Privacy, permission or plain common sense?
September 2005
Synovate recently released data on a study of consumers’ attitudes to advertising media, conducted for mail services provider Deltarg. The research has highlighted a divide between what consumers think and what we as marketers would like them to think. In this study, a large and representative sample of nearly 1000 NZ households were asked to tell us how they felt about being advertised to – what media they liked and disliked, which ones they think work for them, for different types of messages, from different types of advertisers.
Although it might be argued that Deltarg had a vested interest in particular media coming out well, Deltarg took pains to ensure that all media were canvassed equally, and expressed a genuine desire to see how their own media compared to the rest. By using an independent research company to do the survey, and being keen to share the information widely, Deltarg has gained research that not only promoted their own media, which ensured that media users have a clearer idea than ever before of the territory that we’re working in, the ground that the consumer has prepared for us to plant our advertising seeds in.
While each medium has people who like it, and those who don’t, the overwhelming picture shows newspaper advertising to be the most appealing, followed by magazine and unaddressed letterbox items. By a huge margin, advertising which comes by email, or as online banner / popup ads is disliked, as is advertising that comes via direct addressed mail.
Unsurprisingly, the direct marketers amongst us, particularly those enjoying great success with innovative and relevant campaigns in the new electronic media, were perplexed, if not downright outraged at these findings. As one of them wrote “Fancy asking people how they like to be advertised to - Who likes being advertised too, we tolerate it lets be honest”……
Well, no, it seems that there are indeed people who like being advertised to, valuing the opportunity to learn about offers, products and brands with little or no effort. The Deltarg study suggests that these people are also the time poor, often middle to higher income, certainly female… those who need to shop, want to shop, but don’t necessarily have the time to shop around.
This type of survey tells us nothing about efficiency or effectiveness – we cannot use it to measure return on investment, or to decide what the best way is to reach a specific target market with a specific message. What it tells us is the lie of the land – the territory in the consumer mind that our advertising is being launched into. Inevitably, wherever this information is presented, people ask…. “but what about permission”. The idea being that, if you have permission to email me, or send me addressed mail, or SMS messages, it must be okay. Well, think again….
Yes of course, permission is important – but only in the privacy sense. If you’re using a list of any type, even your own customer list, you need to make sure that you do have the privacy issues covered off, that they’ve given their permission for you to use their contact details…. and all that has been promoted as responsible marketing by the Marketing Association, and its predecessor the DMA for many years. But wait, there’s more to it than that.
I would argue – and strongly so – that it’s almost impossible for you to get truly informed, blanket consent, from me your customer to ‘market’ to me. Mainly because I judge what you send by its relevance; and the way you choose to send it goes a long way to predisposing my judgement.
Look at it like this…. I read the Herald. Do I expect personalised, relevant advertising the Herald? Absolutely not! I do expect that the advertisements offer things that make sense to me, though – no ads for ‘aids for the blind’, for example! And yes, when I’m searching on Google for a team building activity in Auckland, it’s great to see the Google Ads that pop up for relevant suppliers – and you don’t need my permission for them to be there.
BUT beware if you’re going to invade my private space – my addressed mail, my email box, or my mobile phone screen. The fact that you have my address means that I expect you to know something about me – and use it not for advertising, but for communication. This isat the heart of the huge divide between attitudes to addressed and unaddressed mail. If it’s unaddressed, it only has to be something which the advertiser could reasonably have thought ‘people in my street’ could be interested in – a local shop, an offer from a nationwide retailer, and so on. But use my name, my address, and you’re pretending you know me – so you’d better make sure that you do….
Thus people judge relevant addressed direct mail (or email) not as “advertising” but as a letter, a communication – something that their own supplier has written to them about. Perhaps that’s the basis of the prevailing wisdom amongst DMers, it seems, that there must be a letter in the envelope as well as the brochure / ad or whatever.
But if it’s not relevant, it’s judged as advertising – and is judged all the more harshly for having pretended to be something that it is not. So beware that letter offering me life insurance when you should know that I already have it (sometimes even with you); beware that call offering me a fantastic offer on a service that I’ve already been using with you for 10 or more years…. In short, beware of NOT using what I think you should know about me.
“But our systems” I hear you say, “our systems simply can’t do that”. Well, the consumer thinks that you know. And they think you’re smart enough to use what they know – and mostly, they don’t feel that’s an invasion of their privacy at all! So here are a few things that I think my suppliers know about me…..
I expect my bank to know where I shop, my supermarket to know what I buy (in great detail, because I do it on the internet and they deliver it to me), my phone company to know when and where I call to, my airline to know when and where I fly to (and what seat I prefer).
These things are common, ordinary, what most consumers would expect. But where marketers really win, is when they think of ways to know things that others don’t. For example…
I expect my bank to know when I change jobs or get promoted. Why? Because my pay goes in and they should be able to see that it’s coming from a new place, or has taken a huge upward or downward move. I also expect my mobile phone company to know when I’ve been out of the country, for how long and even, perhaps, where I’ve been.
Think of ways to use those insights to know me, understand me – and therefore make me relevant offers, through whatever medium, and suddenly you break through; you disrupt the territory in my head that says I don’t like being ‘advertised to’ in my email box!
And if your systems won’t let you do it right, you should start to think about whether you should be doing it at all – for a response rate of 5% or 2% or whatever may be fantastically lucrative and efficient from your (and your accountant’s) perspective, but what about the other 90% plus who at best just binned the communication, but at worst were deeply annoyed by it.
In the meantime – while you sort out your systems – perhaps you should focus on less interruptive media, where you will get a more favourable reception!
Debra Hall