Why having a plan to navigate data privacy and security is essential in today’s advertising ecosystem
Over 337 million terabytes of data are created around the world each day. That is the equivalent of over 135 billion HD movies streamed every 24 hours. With such a staggering amount of data being generated, captured, copied or consumed daily, it’s no surprise that data is the fuel that runs the advertising economy and is considered one of the most important assets a business can hold. In other words, data is power.
With that in mind, I couldn’t help but think of the proverb popularized by the world-famous Marvel superhero, Spider-Man: “With great power comes great responsibility.” It is through this adage that Peter Parker was inspired to effect positive change in the world, becoming the hero that we know him to be.
In today’s advertising ecosystem marketers can be the hero. As the collection of valuable information expands and privacy legislation increases across the country, marketers can be the force for good that sets the example and leads the advertising industry forward by upholding responsible data privacy standards for themselves and their partners. Responsible standards that account for how they collect, process and store personal data across platforms, advertising technology and audience targeting strategies. In other words, requiring that data is leveraged in a way that is conscientious of its most important resource – the consumer.
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With 81% of U.S. adult consumers being concerned about how companies use the data they collect on them, the need for marketers to make sense of what data privacy and security is, and the role it plays in the advertising ecosystem, has never been more crucial.
Consumers are particularly concerned about the practices of ‘Big Tech’ and social media platforms, with 77% of Americans having little or no trust in leaders of social media companies to publicly admit mistakes and take responsibility for data misuse.
Over the past year, there have been several bombshell revelations related to ‘Big Tech’s’ data privacy and security shortcomings. One of the most recent findings being an internal Google database leak obtained by 404 media that revealed thousands of privacy incidents. This included the recording of children’s voices, exposing user addresses in ‘Waze’ and the public exposure of more than one million users’ email addresses from a company that Google acquired, to name a few. While a google rep confirmed that many of these instances have been rectified, the fact that these types of data privacy and security issues can and do happen, should be concerning to any user or advertiser. It also should also serve as a valuable lesson, because advertisers themselves play a critical role in the responsible and secure treatment of consumer data.
As marketers leverage consumer data to shape the customer experience, there are benefits to considering both the legal and customer aspects of data privacy. Not only do both aspects impact the ability to achieve success as a business, but failure to adhere to data privacy regulations can result in legal, financial and brand reputational risk. Customers are paying close attention to brands. In fact, 98% of consumers want assurance that their personal data is being used responsibly and securely by a brand. Advertisers who are upfront about how they intend to use data and provide the ability to control how it is used, build stronger relationships with customers.
This is where the core principle of data privacy is demonstrated – empowering consumers to have control over their personal data, including the ability to decide how organizations collect, store and use their data. Additionally, you can’t have data privacy without data security, which is the principle that any entity collecting data has an ethical and legal obligation to protect the data they collect from unauthorized access and misuse.
Together, Data Privacy & Security offer consumers the ability to:
- Opt-in to freely and ethically provide information
- Have their data protected from unauthorized access and misuse
- Have their data only be accessible by members of an organization who require it to do their jobs
As consumers become more aware of how their data is used, the United States has experienced a surge in individual state level legislation with federal laws being discussed as well. At their core, these laws are focused on giving consumers more authority in how their data is collected and used by the companies they share it with. As a marketer, taking steps to future proof your strategies for navigating data privacy today will offer long term benefits:
So as a marketer, how can you navigate the privacy-focused landscape?
- Build trust with your customers and media platforms by having clear consent language when requesting access to keep personal data.
- Accompany your clear opt-in language with a value exchange so that there’s a win for your consumers.
- Prioritize media channels that are regulated, ensuring consumer privacy is protected and your data is safeguarded at the highest standards.
- Build a privacy durable marketing strategy by embracing Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs).
PETs – like data clean rooms, UIDs, homomorphic encryption, differential privacy and synthetic data – are solutions that ensure data privacy and protection while allowing organizations to extract value from data. In addition to PETs, there are privacy forward strategies such as contextual targeting that provide a path to reaching your ideal consumers in a privacy compliant manner that also mitigate the need for deprecating and privacy concerned signals such as 3rd party cookies.
It’s also important to understand that privacy regulation is not a completely new idea. In fact, decades of federal regulation have created a safe and secure environment with multiscreen TV for both consumers and advertisers. Through legislation like the Cable Communications Policy Act (1984), multiscreen TV has long been required by law to give consumers authority over their own data.
In short, PETs in combination with regulated media channels are your newest marketing superpower.
You can learn more about how to leverage multiscreen TV along with new and innovative technology, to protect and propel your brand, business or platform in the VAB webinar series The State of TV Measurement 2024.
We have an opportunity to do better as an industry, across both the buy and sell side. Because doing what’s right for the consumer, is a pillar of doing good business. As you build your next marketing plan, create your next ad campaign or leverage ad tech – think about how the consumer data on the other end of it all is being used, and look to partner with media platforms who genuinely do the same.
Remember – with great power comes great responsibility, or better yet, with great data comes great responsibility.