This document discusses challenges related to personalization and privacy online for brands and communications practitioners. It notes that privacy as we traditionally knew it is effectively dead due to the vast amount of personal data now collected online. However, consumers are increasingly concerned about their privacy and how companies use their data. The document argues that while privacy should still be respected, fears are often overblown as most people are not important enough to be surveillance targets and benefit greatly from connectivity. It concludes that companies must find a balance between customization and privacy to build trust with consumers.

1. Eyes
on
ly.
personalisation and
privacy-Online
Advisory for brand
and communications
practitioners:in 2015
and the near future.
DAve Holland
Hyper Island Singapore
February 2 0 1 5

2. 2
This document serves to
outline challenges faced by
the broader communications,
marketing and branding
industries as a whole, beyond
the brief’s remit of one (my)
organization only - given that
as a sole proprietor I am not
at scale enough to sufficiently
touch on a meaningful
breadth of content regarding
personalisation and privacy
online in MY business alone.
As such, I have covered the
things I feel are worth advising
to both clients and agencies
alike - in doing so though, I
have out of necessity gone
beyond the five page limit
stipulated.

3. 3
Privacy as
we know
it is dead,
never to
return,
a group of concerned Harvard University
professors told a session of the global
business, political and technology elite
at the World Economic Forum in Davos,
Switzerland1
earlier this year, and similarly,
businessman, social media guru and
Vaynermedia founder Gary Vaynerchuk
stated Privacy is DEAD, and it’s not a Big
Deal!
A decade ago, many of us would have
been aghast at how today’s Facebook
and other social media users voluntarily
surrender what surely would have then
been considered a frightening amount
of their personal data. Today, that’s just
chalked up as the price of doing business in
an increasingly connected — and monitored
world.
I do agree, looking at the richer lives we are
able to now live as a result of being more
easily in reach.
Unfortunately, large organizations haven’t
done a great job over the past few years
building of trust where personal data
(and privacy) is concerned. From identity
theft scandals and compromised data to
unscrupulous marketing and revelations of
government snooping, we’re being steadily
conditioned to see information sharing
of any sort as a dangerous prospect.
According to a recent consumer survey,
data privacy concern is at an all-time high,
with 92% of US internet users worrying
about their online privacy (TRUSTe),
and this can be seen to be reasonably
understandable from a privacy perspective,
if one looks back at how today’s
conversation about privacy online builds
onto the long shadow cast from decades of
government-public-corporate suspicion:
From the F.B.I.’s Cointelpro (Counter-
intelligence Program) to target political
groups and individuals, begun in 1956, to
1972’s Watergate scandal, Snowden and
the NSA in 2014, Assange and Wikileaks,
and the Sony Hack - the (online) privacy
theme is NOT a new concern. However, it
can be seen to be overstated at times as
something realistically to be concerned
about online, in my opinion.
If paranoid thinking can be defined as
typically including persecutory beliefs,
or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a
perceived threat towards oneself, then the
mainstream media construct has done a
great job of conditioning a herd mentality to
high levels of paranoia regarding where our
rights rest with regards to how much of our
lives are, and how much should be, within
reach the broader internet public and/or
authorities. For sure though, we are living
in a more cynical world, which could be a
terminal condition disabling us from seeing
the a macro picture of where we should
choose to focus our concerns.
However, ‘a chilling observation’ made
in 1975 by Senator Frank Church, then
chairman of a select committee on
intelligence, stated The United States
government had perfected “a technological
capability that enables it to monitor the
messages that go through the air.”
The documents leaked last year by
the former National Security Agency
contractor Edward Snowden, amplify our
understanding of the N.S.A.’s sweeping
ambitions, and demonstrate how they have
grown directly from the US government’s
decades-old intentions, methods and reach,
providing detailed insights into what he
(Snowden) calls the agency’s “corporate
partnerships,” which “extend beyond
intelligence and defence contractors
to include the world’s largest and most
important Internet corporations and
telecoms” - the services and business
brands we now rely on and use almost
every hour today. This capability, Senator
Church presciently added (in 1975),
could at any time “be turned around on
the American people, and no American
would have any privacy left, such is the
capability to monitor everything: telephone
conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter.
There would be no place to hide”
But who’s needing to hide? Let’s face
it, most of us, as much as we think
the opposite, are not that compelling
or important in the grand scheme of
things (I speak for myself first here), and
mainstream media, who ‘traditionally avoid
publishing anything that would put them at
odds with the government, are as such less
helpful when it comes to the interests of
the general public’2
and how we shape our
view of the world ‘out there’.

