Session three: Where do we go from here?
The tech regulatory spotlight has shifted recently, away from data privacy and ownership issues towards those around anti-trust and fake news. The public have been largely made aware of the issues and regulators have sought to address them. Now the industry can continue to move forward with perhaps less heated scandal and a more nuanced approach to regulation.
“There are generational differences in people’s attitudes to sharing data in order to access services,” says Eyeota’s Kristina Prokop. “The topic of privacy won’t go away but the stance will change periodically and as an industry, we have to get ahead of it.”
“Privacy will evolve into a mission-driven marketing model where consumers will ask themselves: What is the point of this exchange? Where are we going, and do I agree with its purpose?” Timur Yarnell from Neutronian says.
As ‘cause marketing’ becomes more mainstream, Athlete First Partners’ Jene Elzie thinks that corporate social responsibility and marketing groups will come even closer together.
“Consumers want to know what their brand stands for, so marketers need to know that the quality of data is sufficient to understand what their audience is thinking about.”
The pandemic factor
The Covid crisis has undoubtedly accelerated digital transformation and forced companies to modernize and extract more information out of data.
New trends in consumer interest have emerged, such as health and hygiene, whereas travel has declined, and online retail has increased. Although peoples’ online behaviors have settled a bit more compared to earlier in the year, there is little doubt that a lot has changed since 2019.
“What isn’t changing,” says Prokop. “Is the discipline required to understand where spend is going and the quality of data needed to track new behaviors.”
“There has also been an acceleration of new customers for brands coming online and they are being driven there from many different channels. Brands have to adapt to this,” she adds.
Jene Elzie agrees. “People are learning new skill sets and adopting new interests so brands have to get new insights from their data. Change is why it’s fun! And it’s exciting too!”