Jen Berman

This is a great discussion on the life cycle of a brand. As a marketer, we have to know where our product is in the curve. Each segment responds to marketing different and needs to be targeted in different ways. To your point of reaching laggards. I would ask is it worth the effort. If you put $5 million into trying to get laggards to buy your product, is that market big enough to justify the expense. Or are you better off not focusing on them, and just accepting the fact that certain people will never buy your product.

Hi Jen! Great points here! I think you ask a lot of great questions, and I think your point to how companies are unaware how making a new platform, device, or application can change what happens to the information collected is key. Nowadays, it is easy to collect information throughout the purchasing process- phone, email, name, address, etc. but it’s only now that people and companies are questioning how/why/where to collect data as data security breaches happen across the nation. Though after the initial purchase, it may seem to be an asset for a company to keep a customer’s information to use for internal (or external) marketing purposes, but as we’ve seen today, this may actually be more of a risk than an asset (like the Twitter hack or the Marriott breach). Companies may want to start pitching themselves as a company that doesn’t collect information, and instead as a gatekeeper to their privacy by making sure their information wasn’t saved by them or any 3rd party site.

Great article Jen. It makes you wonder how Lowes could use our data stored in the profile and create target marketing for products that they put on sale or need to promote. If they have our mail address and/or email, they could easily capitalize on this. When 4th of July comes around and they know I already bought a grill a couple months prior, they could send me an email highlighting grill accessories to get prepared for the upcoming holiday. I wonder if anyone does this to the extent I am mentioning? Hmmmm.

Another thought that came to mind, I wonder how the credit card companies are using our spending data to market to us or even sell the data to 3rd parties. I doubt the 3rd party selling is happening from the credit card companies but I guess it’s possible. Then 3rd parties would then be able to target specific marketing content based on your buying habits. This in one reason I like to pay cash for as much as I can. I just feel like the government is watching us through every swipe we make.

I really like your idea of streamlining all privacy standards across all industries. I think that would help solve the lack time within Government to establish regulations. However, with the unbalanced power of lobby groups (a topic for another day), it would be hard to get something that sweeping approved. The more industries you touch, the more stakeholders get involved, and the more likely one of them will fight to stop it. Or multiple ones will team up to become even more powerful. I wish we had a Government system that would allow for cross industry standards on something like this, sadly I do not think we do.

Jen – this is super interesting, thank you for sharing! As someone that works for a healthcare system and a medical school, COVID was a really scary yet BUSY time for us. Of course there is data gathered by the physicians about the COVID patients – and then there is the science that our researchers are tirelessly working on to develop life-saving vaccines, but if there was a possibility that we could use AI to predict an infectious disease like this in the future, I am all for it. Like you said, the more we can use AI to be useful and life-saving the better.

Just recently, I updated my iPhone’s software, and it included COVID-19 tracking capabilities. COVID-19 tracing app uses smartphone data to prevent the spread of the virus. Being digitalized, I believe health care providers should inform consumers of this service rather than just installing this on phones. The newer models of iPhones already have COVID-19 tracing marked yes in settings. Even with tracking people, that’s somewhat of an invasion of privacy if consumers aren’t informed properly. You mention limitations, and I was thinking to help coincide with a privacy limitation would be to track using Bluetooth because it tracks proximity rather than an actual location.

It seems to me that the American consumer is becoming more in tune with your points. Within the finance sector it is all about profit still. However, I am seeing more companies advertising on positive impact to life aspect. Price seems to show up less in commercials now than they did 10 years ago. Now it is more about quality of life. I cannot find it now, because all search results about a country’s economy now come back with COVID results, but I know some of the Nordic countries have been working with measuring their economies in more social terms, not strictly a GDP concept. It would be interesting to see the US utilize quality of life in conjunction with GDP to stimulate capitalism growth within the US.