consumer Archives - Storytailer

For those unfamiliar with the story of Sybil Dorsett, she was a woman with dissociative identity disorder who had as many as 16 different personalities which would dominate and reveal themselves at different times. Made famous first by the non-fiction book, Sybil, then the 1976 movie starring Sally Field, Sybil was one of the most famously documented cases of this disorder ever documented. While victims of this disorder typically don’t have this extreme of a case, there is one group of people who have made a parallel leap into what is very similar: just about everyone on the (digital) planet.

Sybil, the person, had personalities including the following: herself, a young French girl, two personalities named Peggy Lou (one assertive and enthusiastic while the other was fearful and angry), a thoughtful homebody, an emotional writer and painter, a talented musician, a male personality which was a builder and carpenter, another male personality that was a handyman, a personality interested in politics, one that was listless, one that was an actual baby, one that was critical of Sybil (the original personality), one that was afraid but determined to achieve fulfillment, one that was vivacious and liked to laugh and, finally, one that was a perpetual teenager.

How does the story of Sybil relate to “everyone on the (digital) planet?” An excellent article on YourStory.com shares a few examples which I’ve expanded on.

While technology has quickly evolved which allows marketers to collect data in which a consumer’s journey towards any purchase can be tracked to include key influencing factors like marketing messages, websites, emails, banner ads and offline messages, today’s consumers have so many platforms, channels and devices in which to make that journey. The Sybil analogy comes into play because every consumer has a preference on which activities they perform not only on which devices but on which platforms.

For example, Melissa might choose a desktop to shop for cars rather than a mobile device. She may use Facebook for personal interactions and business or entertainment recommendations while using Twitter for political commentary or activity-based messages and she may prefer to do those on a mobile device. Compound these with the fact that Melissa may not be doing some of these activities for herself but on behalf of another and you have a bunch of different digital personalities (footprints) happening. The problem is that there is no context.

What if Melissa is helping her brother identify good cars for him, but really only uses her desktop to check e-mails and write about the country music bands and festivals she likes attending? Perhaps all of the dancing tweets, retweets and information sharing are actually because her daughter is a dance aficionado? If she’s talking about a movie her husband enjoyed on Facebook, what digital indicator is she leaving?

There exists a lot of data in the universe that marketers can tap to deliver more personalized, relevant and actionable messages which, in the best result, produce more sales. But consumers are no longer that transparent. Delivering an ad to Melissa on her desktop computer about a car while she is trying to blog about Garth Brooks is probably a waste of money – especially considering she was never interested in buying a car but only gathering information for her brother. In the same way, delivering ads on Twitter to Melissa about movies or on Facebook about dancing may be.

Even though the data says they are relevant, they may not be because the data cannot tell you context or intent nor identify preferences on platform usage.

The data is out there and the touchpoints can tell you the journey that was taken to a sale or conversion. What it cannot necessarily tell you (unless you dig deep – and are a data scientist) are both what the motivations behind those activities were, whether they were of self-interest or not and whether there are more effective platforms on which to deliver your message than others.

Marketing is only going to get more complicated and it’s no longer a matter of whether the data exists (there is a ton), but also having the knowledge to know which data is relevant, which platform its relevant on, how to best deliver that message in a personalized way, get a conversion and, ultimately, a sale.

Data is no longer about simply having it but rather about trying to decipher which personality a given individual is demonstrating at any given time.

In a Yahoo! exclusive article published today, it was reported that Ford has initiated a lawsuit against 13 individual eBay sellers who they accuse of selling fake or counterfeit Ford parts. I’m not arguing the merits of Ford’s lawsuit as it is certainly within their rights to protect their trademarks and copyrights as well as take steps to protect dealer’s profits in the part business but rather to question the bigger issue encompassed by this: an individual’s right to privacy.

The subpoenas for the lawsuits were granted by the court for Ford to obtain the seller’s identities and information. What is unusual about this is not that they requested it, but what they asked for after that request was granted.

As reported in the article, most ISPs and websites have policies in place that notify users when the company gives out their information for any reason except for that involving criminal activity and which is requested by law enforcement agencies.

In this case, Ford not only requested the user’s information but also asked for their bank account information (which was denied) then went a step further and asked for the court to prohibit eBay and Paypal (an eBay company) from notifying the targeted users that their information was requested and given out.

This move flies in the face of all privacy issues. With the public outcry against the recent legislation effectively designed to skirt privacy issues accompanied by Ford’s strong pro-consumer brand and social media presence, you’d think they would want to steer clear of any controversy in regards to consumer privacy.

“Much of the debate in recent months over online privacy has been spurred by bills in Congress, such as the Stop Online Piracy Act and a new bill, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, which passed the U.S. House in April. CISPA would let companies and law enforcement agencies broadly share users’ personal information to fight potential threats — including accusations of copyright violations and counterfeit goods — without penalty, trumping any company policy.” writes Justin Hyde in the Yahoo! article.

The reason reported by Ford for this request was:

“Ford respectfully suggests this procedure is impractical and would serve to undermine the rationale for the subpoenas. The procedure would impose a substantial burden on [eBay and PayPal] to prepare, serve and enforce subpoenas and would serve to “tip-off” or warn the Doe defendants of Ford’s investigation. Under the procedure as written, the Does would have notice that Ford was seeking their identities and thus ample time to destroy evidence, the counterfeit and infringing goods, and flee to avoid service all before Ford would be entitled to receive their true identities.”

I understand why they asked the court to do this but just because it’s a good reason doesn’t mean it should outweigh the right to privacy that all citizens enjoy. This is a civil matter, not a criminal one.

Now that one court has issued what I feel is an invasion of privacy, what’s to stop other judges from following suit. I can think of plenty of GOOD reasons for a judge to do this but that doesn’t mean they SHOULD. Where does an ISP or website draw a “line in the sand”? Despite Facebook’s own internal privacy issues, they have, and are still, fighting other companies from requiring or being allowed to access their user’s information and accounts including employer’s requesting pre-employment access, schools requiring students to reveal their Facebook walls to administrators and more.

Being an eBay user for over 14 years and a Paypal user for about 12, I would hope that they would challenge and fight for their user’s right to privacy. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out and whether any of the companies involved will take a stand for their users.

While Ford may feel that their lawsuit against 13 people succeeding is more important than our rights to privacy, I just find that.. well.. impractical.