Consumer Privacy

This is not a topic that I have given much thought of as a marketer.  When I think of consumer privacy I typically think about the companies that use internet data as a part of a scam or way to try to get money out of unsuspecting consumers.  Or, I think about people who don’t understand that what you put on Facebook isn’t really private and you have to be an idiot to put something out there that you don’t want employers or friends to find.  From a marketing perspective I think that there is some benefit to having rich consumer data that can be used to have very targeted and specific messages; as long as consumers are getting that advertising in ways that are unobtrusive and in moderation.  I am not well informed on the processes for buying and selling consumer information (name, email, address, phone number, etc.), but I am against reaching out to consumers in obtrusive ways.  In the past it was telemarketing during dinner, now it is excessive emails.

The article, “A Web Pioneer Profiles Users by Name”, focused on sites that install cookies and sends identifying information to databases that store and sell consumer data.  This data can be used in a variety of manners, but mainly it seems to be used for targeted advertising or communication.  I think that people who are using the internet expect some types of information to be made available to marketers – for example, I do a search for a flight to Venice on Google, I would be ok with later seeing banner ads for canal tour companies.  What I think people don’t expect is using a website that provides a service, such as the e-card site Pingg.com, to sell your information to a company that is later going to contact you directly through email.  From there, communication to consumers can easily become obtrusive and annoying.  As a consumer myself when I am targeted too specifically or in an annoying way it makes me suspicious of the company and less likely to buy what they are selling.

Something that I think it really interesting when it comes to consumer privacy is tracking consumer purchases.  Amazon does this really well with the wealth of data they have available – giving consumers very accurate recommendations and advertising.  At Target there is an entire department that focuses on guest insights and they are now more than ever better able to track consumer spending.  An interesting article that I read in the last month told the story of how Target is now able to know when you are pregnant just by your behavior in the store. Target assigns every customer a Guest ID number, tied to their credit card, name, or email address that becomes a bucket that stores a history of everything they’ve bought and any demographic information Target has collected from them or bought from other sources. Using that they will assign each shopper a “pregnancy prediction” score which is based off of a set of typical products purchased by women who are early in their pregnancy.  They will then target the consumer with pregnancy and baby advertising and coupons, hoping that she will register and purchase baby supplies with them.  Although I am slightly biased, I actually think this is a great and innovative way to get new customers in the door, increase revenues, and gain loyalty.

The big issue with this type of data monitoring and predictive analysis is what you do with the data.  The example in the article was about a teenage girl who received the “Congratulations on your pregnancy” advertising package from Target.  Her father found it and the story goes like this…

“My daughter got this in the mail!” he said. “She’s still in high school, and you’re sending her coupons for baby clothes and cribs? Are you trying to encourage her to get pregnant?”

The manager didn’t have any idea what the man was talking about. He looked at the mailer. Sure enough, it was addressed to the man’s daughter and contained advertisements for maternity clothing, nursery furniture and pictures of smiling infants. The manager apologized and then called a few days later to apologize again.

On the phone, though, the father was somewhat abashed. “I had a talk with my daughter,” he said. “It turns out there’s been some activities in my house I haven’t been completely aware of. She’s due in August. I owe you an apology.”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/

Funny enough, last week Carolyn Cross in our class told me she got a letter in the mail, addressed to her from Target that said, “Congratulations on your engagement!”  Carolyn is actually single and thought the letter was funny, but sent to the wrong person who just went through a bad break-up that coupon book could be disastrous.  We have all of this rich consumer data it truly is important that it is used in an accurate, non-intrusive, and ethical way.

Consumer privacy is something that I will have to think about in my next role in CPG brand management.  Traditionally, a CPG company that produces products that are sold in retailers/grocery stores will get their data from grocery loyalty cards and Nielsen data.  Recently, more and more brands are reaching consumers through Facebook and their own websites.  Big brands probably don’t need to buy consumer data from companies such as those mentioned in the article, but who knows?  The more data we have the better we will be able to reach those key consumers.  I think there is still some grey area around this topic and as I move into the “real world” it is definitely something I will have to be aware of.

Creativity

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE - Target

My last job was in the merchandising pyramid at Target’s corporate offices.  Target is a company that has a reputation for being creative, especially when it comes to their advertising.  I really enjoyed working for a company that is seen as artistic, modern and “cool”.  But, for the most part the creativity that was seen by outsiders was a function of the marketing pyramid.  The actual office setting was much more traditional for a large corporation, especially in the merchandising pyramid.

