitz & Associates, discusses here.
Redbox's bright-red DVD kiosks are all but ubiquitous these days, located in more than 28,000 spots across the country. Jayson Tipp, Redbox VP of Analytics and CRM, provides an insider's look at how the company has accomplished its phenomenal nine-year growth.
InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), a seven-brand global hotelier, has woven analytics into the fabric of its operations. David Schmitt, director of performance strategy and planning, shares IHG's analytics story and his lessons learned.
Elizabeth Barth-Thacker, a BI and informatics technology manager at Humana, tells us how her team is creating data transparency and building engagement with the business – with the help of an internal collaboration portal called Humanalytics.
Speaking at SAS Global Forum Executive Conference, Rajeev Kaul, SVP of pricing at OfficeMax, uses a Chinese proverb to explain one of the reasons he's deploying SAS Visual Analytics.
In an All Analytics interview, Mike Cavaretta, technical leader, predictive analytics at Ford Research & Advanced Engineering, shares how big-data is fueling vehicle decisions.
Analytics professionals and SAS executives share how organizations can get on with their work so much faster when working in a high-performance and visual analytics environment.
Analytics professionals who attended SAS's recent Executive Briefing in New York share how they think visual analytics might help their organizations get better value from data.
At Boeing, effective decision making comes down to this simple formula: QxA=E, as executive Jerry Allyne explained at the recent INFORMS analytics conference.
Whether working in major league sports, financial services, or healthcare, analytics, and data, professionals are checking out how visual analytics and high-performance technologies can help them optimize their environments, shrink their cycle times, and improve decision making, as attendees at the recent SAS Executive Briefing in New York share with us.
SAS CEO Jim Goodnight speaks with us at a recent SAS Executive Briefing about getting a feel for what's in your big-data and other new realities powered by advanced analytics.
Jim Davis, SVP and CMO at SAS, talks with us at a recent SAS Executive Briefing about how high-performance analytics and visual analytics take away the concerns over big-data and let companies get down to business with their data.
Tweet This
31 
3 
