Why the norms are game-changing for digi-marketers

With the European Union rolling out its General Data Protection Regulation, digital marketing’s core appears to have been shaken to its very foundation. Advertisers tend to rely on consumer data to develop personal and hugely satisfying advertising experiences.

With GDPR treating both anonymous and personal data in the same way, the new law is set to have a major impact on ad experiences for consumers.

Impact on India

“Who says this is not going to impact Indian consumers and Indian corporates?” asked ad guru Prahlad Kakkar. “The advertising industry is right now in a huddle, trying to make sense of the new law and its impact here. Never think this is some European mess and will take time to reach our shores. This is happening here and now.”

The new law is all about giving the consumer greater control, security and transparency over his personal online data. But Kakkar said it is these very principles that have been recklessly misused by advertisers and brands time and again. “Each advertiser’s marketing strategy will have to change to exclusivity with the new GDPR. If a brand doesn’t build exclusivity in its campaign when it reaches out to consumers, why would they want to be solicited by that particular brand? Digital companies will now have to work a little harder,” he said.

Concurring with the view, Ashish Bhasin, Chairman and CEO-South Asia, Dentsu Aegis Network, told BusinessLine that the new law is set to have severe implications, since data may become a valuable property given the many privacy issues. “This will put an additional layer of responsibility and bring in more accountability for all those holding and using data and working with data,” he said.

Media giants’ dilemma

As digitisation grows, consumers tend to leave behind bigger digital footprints.

“The continuous volume and importance of data sensitivity generated today is significantly increasing,” said an ad veteran, pointing out that the onus to fall in line would be higher on advertisers and publishers like Google and Facebook, who will be forced to follow prescribed precautions and ensure that best practices are followed.

While Facebook is looking to bring back facial recognition, initially to Europe, to abide by the new GDPR rules, Google is reportedly battling over 4,000 advertisers and publishers. “Cambridge Analytica was a nightmare for Mark Zuckerberg. Now with GDPR it becomes worse. Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Amazon, Microsoft hold colossal amounts of information about billions of people around the world. If they fall foul of GDPR, they risk being fined huge sums of money,” said Kakkar.

‘Clean-up inevitable’

The consequences are pretty severe. A company not complying with the new law will be penalised at 4 per cent of its global turnover. “In other words, even if a company has an office in Europe or a smaller office in India, even one instance of misuse will invite the penalty. Henceforth, all digital advertising will be more permission-based,” said an ad chief.

Advertising veterans said once GDPR is officially implemented, there is bound to be an inevitable clean-up of the advertising industry. Companies that have not been conducting due diligence with their customers or have not been working towards being GDPR-complaint are set to face severe difficulties in maintaining some of their existing partnerships or even engaging in new ones, said an ad chieftain, citing the example of an auto giant which tried to ask consumers if they would like to continue to receive marketing messages from them.

A large number of e-mails were sent to individuals in order to clarify their marketing preferences. The auto brand was unaware of their preferences and so individuals were asked to ‘opt in’ or ‘opt out’ of marketing e-flyers and online advertising messages. This will now become a norm here.

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