Discussion - the impact of Individual data on Marketing

RJ (Roger@hazelton.demon.co.uk)
Wed, 21 Dec 1994 07:02:23 -0800

For some time now I have been watching the growth of the Internet as
an advertising medium. New offerings such as Product view change the
proposition of advertising from the well developed demographics to
actual context rich data about people.

For example the classic approach to advertising has been to
progressively focus the advert to the audience by techniques such as
socio-economic class, age, location etc. As a simple example it tells
me that on average people who like in my street are likely to buy a
Volvo - this focuses the advert from say the 1% hit rate typical of a
national newspaper to (say) 3% for a local leaflet campaign.

However the advertisers could markedly improve their hit rates if they
knew if I drove or if they knew which people in my street changed
their car 2 years ago.

The latter example treats individuals within their own context whereas
demographics simply treats people as a case. I would contend that
context [ what they do! ] is far more valuable than case [ what they
are like!].

My interest in this subject is that I am trying to understand the
types of changes, the new business opportunities and the new
industries that will develop from better personalised information. Big
brother aside there is a great deal of individual benefit to be
derived from personalised data.

My question - has anyone got strong views or know of any studies that
have been reported addressing this change?

Roger James