When Marketing Strategies and Consumer Data Privacy Collide

I work in marketing and communications at a graduate institution in the Los Angeles area. My team is in the process of developing and distributing ads across OTT (over-the-top) advertising. OTT is the new buzzword in advertising and represents interesting opportunities for marketers in reaching a new segment of consumers. It also perpetuates and exacerbates the continued blurring line between advertising and the violation of consumer data privacy. While working in this new format to reach consumers, my team has consistently been asking ourselves when have we crossed the ethical line?

What is OTT?

OTT (also known as Connected TV or CTV advertising) is any streaming device that connects to the internet (“Connected TV”, n.d.). The streaming device can be mobile, Chromecast, Apple TV, Roku, Amazon Fire, Smart TV’s, Xbox, and so forth. When a consumer is watching a program on a streaming platform like Hulu, non-skippable advertisements appear throughout the program. Consequently, due to the increase in consumers who are no longer purchasing traditional cable subscriptions and to the forced nature of watching the advertisements, OTT represents a tremendous brand awareness capability to a burgeoning market (Wilson, 2018). Specifically, OTT advertisements reach the highly coveted millennial demographic and younger generations. CTV advertisement is the next big frontier for advertisers so its marketshare will continue to expand (Kurzer, 2018). However, thus far in the early lifespan of CTV, there have not been consistent or reliable benchmarks or measurement to determine audience reach or effectiveness. As such, purchasing space has largely been at the risk of the marketer.

This inability to reliably measure ad effectiveness is beginning to change. My institution has contracted the help of a company that is able to identify and track consumers who view our advertisements. Because the consumer is watching the advertisement connected to the internet, the company we’ve contracted is able to track the consumer’s IP address across multiple devices and determine effectiveness of the ad, purchasing habits, analytics, and develop a complete consumer profile. These capabilities can extend even further whereby the company is able to geotarget locations and capture mobile IP addresses and track individual in this manner. For example, if your company is hosting a conference in Chicago and you want to target attendees with an advertisement for a product you sell, the company can create a campaign wherein those who enter the predetermined geotargeted radius are then served the advertisement and their purchasing habits are followed from point of exposure to acquisition.

The Ubiquitous Concerns for Consumer Privacy

The benefits of this new capability are readily apparent: better targeting, more sophisticated analytics, more effective advertisement strategies, and a better profile of your target audience. However, this immediately raises the concerns of bulk data collecting without the consent or even understanding of the consumer. In the traditional manner of data collecting, a consumer agrees to a purchase or providing their email in exchange for some service a company is providing. OTT and other related advertising strategies represent a shift wherein consumer permission is not granted for this level of data acquisition.

In a time when data is being used in deceptive and potentially destructive manners (i.e., Cambridge Analytica) the ethical concerns of consumer data is more important than ever. We’ve entered an era of data proliferation where we don’t completely understand the long-term implications and ramifications. More than ever, we should be cognizant of our marketing strategies to respect the privacy of consumers and ensure that deceptive and malicious uses of consumer data are prevented at all cost. Although the question has to be asked: have we reached the point of no return in the dystopia of Orwellian-style tracking and commodification of persons despite the consequences?

References:

Connected TV is the future of video advertising (n.d.). 10^th Degree. Retrieved from https://www.10thdegree.com/connected-tv-is-the-future-of-video-advertising/

Kurzer, R. (1 August, 2018). New report: CTV emerges as top platform for video advertisers, completion rates continue to improve. Martech Today. Retrieved from https://martechtoday.com/new-report-ctv-emerges-as-top-platform-for-video-advertisers-completion-rates-continue-to-improve-219016

Wilson, J. (23 May, 2018). How data will come into play in OTT advertising. Adweek. Retrieved from https://www.adweek.com/tv-video/how-data-will-come-into-play-in-ott-advertising/