4. 4
Not to say that we are not all entitled to determine who knows what about us, and when
- we are - but I will also venture that most of our lives’ details and relationships, are never
going to be national security concerns, and as such, we should contemplate the ‘privacy
issue’ with a moderated mind and realistic outlook with respect to where we should
reasonably shoulder our burdens of worry.
Vaynerchuk asks, “who really cares about the Snowden event? No-one really. We are living
through a time where unfounded fears are repeating themselves as they have historically
(around different issues)”3
, and Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, once said: “If you
have something you don’t want people to know about, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it
in the first place” – (although later he amusingly catalogues the lengths to which Silicon
Valley bosses “who devalued our privacy” have gone to protect their own).
It can be reasonably argued that given the wealth of open information available to us
across all channels today, a mindfulness regarding one’s privacy online is becoming
everyone’s personal concern, and not simply that of service and content providers,
and their advertisers - privacy is increasingly a personal choice issue. As such, Rethink
Robotics chairman Rodney Brooks cited the ability of Google Maps to predict a user’s
destination as an example of how people are increasingly accepting an erosion of their
privacy as the price to pay for living (better off) in a hyper-connected world.
It’s a fair and measured trade-off. “Mainstream media has done a good job of instilling
fear and amplifying the prospect of how bad us humans are. But when you look at the
data, it’s shocking how GOOD we really are. We are happier now. We are more connected.
We are more human” (Vaynerchuk), and Big Data, especially, is going to make it hard to
keep anything private – as more and more things gather increasing contextual information
about our behaviour, so the capability to analyse and predict, to seek out the identity of
the people behind every action, will open very public windows into all our lives.4
So where to now ?
By relating this backdrop of politic and national security concern (in the US at least) in
challenging public privacy, the trickle down effect today is that we are living now in an
era where brands and companies could be seen to be the ones ’surveilling’ us, looking
for patterns of behaviours to be able to predict where and when they can touch us in
whatever way appropriate - grabbing us - or should I say, grabbing our valuable attention.
Vast amounts of personal data are collected, used and even transferred to third party
organisations for a variety of reasons, and the onset of online marketing tactics such as
behavioural targeting and mining social media data, has created the need for brands to
arm themselves to ensure they aren’t stepping on the toes of consumers from a privacy
standpoint.
This comprehensive data available from the wide (and growing!) variety of connected
devices are a marketer’s dream, and to an unknowing consumer – a potentially violating
scenario, at a personal preference scale. Businesses don’t know exactly who they’re
working with in terms of consumers’ feelings about privacy – consumers could range
from very private to more open with personal information, and “it’s important that privacy
practices keep pace with product innovation so people can trust all of the amazing,
connected technology at their fingertips without too much concern”.5
According to another recent TRUSTe survey, 60% of people say they are more concerned
about security now than they were a year ago, however, there is plenty of research to
show that consumers (sensibly) appreciate personalisation and customisation. And
according to Adobe’s ‘State of Online Advertising’ last year, 88% of those surveyed in
the EU were neutral or positive about customisation; this figure rose to 94% for the US.
brands and
companies
could be seen
to be the ones
’surveilling’ us
(today)

5. 5
So marketers face a tough challenge, as
customers seemingly want the benefits of
customisation but without giving up any
personal data.6
Email at sony. dot com
Privacy concerns though are not only
external audience-facing issues, but need
to be considered internally too. Whether
it’s fear of a third party monitoring our
mobile phone activity or concern about the
safety of online transactions, people are
increasingly concerned about their privacy,
and they’re pointing the finger at business,
not maleficent hackers.
With the Sony Pictures breach, we are
reminded that operational security –
OpSec – is absolutely key at any company.
Whether or not you traffic in high-value
data, the expectation that your servers
are secure enough and that your data
is worthless is foolhardy. You will be
compromised and it will hurt.
The primary vector for the vast majority
of attacks is email. If your IT department
and firewalls are working correctly,
the chances that you will be hacked in
your back end (server) are low. It will
happen, but the juiciest stuff is in your
email archive. It is in email where your
employees converse, where you trade
credit card numbers and passwords, and
where all the damaging one-off notes end
up. In short, we’re all idiots for trusting
email at all, but there are ways to reduce
that idiocy.
Two major steps to take to make
companies more secure:
Delete Email
While there may be some pressing legal
reason to keep gigabytes of email in your
mailbox, most of us can safely dump
messages after a pre-set amount of time.
An email archive is a garbage pile that
is chock full of exciting information for
hackers. Get rid of it.
Encrypt Email
GPGTools is a full-featured system that can
encrypt documents on the fly for OSX. If
you’re running Windows then there are
other options, including GPG4Win.7
The Sony hack has taught us to send
corporate email as if everyone is reading
those emails. The one lesson that’s the
hardest to stomach is that you may be
doing everything possible to protect
yourself online, but employers may be
laissez faire about the whole thing. This
is the position that over 6,500 current
(and many former) employees of Sony find
themselves in today.8
“The real problem lies in the fact that
there was no real investment in or real
understanding of what information
security is,” said one former employee.
