NEW RESEARCH: Insights on the Future of Data Sharing

The high pitched fervor over ‘big data’ has died down a bit, but only because companies are more focused on putting their noses to the grind stone to determine how to more effectively collect and analyze data, of all sizes, to improve their business performance.

The Center on Global Brand Leadership, in conjunction with the Aimia Institute, conducted a global study of more than 8,000 consumers to look deeper into the types of data consumers choose to share with companies, and what factors drive their willingness to share this data.

We encourage you to examine our full report, What Is the Future of Data Sharing?, which offers information and insights on consumer attitudes towards data sharing, how those views are affected by industry category and country, and how brand trust positively impacts a willingness to share data.

In this piece, I will highlight three particular areas to help businesses think more strategically about how to better influence their customers to share data, and create more meaningful relationships with them.

1. The Four Data-Sharing Mindsets of Consumers

My co-author, David Rogers, and I wanted to better understand how certain attitudes towards data sharing might help predict which segments of consumers are more willing to share data. Through a factor analysis we were able to effectively split our respondents along two differentiating attitudes:

• Defensive attitude axis
  This categorized consumers according to whether or not they had: 1) made up personal details to avoid giving away real information, or 2) had taken steps to limit companies from tracking them online.
• Sharing attitude axis
  This categorized consumers according to their attitude towards sharing personal information to receive relevant offers and discounts.

Within those differentiated attitudes, we further identified four data-sharing mindsets:

• Defender (43% of survey participants): Consumers who are not happy to share and are guarded against companies asking for their data.
• Savvy and in control (24% of survey participants): Consumers who are happy to share, while keeping control of how much, when, and with whom.
• Resigned (23% of survey participants): Consumers who are not guarded, but aren’t happy about sharing, either.
• Happy go lucky (10% of survey participants): Consumers who are not guarded against sharing their data and are happy to do so.

 

[Click here for the full infographic.]

One of the surprising things we found was that 70% of the people who are happy to share their data for relevant value from a company are also taking defensive actions at times to protect the data they share. Being attentive about one’s data and being happy to share it are not mutually exclusive.

Most interestingly, among all four Mindsets these “protective but happy to share” consumers – the Savvy and In Control mindset – are more comfortable with how companies handle their data, more willing to share various data points, and more influenced by brand trust.

While we are wary of making predictions of generational attitudes into the future, we do believe that the impact of growing up in a hyper-connected society will remain as generations grow older. Given this, the much larger percentage of Millennials and Generation X members in the Savvy and In Control mindset should offer companies hope for building stronger consumer relationships over time.

What is the takeaway for companies? In order to build a “win-win” scenario with your customers when it comes to collecting their data, a company must provide transparency about how they are using data and also give consumers a level of control on how they choose to share their data. In addition, companies must demonstrate how customers will get value from sharing non-required data points.

2. People Do See Value in Traditional Loyalty Program Offers

Not surprisingly, consumers show clear interest in traditional loyalty/rewards program offers and benefits.

 

[Click here for full infographic.]

Sharing an e-mail address in return for an offer was by far the most common piece of data consumers were willing to share, and this was true across all age demographics. When looking towards the future, however, we found that younger generations – Millennials and Generation X – were up to twice as likely to share other non-required types of data. For example, 23% of Millennials and 16% of Generation X were willing to share their mobile phone data, as averaged across all 10 offers, while only 11% of Boomers and 8% of the Silent Generation were willing to do so.

As the data shows, consumers report greater interest in offers that are more direct and financial in nature – rewards, cash back, coupons – but a majority do also show interest in offers that are less direct and more experiential  – recommendations and tools to help them make decisions. Given this, firms have a real opportunity to seek information from their own customers and develop personalized offers that match the interests of different groups of customers – sometimes at lower costs than promotional efforts with financial incentives.

3. New Kinds of Data-Enabled Benefits Present Future Possibilities

To better understand where the future might lie for companies, we also wanted to examine new kinds of value that are being developed out of personal data sharing efforts. Netflix and Amazon, for example, spurred the use of aggregated customer data to improve individual user experiences through product recommendations. And services such as Mint and Billguard are compiling financial information and providing insights back to consumers in order to help them make better decisions and protect against fraudulent or unauthorized finance charges.

