learnthe4ps.com - For students of marketing.

I recently gave a talk at Colorado State University’s Future Visions program titled, “Marketing and Social Media: Creepy or Cool.” As I prepared for my presentation, I was surprised to see that some marketing practices I thought were years away — are being practiced now.

For example, did you know that Facebook apps are gathering data about users and user’s friends? You can read more about this in “Selling You on Facebook” (Wall Street Journal, April 10, 2012). Looking ahead, you can be sure that Facebook and Google are developing techniques for mining many types of data — everything from your “likes,” gender, and political leanings — to your status posts and photo stream. Facebook wants to be able to anticipate your needs — so that it can help marketers address those needs. Yes, that is the reason the company is worth $100 billion.

What do you think of this practice?  Are you concerned about these apps taking your private data — or your friends’ data?  Do you look forward to marketers having this information about you — so they can better serve your needs?

Imagine walking along a city street and seeing your own face in ad for a shirt you are checking out. Or perhaps a friend’s face in an ad inviting you into a restaurant. Technology may not be too far from making this a possibility. How creepy would that be? Or perhaps it wouldn’t be creepy at all. Would we get used to it? This Slate article, “How’d My Avatar Get Into That Sneaker Ad?” (January 4, 2012) lays out this type of scenario as a thought experiment.  Read the article to get a better picture of this topic.

What do you think of this technology?  Does it creep you out?  Or is it no big deal?  Would it make you more likely to buy?

A couple of interesting stories about how retailers utilize high-tech analytics to better understand customer shopping behavior. I heard “The secret life of discounts” (Marketplace radio, December 16, 2011, link to listen or read the transcript) as I drove to the airport last night to pick up my daughter who was coming home from college. There are some examples about how stores use analytics to try to remain profitable with consumers conditioned to buy only at a steep discount.

In “Big Brother is Watching You Shop” (Bloomberg Businessweek, December 15, 2011), you can read about retailers using in-store video cameras and tracking your cell phone to better understand how you move through a retail store. Analyzing video from a Miami store allowed Montblanc managers to more strategically locate merchandising, signage, and salespeople. The result — a 20% bump in sales. Other retailers follow customers’ cell phone signals to track and map movement through stores. This of course is raising privacy concerns.

What else could stores learn by carefully analyzing video of consumers shopping?  Does it bother you that your cell phone signal allows you to be tracked while you shop?