One issue made evident by the leak is
that sensitive files on the Sony Pictures
network were not encrypted internally
or password-protected. Hackers found a
file with Sony usernames and passwords
called “Usernames&Passwords.” Sony
Director of Information Security Jason
Spaltro even gave an interview in 2007
whose whole point was to revel in Sony’s
security loopholes: “it’s a valid business
decision to accept the risk” of a security
breach. “I will not invest $10 million to
avoid a possible $1 million loss,” he said
at the time. This hack is estimated to cost
Sony $100 million after all is said and
done. The last one cost the company a
cool $171 million. Sony failed to secure its
computer systems, servers, and databases
(“Network”), despite weaknesses that it
has known about for years, because they
made a “business decision to accept
the risk” of losses associated with being
hacked.
Personal identifying
information (PII)
The security weaknesses in Sony’s
Network exposed sensitive personal
identifying information (“PII”) to cyber
criminals, who obtained that PII(the
“Data Breach”). This PII includes, but
is not limited to, current and former
employee names, home addresses,
telephone numbers, birthdates, Social
Security numbers, email addresses,
salaries and bonus plans, healthcare
records, performance evaluations, scans
of passports and visas, reasons for
termination,details of severance packages
and other sensitive employment and
personal information.

6. 6
Sony owed a legal duty to maintain
reasonable and adequate security
measures to secure, protect, and
safeguard the PII stored on its Network.
Sony breached that duty by one or more of
the following actions or inactions: failing to
design and implement appropriate firewalls
and computer systems, failing to properly
and adequately encrypt data, losing
control of and failing to timely re-gain
control over Sony Network’s cryptographic
keys, and improperly storing and retaining
PII on its inadequately protected Network.
In 2015, businesses must not only work
to meaningfully encrypt their data, but
they must make a public showing of the
measures they’re taking to safeguard our
personal information. One new area of
particular note in 2015: digital consent.
Lawyers could soon use our personal
data against us in court. Fitbit data,
processed through a third-party analytics
tool, was used in a courtroom late in 2014,
around the same time that the FTC began
investigating Fitbit’s practice of selling
users’ personal data to advertisers. We will
see growing demands for digital consent
agreements and increased transparency.9
Speaking of which…
Transparency and Trust
The best way to prevent consumer
concerns is to abide by global privacy best
practices and tout those strong privacy
practices to consumers. Good privacy is
really about being transparent and giving
the consumer some choice, e.g.: “We’re
going to share this information with a
third party to market to you, would you
like that to happen or not?” And then be
accountable for that choice. Companies
can safely collect data from consumers so
long as consumers are made aware of that
collection.10
Ultimately, this seemingly simple step can
help companies mitigate risk of losing
credibility and trust with consumers, given
a recent survey conducted by Ipsos MORI
on behalf of TRUSTe11
that showed that
the vast majority of consumers wanted
to know what their data is used for: 87%
of U.S. consumers, and 91% of British
consumers, are concerned about personal
information being collected and used in
ways they were unaware of.
Consumers are demanding (more)
transparency. Now is the time to get ahead
and develop a transparency strategy that
informs the consumer about online data
practices in a meaningful way that is both
comprehensive and clear. “You’ll be doing
the right thing for your business, while at
the same time complying with the fast
approaching transparency laws”.12
With big data today, “information is easily
collected to target consumers with (more)
personalised information that helps
boost brand advocacy,’ commented EY’s
managing partner for UK and Ireland
clients.13
As such, some marketers are feeling
stuck in a sort of paradoxical situation
when it comes to the competing goals of
consumer privacy and personalization.
(Econsultancy). At the same time, 73% of
US consumers prefer to buy from brands
that use their information to deliver
more relevant shopping experiences
(Accenture). Marketers are now supposed
to quell the growing consumer aversion
to sharing personal data, while still giving
them the data-driven, personalized user
experiences they demand…
Consumer identity
management
But, when it comes to managing consumer
identities and data, businesses must
adhere to an exhaustive and constantly
evolving list of privacy policies created
by lawmakers and third-party identity
providers. Compliance is becoming both
increasingly difficult and important, with
76% of consumers more likely to look for
privacy certifications and seals to address
their privacy concerns. The best cIAM
solutions provide automatic, real-time
updates to reflect various privacy policy
and account changes. They also offer
robust user controls for consumers to
view and update the data they’re sharing
and how it’s being used to inform their
experiences.14
Which leads us to:
Singapore’s Personal Data
Protection Act (PDPA)
Closer to home here in Singapore, “the
PDPA establishes a data protection law
that comprises various rules governing
the collection, use, disclosure and care of
personal data. It recognises both the rights
of individuals to protect their personal
data, including rights of access and
correction, and the needs of organisations
to collect, use or disclose personal data for
legitimate and reasonable purposes”.