We classified these new efforts as “data-enabled benefits” and asked respondents how likely they were to be interested in exchanging non-required personal data for such offers.

 

[Click here for the full infographic.]

Given the fact that these new types of benefits entered the marketplace in just the past few years, we were encouraged that many consumers already agree that there is an interesting value exchange to be had by exchanging their data in return for these benefits.

Once again, the Savvy and In Control mindset shows the greatest affinity towards sharing data in exchange for these new kinds of benefits:

 

As firms constantly aim to innovate and develop creative new experiences for customers, this data points to a clear opportunity for them. Companies can build their brand and strengthen customer relationships by crafting value-added features for customers that are developed by analyzing and sharing insights on the very data that they hope consumers will share with them.

As Prof. Michael Schrage from MIT has nicely phrased it, “Making customers better makes better customers…. Customers need to learn from you almost as much as you need to learn from customers. Serious customer experience design debates in organizations should focus almost as much on customer learning as customer delight.”

BY MATTHEW QUINT

New Study: Marketers Struggle with “Big Data” & Digital Tools

The Center on Global Brand Leadership and the New York American Marketing Association (NYAMA) are pleased to release the results of a major new study on the changing practices of large corporations in:

• data collection and usage,
• marketing measurement and ROI, and
• the integration of digital and traditional marketing.

The BRITE-NYAMA Marketing Measurement in Transition Study was authored by David Rogers, Executive Director of BRITE, and Columbia Business School Professor Don Sexton. Results were first released at the Center’s fifth annual BRITE conference on May 5, 2012. The findings have been reported in numerous publications, including the top front-page story of Ad Age.

The study’s results focused on 3 main findings:

1. The failure of “Big Data” for marketing
2. Marketers are quick to adopt the newest digital tools, but struggle to measure them
3. ROI – marketers know they need it, but cannot agree on its meaning and implementation

The full report can be viewed at http://j.mp/MarketingROIstudy.

FINDING: THE FAILURE OF BIG DATA FOR MARKETING SO FAR
The researchers found that marketers’ desire to be data-driven is not yet matched by a consistent effort to collect the data necessary to make these real-time decisions. 29 percent report that their marketing departments have “too little or no customer/consumer data.” When data is collected by marketers, it is often not appropriate to real-time decision making. 39 percent of marketers say that their data is collected “too infrequently or not real-time enough.” Furthermore, marketers today are still much less likely to collect new forms of digital data like customer mobile device data (19 percent collect it), and social media data (35 percent), than they are to collect traditional customer survey data on demographics (74 percent) and usage (60 percent).

FINDING: MARKETERS ADOPT NEW DIGITAL TOOLS, BUT STRUGGLE TO MEASURE THEM
Marketers are also struggling to measure the impact of the newest digital tools, despite the widespread adoption of these applications. 51 percent of marketers said they use mobile ads (in-app, or SMS); 85 percent use social network accounts (brand accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Foursquare). Yet these tools are among the least likely to be measured for ROI despite their profusion of data. Only 14 percent of the social networking users are tying them to financial metrics, and only 17 percent of those using mobile ads are tying them to financial metrics. By contrast, 41 percent of email marketers measure their results with financial metrics. In addition, as number of marketing tools expands, the challenge of measuring and comparing them grows. 60 percent of companies report that comparing the effectiveness of marketing across their different digital media is “a major challenge.”

Click image to enlarge

FINDING: ROI – MARKETERS KNOW THEY ALL NEED IT, BUT CAN’T EVEN AGREE WHAT IT IS
The study also revealed that there is confusion about the meaning and significance of ROI among marketers. Specifically, 31 percent of respondents said that they believe simply measuring the audience you have reached is “marketing ROI.” 57 percent are not basing their marketing budgets on any ROI analysis, and 28 percent are basing marketing budgets on gut instincts. 21 percent are using financial metrics for “little” or “none” of their marketing budget and seven percent are spending most or all of their marketing budget with “no metrics” at all. However, marketers are under pressure. 70 percent say that their marketing efforts are under greater scrutiny than in the past.

