Will GDPR be the change of digital marketing as we know it?

The new General Data Protection Regulation, henceforth referred to as GDPR, is established for preventing companies from using personal data. GDPR will be valid in the European Union in May 2018 and will create changes in the digital landscape that will both help and harm publishers according to Ross Benes (2017). These potential advantages and disadvantages that GDPR brings for publishers have Benes listed in his article “The GDPR will help or hurt publishers, depending on who you ask”, these will shortly be presented below.

Source: https://static.pexels.com/photos/113885/pexels-photo-113885.jpe

“Publishers that users regularly visit could benefit from the regulation”, said Yves Schwarzbart, head of policy and regulatory affairs at Interactive Advertising Bureau U.K. The reason for this is that users will spend more time on less sites, because the visitors do not want to deal with all new annoying prompts, he says. Therefore users will only accept prompts on web pages that they like the most or visit most often. While the access of personal data will be reduced by GDPR, the advertisers have to change strategy. A new strategy could instead be to buy more ads on the well-known brands sites, which will increase the income for premium publishers. But on the other hand, while a few publishers will have benefits from GDPR many other publishers will struggle to keep their position because of the new strict privacy controls. The regulation can also give Facebook and Google more benefits and increased control in the digital landscape. In first hand Google make their money from searching by keywords and not by using personal data. And Facebook has a login account, which means that their users accept Facebook's terms and conditions on the web page, which means that it is not so difficult to get the users permission to use their personal data. For the publishers it is a lot more difficult.  It is still not clear how the new regulation will be enforced, but if the users need to accept every publisher and web page the companies will probably not have enough of data to continue with the measurement that is used today. This will lead to a new marketing approach (Benes, 2017).

We believe that this new regulation will impact the way companies deals with marketing today, and also that the regulation in short term will hit some companies harder than others. The main point though is not the regulation, but the increased knowledge of the users and their need of privacy. Internet is the new “living room” in the society today and in that living room people expect to have privacy, at least to a certain extent. The need of privacy is universal, and therefore people will fight for it. The knowledge and the debate about the privacy situation (or the non privacy situation) online increase and this will force companies to think more ethical and change their way of how they use personal information. Otherwise people will boycott those web pages and publishers that do not change their way of acting. For this reason, companies will need to change their marketing approach, and not solely because of GDPR. The focus on how the new regulation harms and helps publishers is therefore not essential in this case. What companies need to focus on are how they can help users to keep their privacy online, otherwise they will lose their reputation and position. This is also for Google and Facebook a necessary issue, to connect to Bennes (2017), they are not safe.

Emilia Djerv & Louise Wendel

Reference:

https://digiday.com/media/gdpr-will-help-hurt-publishers-depending-ask/

Amazon, the real US Giant

Amazon, the real US Giant

Thanks to latest data collected, research regarding November 2016 shows that in the US, eight in ten Amazon shoppers purchase an item from the Pure Player at least once a month.

Radial which is an omni-channel technology solution provider and Finn Partners, a strategy communication company have done a poll by asking a thousand US Amazon buyers who purchase at least one item the last year:

On these thousand buyers, only 1% said they had only bought one item in this year, whereas the others shop regularly.

About 25% said they purchase one item a month in average, and more than 50% said they purchase several time a month from the e-commerce giant.

There are different reasons why people shop that much on Amazon. First of all, there is this network effect and that Amazon is Amazon, one a the biggest company in the world, part of the GAFA (Google Amazon Facebook Apple) so basically when people think about online shopping, people think of Amazon, obviously.

But the two main reasons why Amazon manages to gather so many clients are because of its huge product selection and its very competitive prices. To illustrate it, about 40% of the respondent said the primary reason for them to shop is because of the product selection, and about 30% said they were attracted by the competitive prices.

Reviews is also a factor to be taken in consideration, more than half of Amazon buyers said that reviews had helped them in their purchase decisions, even more than online ads, social media or even personal advice. 80% of the Pure Player leader consumers agree to say that reviews enable them to conclude their decision to purchase.

Native advertising is bringing trust back in advertising world

The article « Why are B2B brands so obsessed with native advertising? »  represents interesting facts and figures about the bright and dark side of the native advertising comparing to the content marketing. There is one big evil reason why people hate native advertising - it makes them feel cheated, lied to and taken advantage of. With that said, native advertising isn’t always evil. As much as people hate it when it’s bad, they can really like it when it’s good. It raises brand awareness, build relationships and drive leads.

There is one reason why brands turned to native advertising because of superior data empowers greater stories. With abundant understanding of end users, marketer can aim to reach the users on topic that is significant to them. Perfect ability of understanding information that defines users can change whole marketing view. The more you know about the customer data point better you make marketing view. Native advertising is all about narrating good marketing stories.

The future of native advertising is joint to marketer’s capability of reaching the end users with connected and appropriate information rather than forcing and focusing on sales. Native advertising is always better then displaying advertising for products for growing sales and customers. Native advertising is bringing the trust back in advertising world.

Thompson, A. (2015, February 17). Why Are B2B Brands So Obsessed with Native Advertising? Retrieved December 01, 2016, from https://radius.com/2015/02/17/b2b-brands-obsessed-native-advertising/