Organisations will have to comply with
the PDPA as well as the common law and
other relevant laws that are applied to the
specific industry that they belong to, when
handling personal data in their possession.
The PDPA takes into account the following
concepts:
• Consent – Organisations may collect,
use or disclose personal data only with
the individual’s knowledge and consent
(with some exceptions);
• Purpose – Organisations may
collect, use or disclose personal data
in an appropriate manner for the
circumstances, and only if they have
informed the individual of purposes for
the collection, use or disclosure; and
• Reasonableness – Organisations
may collect, use or disclose personal
data only for purposes that would be
considered appropriate to a reasonable
person in the given circumstances.15

7. 7
Social login and first-party identity
But, the logged-in user revolution is here - utilising Facebook identities for example,
as a key for accessing the features across sites we choose to use, it’s now or never
for brands to put an identity-centric customer strategy (external identity management)
in place to stay relevant in the age of the connected consumer, and for delivering on
both privacy and personalization17
. Social login, gives access to users’ social graphs
(the data picture of them) via permission-based first party data collection, and these
consumer social profiles house rich, real-time insight into relationships, hobbies and
media preferences, which can be used to effectively personalize content, product
recommendations, discounts and more18
. Today, brands that get it are placing an
emphasis on collecting and managing their own first-party data to get a more accurate
view of their customers and connecting to them in more meaningful ways.
First party permissions
Traditionally, marketers have relied on mass third party data to provide insight into
consumers’ digital activity and improve targeting and conversions, and much of the
concern around data privacy has been perpetuated by the use of third-party data
techniques, collecting and selling consumer data around search history and browsing
behaviours without consent, resulting in misguided insights and irrelevant messaging.
71% of consumers state that they are ‘very concerned’ about online companies selling
or sharing information about them without their permission (Consumer Reports), causing
more and more marketers to make the transition from traditional 3rd party re-targeting
to first-party identity data. Because it comes directly from customers via registration and
on-site interactions, first-party data is not only more accurate than third-party insights, it
is also completely permission-based.
Not only do third party data collection techniques damage brand trust (amassing data
typically via dropping cookies on unassuming users and tracking their way across the
internet), but most mountains of third party data are built by piecing together users’
browser history in an attempt to provide insight into their preferences and behaviours.
But what happens when multiple users browse the internet using the same device, or
decide to ‘delete cookies’ (I’ll touch on these later) or browse incognito? Zeroing in on
individual consumer identity, rather than page-level activity, gives brands a much more
clear and accurate view into the preferences and needs driving consumer behaviour.
the logged-in
user revolution
is here!
Facebook
No report on personalization and privacy
would be credible without touching on
Facebook. Facebook’s growing size,
massive user database, and increasing
emphasis on advertising revenue
continues to worry users. A recently
launched Facebook alternative called
Ello was generating 50,000 new member
requests per hour—not only because it
was ad-free but because it provides a
safe haven for members of the lesbian,
gay, bisexual, and transgender community
unhappy that Facebook forced them to
use their real names.
But even if they flee Facebook, it seems,
the social network may still have ways
to betray their privacy16
. We learned
about ‘shadow profiles’ last year when
security researchers at a company
called Packetstorm discovered Facebook
was maintaining its own files on users’
contacts. For example, if Facebook found
two users were connected to a non-
member—say, bob@wired.com—it would
pool other information—different phone
numbers, for example—into one master
dossier, which could be used to build
dossiers on people who aren’t even on the
social network.

8. 8
Marketers can gain a much more ethical and accurate view of
consumers by collecting their own first-party data points - that’s
data and information gleaned directly from users, not ‘bought’
third party. By requesting that consumers opt-in to sharing
particular personal information, brands can take full control of
maintaining customer data privacy and security, while consumers
gain total transparency around the information they share.
Perhaps even provide a ‘command center’ where they can view
and edit their shared data. Avoid asking for too much information
at registration, and instead create opportunities to request
additional data points as consumer trust is built over time19
. This
longer term more relational technique, called progressive profiling,
I will touch on next.
Using transparent first-party collection techniques, like social
login, marketers can request access to specific, meaningful data
points, as well as telling consumers how this data will be used to
improve their user experiences. More than half of consumers are
willing to share their information with brands as long as it is for
their benefit (Get Elastic). Taking this approach allows brands to
personalize user experiences that lend to higher conversion rates
and repeat customers. Proof? 73% of consumers prefer to do
business with brands that personalize the shopping experience
(Digital Trends), while in-house marketers who personalize their
web experiences see an average 19% uplift in sales (Monetate).
Savvy marketers are identifying platforms that synthesize first and
third-party data, building custom target audiences and leveraging
unique attribution. The result is exceptional ad performance and
increased brand perceptions. In this mobile era, context plus
relevancy drives engagement that leads to higher conversions and
to happier and longer-lasting customers.20
Progressive Profiling
One technique to strike a balance between privacy and
personalization is to refrain from asking consumers for too
much information up front. Instead, focus on building individual
consumer relationships, and start ‘getting to know them’ by
requesting that they verify their identities and provide basic
information only. From there, tactics like progressive profiling
allows a brand to collect consumer information incrementally
over time as trust is built. 49% of consumers are receptive to
having trusted brands track their data in return for personalization
(Accenture).
For example, many brands give consumers options like sharing
products or content on-site directly with their social networks,
and request access to data points such as their favourite brands
and current locations in return. As we connect on a regular basis,
consumers will feel more comfortable sharing data, which can
be used to personalize user experiences in ways that feel natural
with the progression of relationships to brands.
The kind of relationship where you tell me your preferences
and background — and I change the way I act in order to
accommodate them — has historically been limited to human-
human interactions. By bringing this kind of intimacy to a brand
relationship, we’re essentially asking people to treat brands
and their tools as trusted friends - not in the social-media
jargon sense, more in that companies as entities become more
intimately relatable.
What’s needed now is a careful, intentional approach to engaging
users/consumers on par with the one that designers and
entrepreneurs used to transform the web from a set of arcane
technologies into a delightful, indispensable part of commerce
and life. It’s folly to focus only on the data, and not on the people
it measures.
This means we need to examine each new interaction from the
perspective of the user, not just the brand (design thinking):
what is the transaction demanding, in terms of action and
information, and what does it offer in return? Again and again
we’ve seen that users vary widely in their willingness to relinquish
privacy, but they all need to see a clear benefit for doing so - in
total, over a third of customers who share any personal data
are happy for companies to use it to target them with special
offers/recommendations (35%) or to develop new products and
services (30%). We must apply the practices of human-to-human
interaction to human-to-machine — and human-to-brand —
interaction in a more emotional, consistent, predictable way.
Companies like Uber struggle here not because they don’t have a
great or logical idea, but because they don’t try to understand the
emotional design needs of users, not actively pushing information
to them at every opportunity. It may sound like an unrealistic
standard for a company to live up to the expectations of friends,
but brands that ask for intimacy have no choice.
The race for personalization
In our world of mass communication, nothing feels more like
the mythical golden chalice than the word personalization. After
all, it has taken a long time to come up with the answers for the
web and now, when it seemed we have taken steps to do the
same for mobile, the game has changed almost overnight. For
most marketers, just building a site that scales to screen size
is level one personalisation. Concepts such as Responsive Web
Design have been welcome steps to make web content visually
acceptable on a mobile device, yet RWD can cause all kinds of
other problems like slow sites or introducing key functionality that
doesn’t work on every device. Even so, Responsive is still a long
way from personalized sites based on device and user context.
Marketing is more regionalised, and more localized, even
more individualized, as consumers resist homogenization.
Personalization is not a trend. It is a marketing tsunami, here
to stay, which must transform how we think about and how
we manage global brands21
. And, too many companies think
in terms of ‘digital marketing’. Instead, they should be thinking

9. 9
in terms of marketing in a digital world.
The best marketer in a digital world will
be marketing technologists, people with
heavy digital DNA, technology acumen
AND intuitive human insight, integrated
seamlessly with marketing groups and will
play an important role in how marketing
strategies are developed and applied.
Contextual data
So how can we use context, rather than
personal data, to deliver better digital
experiences to customers without it being
seen as invasive?
At the very least, brands should have the
knowledge to know their customer is on
a smartphone, tablet or PC browser; with
this data, they can drill down to the device
and deliver an experience that fits that
device template and ensure their website
works at any given point of the day. Yet,
this isn’t personalization, and again, it
paints only half a picture because it does
not drill down to specific information, such
as the browser version, which can indicate
functionality capabilities, nor does it
question the location of the device or the
user’s bandwidth quality at the time they
are connecting. Brands should be thinking
about using the visitor’s device and
contextual information to segment, target
and track things like bounce rates and
conversion. This is the future of campaign
optimization and capturing those mobile
moments means getting the information
right.
