We are what we crave, what we yearn for. Our wanderlust, our
joys, our emancipation. But also crushing anguish and suffering.
All of it is who we are as humans.
Marketing experts can now capture, measure, store and sell such
personal information. Who leads and who follows will determine
where the data industry moves next. Across commercial and political
industries, advertisers have drawn the line. "It is time for
marketers and tech companies to solve the problem of annoying ads
and make the ad experience better for consumers," Mark Pritchard,
Procter & Gamble's CMO,
told DMEXCO last year. Many others did too. Consumers are
beginning to act and are demanding more from marketers and
challenging legislators, but most brands are still evaluating their
next move. Who has the obligation to act and participate in a
transparent relationship? In a frictionless world, it must be both
industry and consumers, equally.
People want what they want, when they want it, from whom they
decide to get it, in the form and shape they choose. There really
is no true privacy: The value exchange began long ago. Judging is
the new frontier, and consumers determine 90 percent of the
value.
Genuine transparency, including the sources and their costs, is
the first step in building trust. The IAB, the ANA, marketing and
ad technologies, publishers, ISPs and marketplaces all have a
chance to develop this transparency with the same rigor and capital
they've built their reputations on. The scrutiny, however, is
deeper and the conclusions that have been made are not fleeting:
They're now embedded in consumer consciousness.
Jennifer Lyn Morone, an American artist, tested transparency
through "extreme capitalism": She set herself up as a Delaware
corporation, offering buyers dossiers of her own personal data to
exploit for financial gain. "The entire collection, including her
health data and social security number, can be had for over
$9,000," The Economist reported.
Transparency has entered our daily lives in so
many different ways we barely notice it anymore: