Hello Big Data, I see you

I would like to concentrate your attention on this picture and give you 3 minutes to have a few thoughts on it.

David Parkins has created this genius animation for The Economist newspaper, May 6th, 2017 and it was the main cover under the screaming header “The world’s most valuable resource”. And it is an understandable header for the world we live in today. But for me as a human who uses Internet every 10 minutes from different devices, it is terrifying what the amount of data is collected online every time I make a click and where it goes after.

I receive hundreds of product offers every day based on my search or purchase behavior. I am the Millennial generation, who loves to purchase online goods, however, every website I use requires my personal details, such as email, phone number, credit card details to the point of my occupation. We all know the existence of such thing as cookies, it is settled on our devices. So for those who still don't know, a cookie is so-called the small piece of data that is stored on every computer while browsing the Internet. Let's take a real-life example of a product on the shelf at the groceries store with its unique barcode that is scanned at the purchase counter. The same with each user visiting the website, we all have that unique barcode with the data that is being scanned. From theoretical part, let's jump into the tactical application of it in digital marketing and understand how can a computer understand our needs and offer exactly the products we want.

There is a term in digital marketing named as programmatic, so if a company wants to buy a space online to advertise their product or service, they use programmatic in order to offer a consumer what they exactly want using the data stored on their website. Examples of companies who use those types of services are massive amount National Geographic’s, The Economist, Vodafone, Dell and the list continues. Only imagine how big is their database, they know all your patterns and demographics that is how they stand out from all the crowd, they understand their customer from A to Z, which is pretty impressive and good for them. Receiving personalized approach is nice for us since we see how they think about their customers, makes us feel unique and be loyal to those companies, but not everyone questions themselves about how is all that data is stored? Is it protected from “bad guys”? Is it being transferred anywhere else? And how accurate do they use the data? Bare that in mind.

In the meantime, I will give you an example of the targeted advertisement from 2012.

Target discount store retailer in the United States has sent an email with product offers to teenager girl who was pregnant, but the information still wasn’t revealed to a father of her child and Target made her life “easier” by sending him an email with offering baby diapers, read the Forbes article here. So you ask was that a good digital marketing tactic, I mean good usage of resources for sure, but was it ethically right, I will say no. Again, we come back to the conclusion that machines do make mistakes in a HUMAN approach (Find my previous article here).

Going back to programmatic topic, I would like all of my dear readers to go now on any retail store website, think of Harrods as the department store for example, and I want you to shop for anything of your interest, lets say coats, choose anything you like and click buy, that will add your product into the basket (but don't purchase it, leave it in the basket) and then close the website/tab. Now I want you to go on The Economist website, I will give you a hint click here that will take you to the article “The world’s most valuable resource” mentioned earlier, have you noticed anything interesting, besides the subscription offer? Right, the brand advertisement of the chosen coat, which is everywhere on top of the page or on the right-hand side, you might even see a suggestion on a different coat. “That is scary, you might say” and yes, it is.

As for me, I find it disturbing, and I think that it should be managed properly, so it’s not just out there and on any device I use. It disturbs my privacy and seems like the machine is learning from my behavior, which makes me think to throw away my computer sometimes.

But there is more…

How else do you know that you are being tracked, there is an existence of so-called “Java Virus” sometimes you get a pop up on your computer saying please update your Java for better Google Chrome usage. And this message seems to be so accurate and looks like the system is offering you this option and you fall for it, but once you install it, the system shows you a message about the security issue and that it is on your risk to let your computer install this application. I will tell you something interesting, in digital marketing especially if you are working with websites, it requires knowledge of Java language. Do you understand what I am talking about? Big Data collection right into your face or computer, in this case, ladies and gentlemen. Java is everywhere already, on desktops, mobiles, tablets, PCs, and Macs.

That said, all the points were mentioned above to aware us that those things are happening right now, and they won’t stop happening in near future. It also tells us that we should be aware of our personal data that is stored on our computers. Yes, we buy products online that we are happy with, but what happens after the purchase?