Conversational search
As ever Google is pioneering in a lot of
these areas. As search becomes more
conversational, the context of our previous
searches are used to enhance current
results. Search for ‘what time is it in New
York?’ in the Google mobile app, and then
for ‘what about Seattle?’, and the results
will interpret that you are asking about
the time in Seattle even though you did
not specify it in your search - this query
refinement is now called ‘conversational
search’22
.
Google’s Enhanced Campaigns allow
marketers to layer greater context,
including location and time of day, over
their search marketing. Whilst it also uses
personal data, Google Now is perhaps the
most sophisticated current example of
using contextual data to deliver ever more
relevant, even predictive and anticipatory,
information.
We should also look at the context of use,
such as:
• What time of day is it?
• Is it the weekend?
• What bandwidth is available?
• Is the user stationary or moving?
• Do we think the user is at home or work?
• Is the user interacting via voice or touch?
• Is the user influential in social media?
• What are the user’s interests?
It is possible to know all these things
without actually knowing who the person
is, and we can use this data to enhance
users’ experiences without it feeling
invasive or creepy.
We are no longer simply dealing with the
blanket category of the ‘mobile user’
either. Brands building personalized
experiences must understand the
many mobile personas present on the
mobile web today. Unlike the traditional
web, today’s mobile consumers have
multiple personas, often interchanging
throughout the day, swapping devices,
across connections of various qualities
and on screen sizes from small to large.
Understanding these personas and how
they influence consumer behaviour is
the first step in delivering a personalized
mobile experience.23
Bridging privacy to
personalization :
the cookies debate.
We’ve all heard of them and no doubt
have been presented with choices online
regarding accepting their use whilst
we surf, or not. Cookies, are a friendly
internet tool (small text files that a website
stores in a web browser’s cache) primarily
used by the advertising and e-commerce
industry to make surfing easier and
quicker. They have several roles, none of
which can compromise privacy.
So, where to? There are two kinds of
cookies: cookies to help a site function
and cookies for ad tracking/monetization.
The divide between the two grows wider
as the debate between the proper role
of cookies and the user tracking/user
information storage they make possible
gets louder. One thing is certain, cookies’
website-enhancing functions will remain in
demand regardless of whether the cookie,
as a file form, survives today’s raging
privacy debates.24
We are no
longer simply
dealing with
the blanket
category of the
‘mobile user’
either...

10. 10
The global media and communications behemoth, WPP, presents us with information
about the varying types of cookies available, all of which they state they use on their
website. This is a good reference point for companies in the media and communications
to verse themselves with alternatives available in their pursuit of personalized delivery
whilst respecting privacy for users:
1. Strictly necessary cookies – these enable services we have specifically asked for,
such as accessing secure areas of a website.
2 . Performance cookies – these collect information on web pages visited in a site.
These collect information about how users use a website, for instance which pages users
go to most often, and if they get error messages from web pages. All information these
cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous, and are only used to improve
how the website works.
3. Functionality cookies – these remember choices we make to improve our experience
with a site. They allow a website to remember choices we make and provide enhanced,
more personal features. For instance, e.g. the AddThis cookie that provides ‘share
this page’ functionality, where a user can email a link from content to friends. The
information these cookies collect may be anonymized and they cannot track browsing
activity to other websites.
4. Targeting cookies or advertising cookies – these collect information about browsing
habits in order to make advertising relevant. They are also used to limit the number
of times we see an advertisement as well as help measure the effectiveness of an
advertising campaign. They are usually placed by advertising networks with the website
operator’s permission, and remember that we have visited a website and this information
is shared with other organisation such as advertisers. Quite often targeting or advertising
cookies will be linked to site functionality provided by the other organisation.25
Cookies are at a tenuous yet crucial crossroad between public policy and technology. No
doubt, in the future this impasse will be safely resolved—high levels of personal privacy
while preserving full website functionality and advertiser monetization. It is just a matter
of innovation.26
Cross-channel unification
Let’s face it: third party techniques were invented well before the smartphone or
tablet, and are simply not built to handle today’s mobile landscape. By collecting
users’ on device activity, third party data simply fails to create a unified view of today’s
modern consumer: 20% of which visit websites from four different devices each week
(Experian). With 67% of online shoppers admitting to having recently made purchases
that involved multiple channels (Zendesk), marketers need a way to tie cross-channel
activity back to a single consumer profile. Insight into consumer identity enables brands
to effectively nurture customer relationships by creating seamless, cohesive user
experiences across digital, mobile, social, and in-store channels.
