Data that marketers receive from the consumers is one of the most important aspects they need to get specific information on an audience. Apple is shaking up the marketing industry in a big way after many years of prioritizing data. There have many times where Apple has shown to make privacy one of their top priorities for customers. More and more features are added each year to help Apple users have more control of their data. Recently an update was released that allowed users to decide if they wanted to allow apps downloaded on their phone access to specific data that would track what users did on their devices. Apple really pushes their priority of privacy in their marketing. With all of the talk of big tech and big data, Apple wants their customers to know that Apple is on their side and wants customers to have power over what data is released. 

Alongside Apple’s new devices this fall, they will be releasing full updates to their operating systems. Monterey on Mac and iOS on iPhone will disrupt marketers even more. Apple has added additional features to give users even greater control. It means users will now be masked by anonymous IP addresses and temporary email addresses (Williams, 2021). Companies are going to have a harder time tracking customers and gathering precious data. Sites like Facebook could possibly lose profit if companies pay less to host their ads on Facebook. Apple also creates their own hardware and keeps a lot of personal information only on the user’s device unlike phones running Android software (Leswing, 2021). Targeting a specific audience is getting much harder with these new updates and other tech companies are thinking about following Apple’s lead. Google Chrome may introduce similar privacy features in the next few years.

Marketers are going to have to work around these new challenges. Tracking customers between apps and websites will become harder. Knowing what people are looking for may not be possible, so keeping existing customers engaged with a brand or product might be the path marketers take. It will still be possible to send emails directly to customers that opt in for promotional communications, so that will have to be used as best as possible. Website cookies will become less important, so a new way to reach customers needs to be developed. A strong brand personality and of course a strong product will keep people engaged (Williams, 2021). If the brand is strong enough, customers will even share their experiences with the people they know. Focusing on a strong brand and the help of word of mouth may be the strategy marketers will rely on more heavily while navigating through this new era of privacy on the internet. 

 

 

References

Leswing, K. (2021, June 7). Apple is turning privacy into a business advantage, not just a marketing slogan. CNBC. Retrieved 10 24, 2021, from https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/07/apple-is-turning-privacy-into-a-business-advantage.html

Williams, R. (2021, July 1). What Apple’s iOS 15 means for marketers. Marketing Dive. Retrieved 10 23, 2021, from https://www.marketingdive.com/news/apples-next-round-of-privacy-changes-will-make-opt-ins-more-valuable/602644/