Have you heard of the personal information economy? In this ClickZ Podcast episode, I talk to Liz Brandt from Ctrl-Shift about what how individuals are realizing the value of their personal information, and are becoming increasingly empowered to take control of their data. Big legislative changes like GDPR will accelerate this change, and as we discover it’s a growing trend across all consumer segments.
Marketers have always started by putting the consumer at the center and trying to understand their needs and desires. However, recent advertising technology has taken this to an extreme with endless tracking and retargeting, with the result that consumers feel overwhelmed by advertising.
The personal information economy is a collective term that describes the startups, tech companies and established brands who are putting a monetary value on personal data and are creating the infrastructure for individuals to be able to monetize their data. It’s an area that has been quietly growing in importance but GDPR will rapidly accelerate its impact and scale. This is something that large organizations, particularly banks and insurance companies, are already thinking about as they also prepare for PSD2, also known as the open banking API, which will effectively mean all banks have to make personal banking data available upon request from the individuals. When you also factor in the year on year growth of the connected homes, smart-watches, connected vehicles and the internet of things you realize the volume of supply of data is going to grow exponentially.
Whilst new legislation is going to be a catalyst in the future and the foundation for many new, valuable services, it is also going to be a risk for those that aren’t starting to plan now. Some companies are struggling to keep up with GDPR and many believe that they will lose up to 60% of the contacts in their database when they seek to re-obtain permission to maintain their records.
I asked Liz about how companies should be preparing for the personal information economy and we discussed the importance of bringing together multidisciplinary teams to focus on the value that can be added to the customer. Liz also mentioned some of the work that Ctrl-Shift are doing with Facebook to create a ‘design jam’ to increase trust transparency and control for individuals. Marketers need to be aware of the significant re-balancing of ownership that is taking place within the digital economy, that hands power directly to the consumer.