The last seven days have been big for news. NHS staff are getting a pay rise, it’s been reported Elon Musk could be in for a £35 billion pay package, and reminders have been sent out about changing for daylight savings, but has marketing news been as fruitful? Let’s take a look at some of the biggest stories of the week.
Mark Zuckerberg Addresses The Cambridge Analytica Scandal
The biggest news of the week has to be around Facebook and the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and Mark Zuckerberg’s (Facebook’s founder’s) response.
In 2014, a University of Cambridge professor developed an app which offered Facebook users payment in return for users filling out a personality test. This was downloaded by 270,000 and, in the process, gave him access to friends lists of the users. That meant he was given information of up to 50 million more Facebook users.
Facebook has since made changes to how data can be collected and suspended the company the professor collaborated with. However, in 2015 it was revealed that data from this breach had been shared with a number of press organisations and Facebook instructed them to delete it.
Last week though, it was revealed that a number of these organisations may not have deleted the data as instructed and have been banned from using Facebook as a result. A forensic audit is now underway and an investigation is being sought.
In a post on Wednesday, Zuckerberg said:
“We have a responsibility to protect your data, and, if we can’t, then we don’t deserve to serve you. I’ve been working to understand exactly what happened and how to make sure this doesn’t happen again. […] I started Facebook, and at the end of the day I’m responsible for what happens on our platform. I’m serious about doing what it takes to protect our community. While this specific issue involving Cambridge Analytica should no longer happen with new apps today, that doesn’t change what happened in the past. We will learn from this experience to secure our platform further and make our community safer for everyone going forward.”
Study Finds Almost Half Of Marketers Don’t Share Insights With Their Sales Teams
A study by experience management company Qualtrics has found that 46 per cent of marketers only share customer insights, data and feedback with sales teams at most once a month.
54 per cent of marketers regularly share customer insights and feedback with sales, 50 per cent do with customer service teams, 29 per cent with the wider workforce, and 27 per cent with the board or c-level executives.
Leonie Brown, Customer Experience Consultant, Qualtrics EMEA, said:
“Great customer experiences cannot exist in a vacuum. Brands must guarantee that every aspect of the customer journey is delivering a consistent, seamless and high quality experience. To achieve this, everyone involved – from sales staff to delivery drivers to the CEO – must understand how the customer thinks, behaves and what they are looking for.
“Access to data goes a long way to improve each interaction along the customer journey, but information alone isn’t enough. Today the vast amount of data that brands are using look only to the past for insights, reflecting previous shopping habits, purchases and behaviours. By bringing together insights from every customer touchpoint we can unlock “Experience Data” — or X-data — which reveals why consumers behave in the way they do and predicts their next move. That is the real secret to a successful customer experience.”
Boots Officially Becomes Highest Ranked Brand Among UK Women
According to the latest YouGov BrandIndex survey, Boots has overtaken Marks and Spencer to become the highest ranked brand among UK women. Boots has jumped from third place in last year’s list to become first, followed closely by John Lewis and Heinz.
In the meantime, Marks and Spencer has dropped to fourth place for this demographic. However, it has retained its dominance among those aged 35 to 49 and 50+.
Netflix was the brand that saw the biggest increase in impressions among women over the past year with an increase of 7.3 points.
Marketers Predict 26 Per Cent Of Their Budgets Will Be Wasted In 2018
Research by Rakuten Marketing has found marketers estimate more than a quarter of their marketing budgets will be spent on the wrong channels or strategies in 2018. Experienced data analysts admitted the least waste at 18 per cent of their total budgets.
When nations were compared, the UK was the least worried about budget waste estimating around 20 per cent. Germany estimated around 25 per cent, whereas France and the US purported the highest at 30 per cent.
For more news updates, guides and opinion pieces, take a look at a few more of our articles.