CONCLUSIONS: FIVE IMPERATIVE ACTIONS FOR CMOS
After its analysis of the dynamic and challenging environment for marketing today, the report recommends that Chief Marketing Officers should focus on five key leadership imperatives: Set objectives first; Design metrics to ensure marketing is linked to these objectives; Gather the right data for those metrics; Communicate to the entire organization what your objectives are and how they are being measured; and Evaluate and reward employees in part on how well objectives are achieved.

Read the complete findings and conclusions at http://j.mp/MarketingROIstudy.

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METHODOLOGY
253 corporate marketing decision makers, director-level and above, were surveyed online between January 27 and February 8, 2012. These professionals are employed at large companies (90 percent have a global annual revenue of over $50 million; 45 percent are over $1 billion). Respondents were from b2c and b2c companies in diverse industries. The study was made possible with support from Research Now and GreenBook.

ABOUT THE RESEARCH PARTNERS:

The Center on Global Brand Leadership was founded at Columbia Business School in 1999 and has grown into the leading global forum on brands. The mission of the center is to turn the research and intellectual capital of academia’s foremost thinkers on branding into practical tools and insights for real-world application. The Center has worked with a wide range of sponsor companies to develop a variety of thought leadership including: conferences, case studies, videos and webinars, and sponsored research. The Center’s flagship BRITE conference on brands, innovation, and technology presented was founded in 2008 and is presented each spring at Columbia University. BRITE ’12 speakers included John Hayes (CMO, American Express), Marc Speichert (CMO, L’Oreal USA), and Bob Garfield (host of On the Media, editor for Ad Age).

The New York American Marketing Association (NYAMA) helps marketing professionals navigate to success in today’s dynamic business environment. We serve the marketing community by giving members opportunities to push the boundaries of marketing, expand their skills and exchange ideas with other experienced professionals. The BRITE/NYAMA study is one example of how we are contributing to the advancement of marketing.

Research Now is the leading global online sampling and online data collection company. With over 6 million panelists in 38 countries worldwide, Research Now enables companies to listen to and interact with real consumers and business decision makers in order to make key business decisions. Research Now offers a full suite of data collection services, including social media sampling, and operates the Valued Opinions(tm) Panel and e-Rewards(r) Opinion Panels. The company has a multilingual staff located in 24 offices around the globe and has been recognized for four consecutive years as the industry leader in client satisfaction.

GreenBook® brings stimulating, practical, and timely resources to marketers and market researchers on both sides of the table. Through its targeted multi-media platform, GreenBook offers effective marketing and lead generation opportunities to businesses that communicate with buyers and users of market research.

Research: Balancing the Returns of Offering Free Information

Offering free samples is a time-tested marketing technique. In the online information goods category, however, practices concerning completely free offerings vs. free samples along with paid access are still being developed and debated.

Columbia marketing professors Oded Koenigsberg and Don Lehmann, along with University of Zurich professors Florian Stahl and Daniel Halbheer, examined how to optimize free sampling and paid access for “single-use, single-edition content” (e.g. a novel or an article). They created a model that allows a firm to calculate the optimal sampling level based on:

• The price of the full content;
• Advertising revenues from the free samples and paid versions; and,
• The affect on consumer valuation, and therefore demand, caused by the size, quantity, and quality of free samples

The model considered, in particular, how a consumer’s expected quality of a product is updated by the delivered experience of a sample of the product.

The researchers then compared their model against empirical datasets from German media web sites. They found that, in cases where the quality of the sample exceeds the consumer’s expected quality, some firms were not offering large enough samples to entice readers to commit to purchase the full paid content, and thus they did not realize all the revenue they could generate.

If you are managing such an enterprise, you may want to download the paper (.pdf) to see what implications this model has for your own company.

BY MATTHEW QUINT