Marketers are seeing consumers expecting brands to deliver personalized experiences
that match the many devices they use every day, the context they use them in, and they
are being punished with low traffic and high bounce rates when they don’t deliver. Sites
now need to be at least mobile friendly, and give users a convenient way to authenticate
their identities even via smaller mobile screens, and must endeavour to collect and
aggregate identity data from multiple channels and devices into a single, unified
database for faster and easier access.27
cookies are
at a tenuous
yet crucial
crossroad
between public
policy and
technology

11. 11
A fact-based media
strategy - with Facebook
The more customer insights you have,
the better you’re equipped to deliver
meaningful messages to people. Looking
at information such as demographics or
unique purchase behaviour, or interests
like TV shows etc helps uncover unique
characteristics of our audiences, to then
inform message and creative, and even
marketing strategy.
That’s the thinking behind Facebook
Audience Insights, a new tool designed
to help marketers learn more about
their target audiences at a much
deeper level than before, including
aggregate information about geography,
demographics, purchase behaviour and
more.
Audience Insights is built with privacy in
mind. It surfaces aggregated information
people already express on Facebook - the
data people natively share with people
- along with information from trusted third-
party partners through partner categories
targeting. Like its Page Insights, Audience
Insights shows information about groups
of people without the need to share which
individual people are in those groups.
This allows marketers to view aggregate
and anonymous insights while keeping
people’s personal information private.
Using Audience Insights, we can get
aggregate and anonymous information
such as demographics, page likes, location
and language, Facebook usage, and
purchases activity (i.e., in-store, online).28
Lastly, Facebook’s Dark Posts “are the
number one tool you have at your disposal
right now” (Vaynerchuk). By creating
targeted audience segmentation - a
cohort, group etc - using Facebook Page
Editor, content appears natively in our
targeted audience’s news feed - not as
‘ads presented down the sides of the
page - but natively IN a user’s feed. This
is the world we are living in. There is ROI
in anything that people pay attention to
- but if you don’t know how to use it, you
LOSE.29
The filter bubble
A fitting theme to close with is that of a
distorted view of reality owing to too much
personalized information. A filter bubble is
a result of a personalized search in which
a website algorithm selectively guesses
what information a user would like to
see based on information about the user
(such as location, past click behaviour
and search history) and, as a result, users
become separated from information that
disagrees with their viewpoints, effectively
isolating them in their own cultural or
ideological bubbles. Prime examples are
Google Personalized Search results and
Facebook’s personalized news stream.
(Wikipedia)
The way in which Google searches return
results based on an individual’s past
searches and hence customized to his or
her purpose means that no two users have
the same results returned from searches.
Though this hyper-personalization has had
positive effects in some cases, in other
cases it has led to questions of invasion
of privacy, too much control and whether
the “filter bubble” (a term based on Eli
Parser’s book by the same name) had the
effect of the Internet hiding more than
revealing.
Parser believes that there are substantial
risks inherent in the way the Internet
is getting hyper-personalized, however,
a scientific study from Wharton that
analysed personalized recommendations
also found that these filters can actually
create commonality, not fragmentation, in
online music taste. Consumers apparently
use the filter to expand their taste, not
limit it.30
He cites the examples of Google and
Facebook that are resorting to controlling
the information that we receive and points
to the dangers of such tactics for the
users as well as the companies. It is one
thing for users to get recommendations
about purchases and directions about
upcoming products based on individual
preferences. It is altogether another
matter if we are given information
according to the dictates of Google or
Facebook and thereby violating our free
will to choose the information we want
- but as a counterpoint, a spokesperson
for Google suggested that algorithms
were added to Google search engines
to deliberately “limit personalization and
promote variety”.31
Though the scenario is not yet bleak,
Parser concludes that these online portals
would realize that like newspapers, they
need to be custodians of public trust and
not simply money making machines alone.
In a way, this is at the heart of the global
village vs. personalization debate i.e.
whether companies like Google need to
universalize their services or personalize
them according to individual tastes.
there is ROI in
anything that
people pay
attention to -
but if you don’t
know how to
use it, you
LOSE.

12. 12
This debate also reflects the “journey” or the evolution of the Internet from a mass
medium to one where customization and personalization have given rise to new business
models. The Internet should indeed retain its laissez faire spirit and at the same time
must personalize services to a certain extent.32
IN CLOSING
We should strive to be wholly digitally
adept, interested and aware at an
omnichannel level, for sure, but also still be
connected at a tactile level to realties as
they manifest around and between us as
people and business/brand communities,
where we keep discovering the world for
ourselves and from each other.
Otherwise, we could be stepping into
an abyss of intellectual and instinctive
starvation…an ironic antithesis of the
principles of the increasingly open and
connected world we find ourselves living
in today.
I would say that although an information seeker
could become ‘trapped in a paradox and fails
to learn what he or she really needs to know -
and can be caught in a kind of intellectual blind
spot’33
- this does place the onus back onto
us to continue engaging in our world beyond
a digital-only interface, and ask questions of
multiple sources without simply being ‘led’
down a path of blind belief - which is core to
the principles of Hyper Island, who set the brief
for this presentation document.
