ESSAYS
ROB BROSNAN, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF STRATEGY AT STRONGVIEW
takes into account the full range of digital communication. As an example he points to personal tracker manufacturer FitBit’s partnership with US drug store Walgreens. “Walgreens will reward you for
exercising but they need to connect your FitBit data to your Walgreens account. That provides a really detailed, intimate look at who your consumers are. It also allows Walgreens to make a promise that says, ‘Hey, we’re not just a drug store. We’ll help you in your life.’” Access to this sort of
personal data inevitably raises concerns about privacy. “Privacy isn’t just a legal issue,” says Brosnan. “There’s a sense of permission attached to it. Do I agree that I want Walgreens to have this kind of intimate relationship with me? Some people just want Walgreens to be a regular drug store, and that’s fine. But if you perceive this as more of a value exchange, it enables Walgreens to communicate in a timely fashion when it matters to consumers.”
RELATIONSHIP MAPPING
So, though email may be the starting point, it’s not long before traditional distinctions between marketing channels start breaking down. Compare London’s Tube map with a map of the streets above, says Brosnan: these are two completely different representations of the same city, reflecting two different sets of needs. Similarly, mapping an organisation’s internal business structure onto your customers’ daily requirements can reveal two very different journeys.
“Think about it,” says Brosnan. “As
WE NEED TO GET
a retailer, what are you good at? Finding new locations for stores. Handling merchandise and inventory. Stock management. But what does a consumer want? They’re just trying to take care of a sick child. Marketing’s next step will be to really deliver what consumers want. It’s not enough just to make that promise. You really need to fulfil it. There needs to be an additional layer where marketers say ‘Our job is to create a value exchange. Give us the data and we’ll solve this problem.’ “To take Walgreens as an
OVER THIS IDEA THAT THERE’S A BOOGIEMAN IN THE CLOSET WAITING TO ATTACK YOU WITH YOUR OWN DATA”
example again, as a drug store they might have a lot of data about you which is highly intimate. Historically they’ve shied away from using it in a marketing context. But we’re engaged in trials now where, when Walgreens receive a prescription from a doctor they can tell what kind of prescription it is. So, if it’s for the antibiotic Amoxicillin in a cherry flavour, it’s probably not for you but for a child. As a consequence, Walgreens are trialling a service where they say ‘We have this prescription and we can deliver it to you,
which means you don’t have to leave your child at home.’ “That’s an incredibly valuable
service. Right now it’s an implicit exchange: the consumer agrees that it’s okay for Walgreens to use the data in that way because the consumer’s getting an additional service. But I think we need to make that more specific, more real. Instead of just thinking about privacy and data management as an implicit exchange – I’ll give you better prices if you give me this data - we actually need to collaborate at a brand level. If a brand
51 issue 23 january 2015
says explicitly to a consumer that if you share this data we can give you these additional services – we can all be much clearer as an industry.”
DATA SHARE In order for this to work, says Brosnan, brands may need to reconceive their roles in people’s lives. “If brands saw themselves as digital
data businesses who use that data to power the other things they do, they might then take a different attitude to what they say to customers. For me, as a consumer, I can then say, ‘It’s okay for you to have this very intimate data about me, if you essentially pay me for it.’ And payment in this case takes the form of you providing me with very useful services. “It’s not a scary discussion, but we
do need to get over this idea that there’s an evil boogieman in the closet waiting to attack you with your own data. Right now the industry isn’t helping itself because it keeps hiding this away, as if there’s something wrong with it.” So, from a relationship that began with a humble email we move towards a position where data is a currency which can be traded between brands and consumers. “If you’re very explicit and make it
clear that every time you interact the experience gets better, just as Google’s search engine does, then it can become a strong relationship to have, especially if consumers feel they have control.”
strongview.com
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