Archives for posts with tag: behavioral targeting

Almost any website is smarter than Facebook.

July 9, 2012 //

By now, everybody knows that customers to Yahoo!, Facebook, Google, MSN, NY Times, WSJ, etc. are not the visitors. Advertisers are the customers. All these sites make money selling advertising. Over time we learned, placing ads on Facebook is much less effective than placing them on Yahoo!, WSJ or even MySpace.

How come? Wasn’t the narrative that Facebook knows everything about us? That they unlocked the gate to the holy grail of marketing? The frictionless sharing paradigm will lead us to the golden ages of marketing, including fountains of youth and unlimited budgets.

Right?

Right.

Think about what you do all day and what you share on Facebook. (Forget about the few exceptions that share everything.) I bet it’s less than 0.1% for 99% of all Facebook users. I would even bet it’s less than 0.001% for for 98% of all Facebook users. You do thousands of things today and you may share 1-2 posts daily, if you’re a heavy users.

Compare that to major sites. They’ve been around forever. Some, like Yahoo!, Google and MSN, have their own email product. You read news on Yahoo or MSN, never on Facebook. If you want to find a local movie, you visit Bing. If you want to see TV listings, you go to Yahoo! While so many people proclaim Yahoo! is already in the coffin and rotting away, have a look at the rate of interaction on some of their sections. More people search on Yahoo! than on Facebook.

Since Yahoo (and all these other major sites) are connected to massive ad networks and ad exchanges, they track what you like, what you do, where you live and understand more about your real digital life than Facebook could ever imagine. Google didn’t build Maps and Google Documents to help you through your daily life. They build all these tools to understand each user better.

Facebook doesn’t have acces to that information. Yet. That’s why I get these silly ads.

I don’t care about any of these products. Ever.

This doesn’t mean the future is a black hole for Facebook. The future might be all rainbows.

The present? A different story. When brands tell me they want to increase their Facebook ad spending dramatically in the next 6 months, I wonder if it’s because the bandwagon is coming through their town or because they see real business results. Sure, there are brands that are successful using the Facebook ad project. The majority should be looking for other (“OLD”) targeting tactics to get good results in the short-term.

Tags advertisers, behavioral targeting, Facebook, Google, interactions, MSN, NY Times, Targeting, yahoo

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Why advertising professionals need to be economic professionals

November 23, 2010 //

Unless you lived on the moon, you realize the global economy is struggling because most corporations are not constructed to produce any real value. They are designed to maximize shareholder value while stakeholders are getting squeezed to improve the bottom line and introduce as many efficiencies as possible. Add to that corporate welfare, Fed and Treasury policies, regulations (or lack thereof) and you end up with a toxic mess of an ongoing banking crisis, mind-numbing landscapes of mini malls, toxicity in assets, the environment and the overall capitalistic world we are living in. And, while people are crowding the bargain bins, corporations continue to develop cheaper ways to satisfy the need for the bargain. Interestingly, when you produce a mediocre product/service (create thin value, as Umair Haque calls it), the price is all what matters. When you create real value/thick value, price becomes a tertiary consideration. Call it awesomeness, call it being amazing, call it being a linchpin.

With a few, rare exceptions, advertising has focused on creating thin value. Rather than inspiring people with marketing for products that add value, most of marketing/advertising is focused on brainwashing people into buying stuff that makes no difference. Just another item I can use and throw away/forget about effortlessly without considering the implications for the rest of the world. (Labor Conditions, Environment, Export/Import Structures)

Now, let’s look at the advertising/marketing industry. It’s not a dying industry but an industry in deep trouble. We are not considered partners, we’re just another vendor that sells questionable value. Media Buying has become a commodity, media planning to follow soon. The people we market to are busy tuning us out because they don’t feel marketing creates any real value. While we continue to communicate to people as they were still consumers, they are busy producing, communicating and building networks. We have commoditized our industry to death, starting to hop on a dangerous death spiral. Just like the whole economic system.

