…and thrived
In the past decade or so, Marketing had a few jumps. The range of communication with individuals has grown wider and finer.
Going from physical address to e-mail address and then to third party platforms, apps, and push notifications.
We are now interacting via multiple channels collecting various data, from location to preferences, on computers, tablets, and smartphones, and Marketing just got used to it, never really reflecting on where this is all going.
Then GDPR happened, and it happened for a reason, it all kinda went wild and there was a lot of resistance from marketing and more than one doomsday scenario predicting the end of Marketing, the end of B2C, and the end of all the good in the world.
In my bias opinion, this all happened because of an invisible force — a marketing mindset, that struggles with the application of data protection rules and requirements, seeing them of opposite values to what marketing’s mission is.
Marketing is trying to find out as much as it can about consumers and buying personas to discover a way to place their messages, sell their products and services, and often see the GDPR as a set of restrictive measures.
However, they never put into a calculation that all things evolve, and Marketing is no exception.
Therefore, 21st-century Marketing should be using pull instead of push methods. It should be based on transparency, trust, and mutual agreement between individuals and the company, on what should be communicated and when, how their data is being used, and the added value that is exchanged here.
The Data Protection Officer or a DPO (you can read more about this new role here) and the CMO had to develop mutual language, requiring a CMO to gain an understanding of data protection principles, and a DPO to become a little bit of a marketing expert, and I see nothing bad coming from that.
If they understand each other, they can create a compliance program that is flexible enough to allow marketing to continue achieving its goals while maintaining compliance, protecting the company from reputational damages, GDPR violations, and extreme fines, but most importantly protecting me as an individual, giving me back control over my data.
Despite negative predictions from marketers, GDPR did not kill Marketing. For anybody who has scratched the surface of the GDPR, this was probably expected.
However, it did change the marketing landscape, but that was a much-needed change, it set the Marketing course a little bit more towards consumers.
There is ever-growing concern from individuals about how their personal data is treated, and the change to transparent and privacy-oriented marketing is becoming a competitive advantage of companies who had a visionary approach to the importance of data privacy.
So, my point is, there is a human factor in this story, we are not dumb consumers and we do not respond well to brute force.
I have no problem giving my personal data to a company that respects it, and where I know, that at any given moment I can revoke my consent and get my data back.
And as a marketer, I always had a problem with this aggressive and harassing marketing. I feel like we are on a much better path here and can’t wait to see more and more people caring about their personal data and acting upon it.
GDPR did not kill Marketing, it changed it and for the better.
If you want to find out more about compliant GDPR marketing this is a great guide and I encourage you to download it: GDPR and Direct Marketing
