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Trends and Insight in association withSynapse Virtual Production
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With Big Data Comes Big Responsibility

16/04/2014
Digital Agency
London, United Kingdom
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Dare Digital Senior Planner, Steve Graves, on wearable tech and the future of big data

Since being the first kid on his block with access to the Internet in the early 90s, Steve has spent more time than he’d care to admit online. Admittedly, he’s obsessed with all things digital which helps explain his eclectic CV. From a web designer specialising in UX to starting (then selling) his own SEO marketing agency, he has spent more than a decade working in digital in some form or another. As Senior Planner at DARE, Steve works out of Vancouver, Los Angeles, and New York with globally recognised brands to ensure whatever they do in digital delivers.


One of the biggest headline grabbers from this year’s CES was Intel’s Edison computer. As far as technical specs go, it was pretty standard fare – dual-core PC with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capabilities. What made it special was the fact it was the size of an SD card – a fact that captured the imagination of techies the world over.

Along with Edison came Intel’s sponsored ‘Make it Wearable’ contest, offering up $1.3 million to developers willing to help establish Edison as the ‘brains’ in the coming onslaught of wearable tech products. Not that you have to wear Edison. Intel also showcased its ‘Nursery 2.0’ that featured a whole shopping cart worth of Edison embedded products. It included a ‘smart toy frog’ that wirelessly reports an infant’s vitals to a parent via an LED coffee cup, while remotely starting a milk warmer at the sound of a crying baby. The fact that it’s cute makes it especially interesting considering it represents one of the greatest changes in human history. Welcome to the age of the quantified self – whether we like it or not.

The smaller and more powerful computers get, the more we integrate them into all facets of our lives. And with computers comes data – vast amounts of it being generated by our every action. Up to now, the data we’ve been most focused on has been happening online. It’s where every one of your clicks, page views and bounces is being systematically recorded, measured, and analysed. All that data analysis has given digital marketers an incredible leg up as it effectively removes the guesswork. But how much ‘guesswork’ can be removed before it’s no longer marketing, and more just a fish in a barrel type exercise?

If you’re looking for proof, consider Amazon’s recent patent that outlined a way to ship your order before you actually make it. What they are calling ‘anticipatory package shipping’ looks at your prior behaviour (searches, prior purchases, wish lists etc.), and identifies patterns. From there they predict the likelihood of you ordering a particular product you’ve shown interest in, and if that’s high enough, start packaging and shipping it before you click the ‘add to cart’ button. For the user, the benefit (assuming it’s accurate – and it will be) is less wait time for your item providing happier more satisfied Amazon customers; and where there are happy customers, there’s profit. Predicting behaviour that is fuelled by big data is proving itself big business.

Now what would happen if the behaviours we could measure and analyse extended well beyond online? For example, let’s say your LED coffee cup connected to a toy frog that monitored your infant’s vital signs, which in turn synced wirelessly with the milk warmer. It doesn’t take much imagination to consider the kinds of data that could be theoretically generated as a result. Just the ‘smart’ coffee cup alone could track when and how frequent you drink coffee, how long it takes you to drink a cup, if you use cream and sugar, the type of roast you prefer, how often you wash your cup, what brand of detergent you use when you wash it, etc. The list goes on – and that’s just a coffee cup. Marry that with all the other data generated from the coming onslaught of ‘smart’ devices (plus your existing online habits) and you’ve got yourself some serious data scientist porn.

No question that big data represents one of the biggest game changers in our industry – and arguably for society too. It’s already proven itself to be an incredibly effective tool in the advertiser’s arsenal allowing us to predict behaviour and intercept consumers at their most receptive. But the quality and quantity of data that is going to be generated as a result of the rapid spread of smart tech – and with that, our ability to analyse vast sets of it means we might very well know more about a person than they do about themselves. It’s a tremendous power to have over the consumer and one that brings with it the same level of responsibility.

The potential for abuse is significant and there is good reason to believe it will steadily increase alongside innovations in integrated tech. With no compelling historical precedent, it raises complex practical and moral questions that we as digital marketers need to start asking. Ultimately, it’s up to society to decide what rules and guidelines it imposes on this emerging industry. But until that happens, just remember what the biggest collector of data (and arguably the world’s most powerful company) made their informal corporate motto: “Don’t be evil.” That should be enough … let’s hope.


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