Advertising is just one pillar of the economic system we’re living in. Advertising can’t change the world or make it a better place. But, as part of a new economic system, advertising can be an inspiration, an artistic expression of the paradigm change. As an industry, we need to focus on the drastic changes the economic system is going through. We can safely say, the end of creating slim/thin value for profit is fast approaching. No matter how good your strategies/tactics/ideas are, unless you create real value for society with your products and services, you will fail in the long run.

My headline “Why advertising professionals need to be economic professionals” didn’t imply you need to watch Bloomberg all day, read each article in the WSJ or get a degree in economics. Most of what you read or see there is just an expression of times almost passed. All of us need to understand that our whole economic system is transforming and changing into something much more substantial, sustainable and human. Advertising is just another expression of this change. Please work, create, add value accordingly.

Tags Advertising, behavioral targeting, bloomberg, Brand Experience, Business Management Practices, Co-Creation, Collaboration, economic system, Human Business Design, Shareholder Value, Stakeholder Satisfaction, Stakeholder Value, wsj

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Advertising's journey from attention to intent

November 17, 2010 //

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This post was first published on Jack Myers’ MediaBizBloggers site.

Last week’s Monaco Media Forum with the theme “Mobilization” was a fascinating event filled with superstars of the media, advertising, VC and emerging technologies world. As usual with conferences of this magnitude, the most insightful conversations took place outside of the main event center.

It is pretty apparent that the advertising/media industry continues to optimize ways delivering relevant messages to people: Data warehouses, behavioral targeting, and contextual targeting – you name it. While the powerhouses of that industry shared the main stage, emerging technology providers and VC’s are starting to build new tools that focus more on the intent of people.

Advertising faces a race to the bottom: studies have shown that the least desirable customers click on ads and paying people specifically to look at advertising is likely to catch lower income people with time on their hands – not a good option for marketers. Sure, we’re getting better at delivering relevant messages to people but the success rates of our marketing efforts are fairly low and the privacy questions comes up more often. Which leads us to the question: Where are we going from here?

The Intention Economy

A more effective way of engaging with people is to build tools that engage both parties (customers and vendors) in ways that work for both. While CRM systems are very one-sided in their benefits, ask vendors to bear the burden of the whole engagement and don’t allow customers to engage on their own terms, VRM systems (Vendor Relationship Management) help customers to be equipped with tools that transform them from followers in the marketplace to leaders. Let me give you an example:

Location-based apps are the big craze in the emerging media world right now. I visit a place, check-in and the marketing tactic is to receive special offers from the place itself or competitors. The VRM idea would be different: It’s noon and I plan on going to lunch in 10 minutes. I declare my intent to restaurants within a specific radius, even specifying my budget and the size of my party. Restaurants have now the opportunity to engage with me during the next 10 minutes to send me specific offers, based on my intent. Clearly, brands have a real captive audience for a limited amount of time and don’t need to waste any advertising inventory with guesswork.

VRM used to be an intellectual framework, nothing more. The Monaco Media Forum convinced me that entrepreneurs are starting to buy into this concept and building the necessary tools to bring VRM to life. I saw apps and sites that are based on the VRM model, and I’m convinced that the end of data collection for advertisers (Foursquare, Facebook) is near. The future is bright and the future is based on intent.

Tags Advertising, attention economy, behavioral targeting, emerging technologies, intention economy, media, mobiliztion, monaco media forum, Stakeholder Contribution, Stakeholder Satisfaction, vc, VRM

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Social Media: Is your brand the date from hell?

July 29, 2010 //

Image: Courtesy of 24.media.tumblr

I’ve been blissfully married for quite a while now but I still remember this specific date from hell: She was gorgeous. She had the same interests than me. And through a mind-numbing dinner, she only talked about herself. Her concerns. Her dreams. Her life. Never asked a question. Never engaged. Never showed any interest in me.

