Don’t you just love those pithy sound bites that make for highly quotable quotes? Here’s one from Tony Effik of Publicis Modem New York: “Privacy, in its traditional form, is dead.” He and several other experts share their thoughts on personalised targeting in the current edition of Admap.

“Eventually, most media will become IP-enabled and connected to the internet, or the ‘cloud', enabling advertisers to track behaviour across devices and better target advertising based on specific audience nuances, needs and stage in the purchase process.” – Norm Johnston, Mindshare Worldwide (Addressable TV)

“The better-quality data you have about a customer, the more relevant you can make the content and the timeliness of the message, so that, over time, customers will be happier to receive messages and be timelier in their response.” – Tracey Follows, VCCP (The race for relevancy)

But many concerns about privacy continue to be raised. “Our research shows that 65% of consumers believe targeted advertising is an abuse of privacy,” Ged Egan reports. “But at the same time, 64% of consumers think advertising tailored to their individual tastes and interests is a good idea.”

Wha? How can this be reconciled?

“Consumers need to feel engaged with the marketing communications they receive,” Egan explains. “The key to delivering successful initiatives is establishing a reciprocal relationship with consumers that respects their privacy and reassures them of the benefits of receiving tailored messaging. This should form part of a holistic approach that embraces new marketing strategies, while improving traditional tried-and-tested techniques.”

As Effik continues: “New technologies are emerging that will begin to help consumers to redress the imbalances in the free media model. In the near future, we will all use intelligent agents that handle our day-to-day transactions. These agents will be smart software, configured to handle our commercial lives. They will know what we like, what we can afford, what we are running out of, and how to get it to us. They will also handle our privacy and will know what the best rate for our data is. Data will not be something consumers unwittingly give for free, but, rather, a tradeable commodity that our intelligent agents market on our behalf.”

Doesn’t this still make a lot of assumptions about who we are and what we like? Perhaps social media won’t be the end of gender after all:

 

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