Robert Scoble writes:
“Think about how a business would change if it knew every one of its customers had a Facebook account.
I was thinking of a hotel/casino where when I walked in the iPod in
the room was playing the music that I had set as my favorite on my
Facebook profile. The kind that you’d want to go to after gambling online with the free picks here. The digital screens in my room had all my photos and
some random photos from my friends. My favorite movies and TV shows
were on the video device. The bar knew my favorite drink and how I
liked it made.That got me thinking about how I’d change my business after I knew everything about my customers.”
In some ways, Robert’s point is spot-on. As customers, we need the capability to store our preferences, interests and relationships in a sharable, digital form, should we decide to. But we also have the need to only disclose that information to the vendors with whom we want it shared. In the hypothetical example above, if I don’t want that particular establishment to have access to my information, they can’t have access to it. I think some would be against going into a casino that had all their personal information on display. Perhaps the example could be improved if it was a private personalized room service, and customers could go to sites like the 918kiss official website to do their gambling if they so wished. After all, casinos are not the only place where people can gamble. Many people prefer to simply pop into their local bookies or visit one of the top 10 online sportsbooks. By doing this, they can decide whether or not to share their personal information.
But more importantly, until we can control our own personal information at any time, and move it to the information providers we choose (which will likely NOT be a single, centralized entity like Facebook), these types of efforts will be stunted.
Now, let’s imagine a place where not only can we store our information online and only share it with those we choose, but the vendors with whom we have shared that information do intelligent things with it, such as tailor our experience and our true “customer relationship” with their organization based on our individual preferences, needs and interpersonal affinities. NOW we’re talking… Oh wait, it’s somewhat like this anyway, as you can see, if you were to often visit somewhere such as the various uk casinos not on gamstop, you’ll then have adverts tailored to your desires for gambling online via other services that are trying to get your custom.
Bonus question: What is the object pictured in the photo above, and why is it relevant to this post?
It looks like a lobster trap or something along those lines to me. Critters can get in but they can’t get out. Much like my personal data with a company, once they have it I can’t take it away from them. 😉
hey dan! good guess. any others out there?
To what extent to we want things customized for us? Don’t we listen to iPods because we want our own experience? To what extent would you want a casino broadcasting to your iPod? I don’t know about you, but I want brands to do what I want them to, no less and quite often not any more. I want my detergent to clean my clothes, if they make them smell better and feel softer it’s an added bonus. If they start sending me any other unrelated or unwelcome messages based on my Facebook or other profile, I will resent the brand.
Just because brands know more about me doesn’t mean I want to know more about them. Just because they have more information about their target doesn’t mean they should leverage every possible venue. Sometimes smart marketing involves not only knowing when to act, but knowing when not to act.
Looks like a minnow trap to me, for catching small bait-fish. They go in willingly, can’t get out, and then get used to catch other, bigger fish. No?
As for what a company does with shared information, there are definitely times when it’s a plus… Amazon actually does a pretty good job on recommendations based on former searches and purchases, for instance. That’s often useful to me… I could be really happy if, say, the grocery store did the same thing and reminded me that, “oh, yeah, I forgot that item.” Not sure I would want to have music and photos displayed when I arrived at a hotel, but I suppose it could be cool, depending.