“No Better Than Chance”

Why spring might be the best time to poach your competitors' customers... Nearly half of brands planning to hire marketers plan to do so remotely... And more!

How Accurate Are Data Brokers?

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At some point in your marketing career, you may end up buying data from one of the big data brokers — like Experian, or Acxiom, or LiveRamp.

These firms collects masses of consumer data from thousands of sources, then try to match the all data to individual people, providing as complete a record of a person’s age, interests, socio-economic status and so on. Often, marketers buy these lists as a way to fill in that missing data on their own.

For instance, you might have an email list, but forgot to ask people for their gender when they signed up. So, you buy one of these databases, and match the email addresses you have with that person’s gender.

Problem is, in more cases than you might think, that data is only an educated guess. And much of it could be wrong.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to speak with Arnaud De Bruyn. He and his colleagues recently published an article in the Journal of Marketing Science called "How to Estimate Consumer Characteristics from Aggregate Data."

And he told me — despite what we might hear in sales calls from the huge data brokerages — much of their data is just incorrect.

Dr. De Bruyn: When you go talk to [data brokers like] Experian, or Acxiom, or LiveRamp, they claim that they have a lot of information about everybody. But actually, it's like Swiss cheese. There is a lot of holes in their database. The way they insert the information they don't have about [consumers] is that they take whatever information they have, and then based on that information, they assign [them] to a group of customers in terms of socio demographics, or customer habits or whatever.

Tod: So this would be like if they have a gap for my age, for instance, they might look at the first name "Tod" and say, well, "Tod" was more popular in the 70s than it was in the 2000s. And it would also assign me as male.

Dr. De Bruyn: Exactly. They're going to say, We don't know Tod's age, but we're going to infer it based on his first name. We don't know Tod's income, but we can based on his postal code. In a study from some colleagues of ours, they took customers about whom they knew everything, and then asked for their profiles from 19 data brokers. And some profiles were completely wrong.

For instance, in one case, when they tried to guess the gender of those customers, they were no better than chance.

Tod: Wow.

My full interview with Dr De Bruyn is up on our web site at todayindigital.com/datagaps/

Incidentally, we reached out to all three of the brokers mentioned for their comment.

  • Liveramp asked for more information, then told us they wouldn't comment

  • Acxiom, too, asked for more information, then they never emailed back

  • Experian never responded to our initial email 

Brand Loyalty Spring Cleaning

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Consumers may be doing some spring cleaning of their favourite brands this season. 

There's a great think-piece up today on Adweek exploring why customers are more likely to ditch brands in the spring, and how you can use it to your advantage.

The piece indicates that for some people, spring is a time of renewed energy, but for many consumers, the opposite is true-and their malaise may worsen.

It is a season of change for both groups, which has implications for marketing messages. 

How can you target consumers with discordant moods? The article suggests there are three major implications.

  1. First, branding and conquest. 

Marketers can lean into the season with a 'change' message. Target new consumers and focus more on brand differentiation than at other times of the year.

It is a great time to market a "change" message-which can be delivered through a conquest campaign aimed directly at customers of a competitor.

  1. Second, spring is the season for major decisions, especially large purchases including;

  • Houses

  • Cars

  • Clothes and more 

Often, these purchases coincide with major life events like proms, graduations and weddings, setting the stage for a period of change. Marketers should be aware of these triggers, acknowledge them and, if appropriate, target them.

  1. Finally, it's important to push positive mood creative. 

Spring is not the time for “shock value” creative or negative emotional leverage. According to the article, marketers should instead provide emotional validation through familiarity and nostalgia, and in general emphasize positive emotions in their content.

Marketers Want to Work Remotely

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Will marketing become a work-from-home industry? 

New research found that close to half of brands looking to recruit marketers plan to hire remotely.

What are marketers' feelings towards a hybrid work model?  

  • Nearly 9 out of 10 say their work-life balance has improved due to hybrid working

  • While 6 out of 10 say they prefer hybrid work, and

  • Only 5% opted to return to the office full time

The overwhelming majority of employees choosing home over a cubicle likely contributed to why nearly three-quarters of companies say they are rethinking the way the workplace is used, if at all. 

According to the report, two-thirds of those planning to hire marketers indicate that proximity to the office is no longer a priority.

Data has been provided by Hays’ quarterly insights survey. 

TikTok’s Marketing Insights Tool

TikTok launched a new marketing insights tool that can help you target Gen Zs from all over the world.

Yesterday, the platform unveiled its interactive insights platform called TikTok Insights, which provides a range of data points, which you can filter down to specific market segments.

Data filters include;

  • Location

  • Demographic

  • Industry vertical

  • Holidays & events

  • Date, and more

If, for example, you wanted to know what the key trends are among users in the U.S. over Christmas, you could use the data filters and receive information like:

  • Holiday purchase categories where Tiktok played a role 

  • The Top 3 categories for Christmas shopping on TikTok, and more

The tool is very similar to Meta's interactive insights tool which is designed to provide you with a more customized view of key data points for your brand.

Images: TikTok 

LinkedIn Banner Helps Others Get Jobs

Image: Backing Banners

If you’re looking to end your work week with a good deed, here is how you can pay it forward to help a marketing professional. 

An organic social media campaign is using LinkedIn banners to promote an ad for someone else. The initiative called "Backing Banners" encourages established advertising professionals to use their LinkedIn real-estate to back new creatives. 

Banners to promote each individual or agency have been pre-designed and are available to download which can then be added to your profile.

Anyone who clicks on the ads will be directed to the creatives' portfolios of work - along with their LinkedIn pages, where they can be contacted about potential work.

To participate:

  1. Head to backingbanners.com

  2. Choose a creative

  3. Download their assets

  4. Update your LinkedIn banner

Meta Turns Off AR Filters

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Select social media filters have been banned in a couple of states in the U.S. 

Meta has halted the use of its augmented reality filters and avatars across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Messenger Kids, and Portal in Illinois and Texas as a result of facial recognition and privacy laws, Adweek reports. 

Meta noted that it would develop a new opt-in experience to allow Illinois and Texas residents to access these features again.

The company also stated that “The technology we use to power AR effects like avatars and filters is not facial recognition or any technology covered by the Texas and Illinois laws, and is not used to identify anyone.”

Musk Pauses Twitter Deal

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And finally, in today's episode of "is Elon Musk just trolling us all?" 

Musk tweeted early this morning that the Twitter deal is "temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users".

As Musk is notorious for trolling, it's impossible to tell if this is:

  1. Real

  2. Serious

  3. A tactic to get a better deal

  4. Because he's getting cold feet, or 

  5. If he ever really intended to buy the platform at all 

However, in another tweet just a couple of hours later he stated that he's "Still committed to acquisition".

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