"Positively evil"?

This comment appeared in Laura Craik’s column in the Evening Standard last week:

“Junk mail that is positively evil

Unaddressed junk mail is bad enough; spookier still are the endless catalogues of maternity wear, baby clothes and nursery furniture that have fallen through my letterbox since becoming pregnant, each addressed to me by name. Somebody, somewhere is making a tidy living selling contact details to businesses prepared to pay handsomely for the priveledge. This is junk mail of the most evil sort, an invasion of privacy far more worrying than a pizza flyer.”

It’s an interesting and sobering perspective for a number of reasons. Firstly it shows that the excitement felt by the marketing and insight industries about being able to intelligently use data to offer consumers better relevance is not immediately shared by the population. Our assumption that more relevance is better is clearly countered by fears of invasion of privacy amongst some consumers.

Secondly, it powerfully underlines the need for us all to better explain how insights and data from all sources are gathered, stored and used. It’s tempting for researchers to reassure themselves that they’re safe from these issues due to the rules of anonymity in place. However, the dividing line between research insight and behavioural insight will begin to blur faster than many realise over the coming years – to consumers it’s often a semantic difference.

Privacy, correctly negotiated permissions and transparency will define business success in the usage of integrated insight in the future.