Does that remind you of your brand’s social media presence?

Broadcasting messages about yourself is fine for specific channels. It’s not acceptable for social platforms. It continues to astonish me how many companies still apply the broadcast model to a non-broadcast medium. Blasting messages through their bullhorn at a cocktail party. Where is the Social Media Security Force when we need them?

If a friend asks you if he should buy a BMW or Mercedes-Benz, would you send him a glossy brochure? Would you annoy him with special offers, sweepstakes and spam emails?

Of course not.

Somehow, when people put their marketing hat on, they lose some of their humanity. That marketing hat must have secret powers because suddenly it’s okay to target people, spam them, annoy the living daylights out of them. Once the hat is off and the office door is closed, the same people go home, regain their humanity and are as annoyed about these marketing tactics as all the other humans not wearing a marketing hat.

The simple truth is, Social Media is not a new channel. Social Media changed the rules of the marketing game: New players, new strategies, new tactics, new values. Too many brands are trotting out the Vince Lobardi’s Green Bay Packers and their playbook from 1961 and try to compete with today’s New Orleans Saints. Just to be guaranteed a total beatdown.

The purpose of a business and its marketing remains unchanged: create a customer. The way to achieve this goal has dramatically changed and is evolving as we speak. Brands need to understand these new rules, the new players and the new playbook.

Frankly, it’s not that hard. Just leave your marketing hat off and be human. Help people. Add value. Give. Build brand karma.

My date from hell cost me $100 and, more importantly, 2 hours of my life. Being a date from hell on social platforms will cost you customers for life.

Tags Advertising, behavioral targeting, broadcast channel, date from hell, Social Marketing, Social Media, social media marketing, social media presence

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How to develop a marketing/advertising strategy

July 9, 2010 //

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My daughter is five years old. She’s a very agreeable person, easy to get along with. Unless she wants some ice cream. She tells me about her friend Jenna who just had an ice cream. She points out people eating ice cream. She comes up with health benefits of ice cream. And, if I’m lucky, she hugs me and exclaims: “I love you, papa.” In short, she knows what she has to do to make me do what she wants. That’s strategy.

We are strategists. It’s in our blood. A book is a strategy. I can buy one for my wife to cheer her up. To show my thoughtfulness because I didn’t forget when she mentioned the title a while ago. Or to make a point. There’s no deep thinking involved, it comes natural.

The biggest mistake brands make is to believe information is equivalent to strategy. Telling people is not enough. Using the information in the most powerful way possible is the ultimate goal. Car safety ratings are meaningless unless you couple them with the message that aggressive driving just became safe. A hotel room sale is nice but this message is more powerful: “even you can live like the rich and famous.”

Typical marketing objectives are “Drive incremental sales.” or “Increase qualified leads”. We nod our heads when those slides come up, not reflecting if these are objectives we should try to achieve. I would argue, your objective is NOT to increase sales. Your objective is to understand why people are not buying your product/service and changing that behavior. Sales and all other important metrics will take care of themselves. Any advertising campaign or Social Media initiative should have the objective of influencing perceptions that will people drive to buy, become loyalists and influencers.

Imagine a campaign for couches. Normally, what you get is a shot of a couch warehouse and screaming announcers annoying us with a sale message. Sure, it works. Kind of. It’s boring. It’s expected. It comes and goes. Instead, if I had to sell couches, I would talk about the little moments we all have on couches: the moments of joy when our football team wins, the little naps with the kid, the book that kept us awake all night on the couch. Creating emotional connections between people and my couches.

The perfect advertising strategy identifies the most compelling thing you can say, owns it and, at the same time, undermines any effort of the competition. You’re earning attention, winning the battle of mindshare. Great marketing/advertising strategy feels like a good meal or a good movie. It just feels right; it’s hard to define a gut feeling. But, there are some markers:

– Explain the strategy to your non-marketing partner. If they get it, the world will get it.

– It works as a video and on a napkin. Basically, it has to be so simple that one sentence can explain your strategy.

– The competition will hire a new agency because your idea was game-changing.

– Your co-workers will hate you. “I wish I thought of that”-syndrome.

– Make sure it passes the “AM-after-2-espressos” test. After a long night in the office, a mediocre idea might look like a Clio to you. Sleep, drink 2 espressos and look at it again.

A few days ago, my daughter crawled into my bed and told me about her nightmare: “There were monsters and then I ate ice cream and they were gone.” She’s a natural.

Tags Advertising, advertising strategy, behavioral targeting, changing behavior, information, marketing strategy, perceptions

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The problem with Digital Marketing

June 9, 2010 //

Image: Courtesy of 1.media.tumblr.

I’ve seen TV commercials that made me laugh. The majority of radio commercials annoy me. Some print ads are rather interesting, most of them purely forgettable. The range of emotions when experiencing “traditional” advertising ranges from highly entertained/intrigued to annoyed. I was never angry a TV commercial interrupted my show, maybe annoyed, but not angry.

The range of emotions when experiencing “digital” marketing ranges from barely entertained to angry. Angry at the pop-ups, the take-overs, the obnoxiousness of advertisers to push their message right in front of my face.

Why is there such a huge difference in emotions between “traditional” and “digital” marketing?

Two reasons:

1) We have a contract with traditional media: You serve us ads and the content will be free/dramatically reduced in price. Sure, we try to do our best to get out of that contract (DVR, radio podcasts) but in general we’re fairly happy with the partnership.

No such contract exists between us and digital media. We don’t see ads underwriting anything. Does an ad on Facebook make the site better? Nope, it cheapens my experience. Does an ad on Yahoo’s homepage improve their content? Not that I know of, it just makes me want to leave the homepage as soon as possible. Marketers haven’t found an airtight value proposition for consumers to see ads as an underwriting proposition. Every time a brand serves up an ad, it reminds us that there’s no contract. No relationship, no reason not to get angry.

(And, most of the web ads are intended to be clicked, turning Digital Marketing into a whining and begging contest, turning even more people off.)

2) TV, Radio and Print are entertainment channels. Sure, there’s some educational and informational content but we use these channels to entertain us.

Digital is an entertainment channel. And an information channel. Most importantly, digital is a communication channel. Depending on your tasks at hand, the definition of digital as a channel changes by the minute for each of us. While my visit to Forbes.com might be my kind of entertainment (sad, I know), others are looking for information on the same site or want to communicate with other readers about a common topic. The reception changes dramatically in whatever mode I am:

– Information Seeking: Don’t even try to serve me an ad. I don’t want to see and hear it. I’m focused on my own information needs. Your intrusion makes my task at hand harder to accomplish.

– Communicating: Don’t you know the two of us are talking? Why do you have to bother us in the middle of a conversation? What do I have to do to get you out of my world?

– Ready to be entertained: What you got? Something funny? Something interesting? I’m watching a show/video but I don’t mind discovering something better.

Search Engine Marketing continues to be successful because it answered the need for information with relevant results. Banner advertising never took off because the Web is a hybrid channel and we have to guess constantly what mode people are in. Inserting messages into a communication and information environment doesn’t work. So far, it only works in an entertainment environment.

If digital marketing will ever grow up, it needs to develop a mutually beneficial contract and find new ways to message to people when they want to be informed and/or communicate. That’s why companies like Facebook and Twitter should take a step back and reconsider their advertising models. Applying a broken digital advertising model to a new platform still equals apathy, non-performance and angry people.

When you’ve figured out a way to shift digital advertising emotions to the range of traditional advertising, please let me know. I’ll bet my house on you.

Tags Advertising, banner advertising, behavioral targeting, broken digital model, Communication Environment, contract, digital marketing, DVR, Entertainment Environment, Facebook, Information Environment, print, radio commercial, traditional advertising, TV commercial, Twitter

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Facebook – The Next Chapter in Targeting Failure

June 2, 2010 //

Image: Courtesy of Music Philosophy

This post appeared first on MediaBizBloggers.com

A friend of mine lost his job last year, his mother was diagnosed with cancer and he had to fight off foreclosure threats. A very rough year. What did I see on his Facebook page? Motivational quotes, pictures of smiling people on the beach, pictures of home-cooked food. The occasional negative expression “That was a rough day.” with 5 ‘likes’ and 2 supportive comments of his social graph.

We live a 2.0 version of “The Stepford Wives” on Facebook. Everything is so colorful, so friendly, and so motivational. We’re all just friends, ‘liking’ everything we see and busy creating an identity outside of our real lives. Nobody reveals their real self on Facebook. Actually, nobody reveals their real self on Social Networks. We play a part in this theater we call Social Networking.

Have you ever seen anyone posting “Unemployed and looking for a job” on LinkedIn? Of course not, people are becoming consultants or come up with other fancy titles to protect their personal brand. Most people understand how to shield their real self from the outside and control their own brand.

Mark Zuckerberg’s declaration that privacy is dead, is just another sales pitch. Privacy is alive and kicking. It’s being redefined as we speak. Not from Facebook. Each one of us is redefining privacy. We select what to share. We select who to share it with. We define our own brand. And we like brands that bolster our image, give us more personal brand juice. I might watch each episode of “The Bachelor” and tune into “Charlie Rose” once a year. As a 40ish entrepreneur, what will I “Like” to protect my brand image?

The media industry loves to put people into boxes aka segments. Behavioral Targeting 1.0 promised to deliver relevant messages to targeted audiences. I’ve tested these campaigns for years and they never delivered on their promise. Facebook’s Behavioral Targeting 2.0 will fail even more miserably. At least, Behavioral Targeting 1.0 is based on real user behavior, amassing data about sites I visited, trying to find a common denominator (segments) and communicating with them through relevant messages. Facebook believes what people express in their social graph is what people really think, who they really are. And that my friend, is just not true.

As an industry, we have to come to grips that the end of advertising as we know it is near. Human beings are unpredictable. We don’t want to be put into boxes. We don’t want to be targets, segments, boxes. We are individuals. Most of the time, we don’t want to hear from advertisers. However, there are times when I can’t wait to hear from brands.

Imagine this scenario: I want to go to Europe with my wife for a week. London, Paris and Amsterdam. I want to fly non-stop , stay in 3+ star hotels, eat in one of the 50 best restaurants in the world, celebrate my wedding anniversary with a special evening and my budget is $5,000 for two. Currently, it will take me at least 20 hours to gather all the necessary information through branded sites, review sites and connection with my Social Graph. What do you think is more effective?

Scenario A: The first thing I decide on is a flight. I go to Bing, check out individual airlines (KLM, Virgin Atlantic, British Airways). I decide to go with Virgin Atlantic. Because I visited KLM and BA but didn’t convert, both brands will continue to message me even though my flight is booked and I’m not interested in any offers anymore.

Scenario B: I send out a personal RFP to the world, expressing my specific intent to travel to Europe, including all details mentioned above. Nobody has to guess if I’m still in-market for European flights and accommodation. They don’t have to target me with sneaky tactics or amass data to improve their guessing work. All brands have to do is to develop customized proposals that deliver on my parameters.

Another example: Many think the future of location-based advertising is conquest advertising. I check into a bar and the competition sends me an offer trying to lure me to their establishment. How about I declare my intent to brands (“Lunch for two in 15 minutes”) and for the next 15 minutes restaurants can send me offers? More powerful? Absolutely.

A growing concern with privacy and data protection will speed up the development of tools that will allow people to engage brands on their terms. The targeting guesswork will disappear and advertising will retreat from its brute tactics of the last decades and return to its roots: Being charming, being entertaining, persuading people into changing their behavior.

…

Update: Great comment by Jim McCarthy. Social

Tags Advertising, behavioral targeting, Corporate Strategies, Facebook, location-based advertising, personal RFP, Privacy, Social Networking, Vendor Relationship Management, VRM

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Advertising – from battleground back to the persuasion lounge

May 18, 2010 //

Image: Courtesy of 10.media.tumblr.com

While the Facebook Privacy debate rages on, we have to accept a few facts:

Facebook is making a play to own identity on the web.
Not only that: Facebook is making a play to own everything associated with identity on the web.
Facebook is banking on a value exchange between sites and their own database: We give you site traffic and data, we keep all the data to build a semantic map of the Web.
We are entrusting personal data to a company that has a problematic record of dealing with user privacy.
The majority of Facebook will continue to share information. Why? Because we want to share information.

Does this mean Facebook will continue to be the de facto Social Web? Absolutely not.

Facebook presents a huge opportunity and promise for brands: A data pile of personal information that should enable marketers to deliver more relevant and targeted advertising. Sounds like Behavioral Targeting 2.0. This model implies that people want to receive more targeted and relevant messages. And that’s where the whole model falls apart.

Most of the day, people want to be invisible to advertisers. They want to read or entertain themselves without any disruption of the advertisers. And there are times when I want to hear from advertisers or would love to have a comprehensive profile I want to share with companies. During that limited amount of time, I would love for Acura to know what kind of car I’m looking for and have an insight into my purchase history to develop a personal proposal for me. I would love for Travelocity to know that I’m looking for a hotel close to Heathrow Airport.

We just don’t want this information stockpiled, used against our wishes and used against us during a time when we don’t want to hear from brands. We don’t want information that we shared with one company sold to another company to deliver more disruptive messages.

What we want is to share our digital DNA on our terms. Not on the terms of data mining companies and marketers. On our terms.

Which leads me to the second reason why this model won’t work: My Facebook profile is not the real me. Nobody is the real self on Facebook. We’re revealing a very small part of our real self. Nothing more. Most people stay away from politics or religious topics. We never hear from major conflicts in anybody’s lives. Facebook reminds me of kid shows like Cailou or Berenstein Bears. Sure, there are some minor conflicts but, overall, we’re doing great and everything is awesome. We’re all playing a part in the Facebook world, just like the avatars in Second Life. How do you expect to deliver relevant messages to me if you don’t know the real me?

Last but not least, if Facebook becomes the Social Graph, innovation will stop. Imagine Internet Explorer as the only game in town. No Chrome, no Firefox. Only IE allows you to access the web. If that’s scary, think about Facebook being the only Social Graph in town. No innovation. Stagnation. The Social Web would end before it even really started.

That’s why we need for people to claim ownership of their data. Allow them to store their personal data in a safe and secure space. Share any data on their terms:

Dental records with their periodontist and general dentist, avoiding lengthy approval cycles and wasteful document exchanges.
The intent to purchase a car with preferred brands. Allow them to send personal proposals. Eliminating the guesswork and sneaky, behavioral tactics of marketers.
Their food preferences and budget with restaurants through a location-based application. Allow restaurants to send time-sensitive offers based on personal profile.

Advertising, as defined by Wikipedia, is a non-personal form of communication intended to persuade an audience to purchase or take some action upon products, ideals or services. The current landscape of advertising feels more like a battleground and not a persuasion lounge. We have done the same thing over and over again. More efficient. More relevant. More targeted. It’s still not working.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t really see the benefits of living in a world where brands constantly have to fight for and with customers. I’d rather live in a world where brands and people co-create and collaborate. And people share what they really need. On their terms. And advertising could get back to its core business: charming and persuading people.

Tags behavioral targeting, brands, Facebook, personal data, Persuasion, Privacy, Social Graph, Social Web, Targeting, VRM

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Personal datastore: The future of the relationship economy

May 3, 2010 //

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We’re not consumers anymore. The majority of us are producing ideas, sharing photos, thoughts, comments. Because we have become producers, we have much more power than we ever had. The industrial-age power structure of companies(Coke) buying white spaces/time on properties of producers (Time Warner) is rapidly disintegrating and being replaced by a new economic ecosystem of collaboration and co-creation. The challenge for most companies: How do we value this new ecosystem appropriately?

It’s easy to put a price tag on a transaction – You make something of value, I buy it and give you something (most likely money) in return. That’s the idea behind exchanges and the industrial age. It’s measurable. It’s efficient. But, there’s something else taking place: The relationship economy, aka The Karma economy). If I help a friend finding a new job, I don’t expect anything in return. When I love my kid and try to create the best life possible, I don’t expect anything in return. When I smile at a stranger on the street, I don’t hope for an exchange of emotions. I just want to be generous for the sake of being generous.

At its core, the Web is generous. That’s why it’s so disturbing (or better: infuriating) that a company like Facebook, relying on the generosity of its users, develops monetization solution based on exchanges. A relationship economy brand tries to get rich based on monetary exchanges: In exchange for the user data, produced through the generosity of its users, brands pay Facebook to target users with more relevant messages. A total disconnect if I’ve ever seen one.

All this talk about Facebook being the Internet is just silly and there are warning signs that Facebook might be facing a groundswell of deletions very soon. The Internet landscape is littered with ruins and pitiful remains of companies that believed to be the Internet and Facebook will suffer the same fate. As they should.

Given the generous nature of the Web, people were willing to share data points with the world and didn’t expect anything in return. Sure, a badge from Foursquare is nice. That only works as long as all stakeholders are generous and understand this as a relationship, not an exchange. Users are beginning to understand that most brands just use their data to deliver commercial messages and pay a lot of money to get access to that data. Leaving the user with a shiny badge on his iPhone and data mining companies with impressive balance sheets.

better mistakes

Some look at Congress to legislate behavioral targeting and ease privacy concerns. Others hope the industry will self-regulate itself. I wouldn’t bet a dime on these initiatives. But I bet the house on the creativity and originality of people engaging on the Web. Privacy was always about control: We don’t mind sharing our personal lives and thoughts, but we want to control how, where and with whom. A privacy failure is always a control failure.

So far, our privacy options are limited to the options platforms give us (and how easy they can be located). The exploitation of by corporations leveraging asymmetric power to relinquish control of our data will lead to the obvious question: How can I control my own data, monetize it myself? Why should companies control my relationship with them? Shouldn’t I control the relationship?

People want to share their data and information on their terms. Yes, we want to engage with brands and give away our data to create innovative things. On our terms. When I’m in the market for a car, I would love to hear from brands that can customize offers based on my preferences. And when I made the purchase, I don’t want to hear from the again. Until I’m in the market again. I don’t mind hearing from a local restaurant about their lunch specials between 11.30 and 12.30 when I showed intention that I’m ready to head out to lunch. But don’t bug me before/after or in case I packed leftovers from yesterday.

Project VRM (VRM = Vendor Relationship Management) is still in its early stages and we haven’t see any real-life implementations at scale of this thought model. But, that’s where the future lies: Let me control my relationship with brands. Develop meaningful control systems that are easy to use and give way to a new ecosystem of collaboration and co-creation. The future is about a personal datastore, an aggregation of all relationships with people, platforms and brands. Completely controlled by the individual. Limiting the noise emitted by irrelevant advertising, spam and other commercial messages. Shaping the information flow and stream to receive communications when we want it, about things we desire. Ultimately, leading to a restoration of balance in the relationship between people and brands.

Tags Advertising, behavioral targeting, Co-Creation, Collaboration, data mining, Human Business Design, Loyalty, Marketing, Personal Datastore, ProjectVRM, Stakeholder Contribution, Stakeholder Satisfaction, Stakeholder Value, Vendor Relationship Management

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