One thing that Target did really well to foster creativity was to transition people into new roles fairly often.  An employee would typically spend 18-24 months in one role before being promoted or moved to another category.  For example, I started as a Business Analyst and spent 12 months running the film, one-time-use camera, and camcorder categories.  I was then promoted to Sr. Business Analyst and changed categories to digital photo frames and kid’s cameras.  After another 12 months I was promoted to another division to manage the remodel/P-Fresh (adding fresh grocery to an existing general merchandise store) projects.  The grocery business was very different than the electronics business, but I was still able to connect my past experience with this new category and make changes to existing processes.  After 18 months I moved to a manager role in completely new categories.  This is fairly typical at Target – once you feel like you know exactly what you are doing and how to run your business you are moved somewhere completely different with very different categories.  This focus on getting exposure to multiple businesses not only expands an employee’s business knowledge, but also expands their network.  This style supports the article’s claim of the importance of devoting time to cross-pollinating with fields outside of our area of expertise.  I definitely experienced increased creative problem solving in my more recent roles because I had a larger knowledge base and also had more people to bounce ideas off of.

Target does do a few things that probably hinder creativity.  First of all, they are known to hire by “fit” which means that many of the people who work there are very homogeneous.  It is a lot of Type A, young (average age in merchandising is 25), and many are from the Midwest (because it is hard to get people to move to MN).  Around Minneapolis Target is known as slightly cultish because all of the employees look somewhat alike and they all socialize mostly with other Target employees.  This homogeneity inhibits creativity because many of us had similar experiences in our past.  I would also say that the office surroundings do not inspire creativity.  The 26 floors in the main building all look exactly the same (cubicles, corner offices for directors, conference rooms).  But, many employees take the time to decorate their cubes with Target branded items (stuffed dogs, mugs, etc.) and items from their business. For example, the best smelling floor in the building was the Household, Personal, Baby floor because of all of the cleaning supplies and detergents that decorate the cubes.  People seemed to be happier and work more productively in an environment in which they were able to express some of their creativity within.

  CREATIVITY CHARACTERISTICS 

I believe there are many different ways in which people can be creative.  I traditionally think of creativity in the more artistic way as in painting, music, film, design, etc.  Throughout my life I have tried to participate in these activities and have always felt moderately sufficient at them.  But, I recognized that there were many people who had far greater creative skills than me.  I do think that it was important for me to try my hand at these skills at some point in my life so that I could better appreciate people who were above and beyond creative.  I do think that I am capable of being creative in a variety of ways, but maybe not a shining star in the arts.  I hope that my creativity will be able to show through in my career in marketing.  Although working in brand management at a CPG will have elements of creativity, there will also be a lot of hard work and analytical thinking (which I think I am better at).  What I am the most excited for is working with the creative agencies to get more exposure to different working and thinking styles.  The advice that I took from this article was:

• Make sure to seek out different points of views and get different experiences
• Let you mind rest and your brain will keep working on a solution
• Innovation can come from understanding pain points

ARTICLE ANALYSIS

I really enjoyed this article and the claim that creativity is a skill that anyone can learn.  Something that stood out to me as a really relevant point was the idea that creativity and innovative solutions can come out of a pain point.  The example they gave was the man who invented the post-it glue when he realized the pain of keeping his place in his church choir book.  I like the creative process that comes with solving a problem – it seems more realistic to me than someone just coming up with an idea out of thin air.  For example, I was visiting a friend over spring break that has a two year old.  She showed me one of his toys which was a simple bubble blowing toy.  But instead of pulling out the wand and getting your fingers all sticky you squeeze the bottle and the wand floats up to the top.  Then you can easily blow bubbles for kids without the mess.  I like this creative process – identify a pain point and come up with a creative solution.  This process can be enhanced by the many ways they spoke about in the article such as seeking out diverse experiences, cross-pollinating with other fields, and collecting lots of dots and later linking them together.

At the end of the article he gives ten quick “hacks” for improving creativity.  The few that I related to the most were:

•  “Get Groggy” – I tend to get sparks of creativity right before I go to bed or right away in the morning.  It seems like my brain is just working in the background when I am not directly thinking about the problem at hand.
•   “Think Like a Child” – I relate this one to solving pain points.  As an adult most of us have come to accept things that we can’t control or think are minor annoyances, but kids might see them as something that would be able to be fixed.
• “Work Outside the Box” – It is important to get outside of your cube to get your mind moving.
•  “Move to a Metropolis” – I like this idea because it really does promote diverse thinking and an increased exposure to more creative activities and people.