EN
D

13. 13
References
1. Privacy is Dead, Harvard Professors Tell Davos Audience, Brett Wilkins, Civil Liberties, Science & Technology, January 23, 2015
Available at http://morallowground.com/2015/01/23/privacy-is-dead-harvard-professors-tell-davos-audience/
2. No Place to Hide, Glenn Greenwald, 2014, Metropolitan Books
3. Privacy Is Dead, And It’s Not A Big Deal!,
Available at https://www.garyvaynerchuk.com/privacy-is-dead-and-its-not-a--657351678.html
4. Say Goodbye to Privacy, Geoff Webb, WIRED Innovation insights, February 5, 2015
Available at http://www.wired.com/2015/02/say-goodbye-to-privacy/
5. Tackling Privacy Concerns Is Key to Expanding the Internet of Things, Chris Babel, WIRED Innovation Insights, February 5, 2015
Available at http://insights.wired.com/profiles/blogs/addressing-consumer-privacy-concerns-is-key-to-expanding-the#ixzz3SdhtYbu3
6. The rise of context for customising digital experiences, Ashley Friedlein, 25 February, 2014, Econsultancy
Available at https://econsultancy.com/blog/64398-the-rise-of-context-for-customising-digital-experiences/
7. The Founder’s Guide To Email Security, John Biggs, TechCrunch, 12 December, 2014
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8. Employee Data Breach The Worst Part Of Sony Hack, Alexia Tsotsis, TechCrunch, 16 December, 2014
Available at http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/16/hack-sony-twice-shame-on-sony/
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Available at http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/16/hack-sony-twice-shame-on-sony/
10. The Tech Trends You Can’t Ignore in 2015, Amy Webb, Harvard Bsuiness review, 5 Januay, 2015
Available at https://hbr.org/2015/01/the-tech-trends-you-cant-ignore-in-2015
11. Tackling Privacy Concerns Is Key to Expanding the Internet of Things, Chris Babel, WIRED Innovation Insights, February 5, 2015
Available at http://insights.wired.com/profiles/blogs/addressing-consumer-privacy-concerns-is-key-to-expanding-the#ixzz3SdhtYbu3
12. TRUSTe Internet of Things Privacy Index – US Edition
Available at http://www.truste.com/resources/privacy-research/us-internet-of-things-index-2014/
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Available at https://econsultancy.com/blog/64537-privacy-practices-the-should-and-must-of-online-transparency/
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Available at https://econsultancy.com/blog/65217-privacy-and-personalization-a-marketer-s-catch-22/
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Available at http://www.wired.com/2015/02/say-goodbye-to-privacy/
17. Privacy Practices: The Should And Must Of Online Transparency, Todd Ruback, Econsultancy, 19 March, 2014
Available at https://econsultancy.com/blog/64537-privacy-practices-the-should-and-must-of-online-transparency/
18. How Do Social Logins And Sharing Affect E-Commerce, David Moth, 22 March, 2012,
Available at https://econsultancy.com/blog/9392-how-do-social-logins-and-sharing-affect-e-commerce-infographic#i.uxbbzl7fpfssuh
19. Will You Survive The Logged-In User Revolution?, Rachel Serpa, Econsultancy, 14 April, 2014
Available at https://econsultancy.com/blog/64684-will-you-survive-the-logged-in-user-revolution/
20. Delivering On The Promise Of Personalization, Matt Ramerman, November 14, 2014, Luxury Daily
Available at http://www.luxurydaily.com/delivering-on-the-promise-of-personalization/
/contd

14. 14
21. 11 Marketing Trends To Watch For In 2015, Avi Dan, 11 September, 2014, Forbes
Available at http://www.forbes.com/sites/avidan/2014/11/09/11-marketing-trends-to-watch-for-in-2015/
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Available at https://econsultancy.com/blog/64398-the-rise-of-context-for-customising-digital-experiences/
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Available at http://www.wired.com/2014/07/mobile-moments-baby-steps-road-personalization/
24. Privacy Concerns on Cookies, AllAboutCookies.org available at http://www.allaboutcookies.org/privacy-concerns/
25. WPP Internet Privacy policy, May 2012, Available at http://www.wpp.com/wpp/privacy/
26. Privacy Concerns on Cookies, AllAboutCookies.org available at http://www.allaboutcookies.org/privacy-concerns/
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Buja, Andreas, Management Science, Vol. 60, pp. 805-823, 1 April 2014
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Available at http://www.wired.com/2014/03/todays-internet-world-hyper-personalized-tribes/
33. Filter bubble, Wikipedia, available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble