Is Privacy a Lost Cause?

Corbis image

Imagine yourself in a room with eyes on the walls - your every thought, action and move observed and scrutinized. I know it sounds creepy but that is sort of the world we live in nowadays.

With an increase in consumer tracking methods and GPS everywhere, privacy is really hard to come by these days.

Stats reveal that privacy is a top concern for consumers and something they strive for, yet the irony is that most consumers (me included) knowingly or unknowingly partake in things that make privacy a thing of the past. 

We buy products and services online, we download a million apps, we share our stories and pictures on social media, we sign up for grocery deliveries, we visit all kinds of websites, we research travel destinations, health issues, watch online shows, we wear or carry mobile devices that track our every move, our every step, and our given location. 

Google knows it all.

We’re generously feeding information into the digital world and by doing so, allowing others to “see us” and create profiles of who we are and what we’re all about. While there are pros and cons to all this, I can see how consumers may be skeptical about the possible misuse of information.

Nonetheless, all these eyes and ears on us, allow advertisers to collect massive amounts of data and therefore be able to personalize content and ads specifically geared to our needs and interests.

While I find this type of data useful as a marketing strategic planner - who devises communication strategies relevant to our target audience -  data is not everything.

Data is just numbers, data is cold, data by itself doesn’t motivate. Yes, data tells me that you’re looking for a new car, that you’re very active on Facebook, that you like sushi, that you want to renovate your home, or that your looking for natural cough remedies and what not. But what data doesn’t give us is CONTEXT.

Without human insight and context, data is meaningless.

I find it refreshing that Generation Z, who are digital natives, practice more caution with what they share or are willing to put out there. This is seen with the proliferation of more anonymous social media outlets like Snapchat and Whisper. 

Image by Mario Azzi

My eleven-year old Gen Z’er is sometimes apprehensive when I post pictures or videos of him on my Facebook account. When I asked him about it, his answer surprised me: “I don’t want people to judge me. One picture or video is not all of me. It’s just bits and pieces of who I am, so they are not really seeing all of me and all that I am.”  My jaw dropped to the floor and I realized he is definitely onto something.

So while in the online world, data is king, in my planning world, data with the right context rules.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What is Hispanic Marketing Nowadays?

Image
The Latino community in the U.S. is more diverse than ever. Take my niece Nicole who was born in the U.S. but is bicultural and bilingual.   Throw her in a room full of Latinos and she is able to hold her own with all the jokes and innuendos, not to mention the music and dancing. Put her in a room full of Non-Hispanics and she’s just as comfortable and in her element. While she listens to some Spanish-language music, almost all of her media consumption is in English. My nephew Bryan, on the other hand, who was also born in the U.S., has gone through great lengths to retro-acculturate with his Hispanic roots. He proudly wears the colors of his motherland flag, speaks Spanish perfectly, follows his fútbol team religiously, drinks ‘mate’ every day, and consumes hours of Spanish language media from here and there. So what is Hispanic marketing nowadays with such diversity within our own community? This question sometimes keeps me up at night because it’s what I do for a living. I
Read more

Marketing At Its BEST

Image
You know when you see a really good movie it stays with you for days? For really good movies, you may find yourself thinking about it often or quoting directly from it. Well this is pretty much the effect that the “We All Grow” Summit had on me this past week. Which is a pretty cool thing given that it was a conference and not a movie.  Who thought conferences could be so engaging and so much fun?!  This conference made an incredibly strong impact on me.   It spoke to me not just as a professional, but as a woman, as a mom, and as a Latina. I had the opportunity to learn many new things, to connect with like-minded women, and to get my creative ideas flowing. Just like the name implies, I grew at this conference… I grew my thinking, I grew my network, I grew my ideas, and I grew my confidence. As great as it was, I was very impressed with the brands that sponsored this conference, especially Neutrogena and Dove, who took the conference experience to a whole different l
Read more

Let’s Engage In Trash Talk

Image
My family and I spent the 4 th of July weekend enjoying all that nature has to offer. It’s humbling to be out in nature surrounded by majestic trees, big boulders and different bodies of water. It forces me to be in the present and to appreciate everything nature has to offer. The earth is indeed a beautiful place and its natural beauty is something we all enjoy and should always cherish. Unfortunately, as part of the landscape there was A LOT of litter…in the river, on the side of the highway, and in different campgrounds. Ironically, we are in a severe drought in California, yet we are drowning in litter. Being outdoors induces a great desire in me to protect our natural resources even more because as splendid as it is, our mother earth is being depleted and polluted and drastically needs our help and protection.   While we were out exploring, I noticed that a lot of the trash pertained to big brand names belonging to sodas, water bottles, cigarettes, beers, chips, and even
Read more