Privacy is “the ability of an individual to isolate themselves or information about themselves, therefrom express themselves selectively.”
The information can be identified on (1) whether it is true or not or (2) whether it is recorded in material form or not.
Recently, UK has planned to track the success of social distancing using customer’s mobile phone data. However, privacy campaigners want the policy to be radically transparent to gain customers trust.
Therefore, the government wants to adopt mobile technology to build models that can predict the virus movement and keep individuals data within strict privacy guidelines. They will ensure the checks and balances between privacy, consent and ethics are pivotal.
Self-Regulation and the Advertising Industry
Self-regulation is “a system where advertising, marketing, agency and media industry set voluntary rules and standards of practice beyond their legal obligations”.
The purpose of self-regulation is enunciated clearly on AANA Code of Ethics to assure that “advertisement and any other forms of marketing communications are legal, decent, honest and truthful and they are constructed with a sense of obligation to consumer and society and a sense of justice and responsibility to competitors”.
Advertising self-regulation has been established in Australia for over 40 years. The current system is arranged by the Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA) in 1997.
Advertisers support this system because they act responsibly and do not want to offend Australian public. They command their advertising agencies to comply with various Codes of advertising standards by concurring to the levy applied and adhere to Adverting Standards Board decisions. The advertising agencies will monitor the codes and decisions to create campaigns accordingly.
Ethics and data-driven advertising
Ethics are “moral principles that governs customer’s behaviour or their daily activities.”
Cookies
Cookie is a “small piece of data sent from a website and saved on the user’s browser to remember information or record browsing activity”.
BBC News website has incorporated cookies warning message at the top of their home page when a user visits site for the first time.
Geo-Tracking
Geolocation tracking for mobile marketing is used to create more tailored and pertinent marketing for potential customers.
Nordstrom integrates geolocation to enhance customer experience by giving push notifications to nearby customers when there are remaining items in the shopping carts.
It is important that advertising companies respect customer’s privacy by protecting their personal information and only using it for interests of the lives of society. They should act responsibly towards customers as well as their competitors and conduct their marketing activities that comply to the code of ethics.
Companies must make decisions regarding their appropriateness of actions. The advertising or promotion executed from customer data should be ethical towards customers.
Do you think companies should keep customer personal information when they conduct their marketing activities in the marketplace? Do you agree that the marketers should gather customer data to create feasible personalised and targeted marketing that will enhance customer experience?
I would like to hear your opinion in the comment section below. I will answer your questions and feedbacks with all of my best capabilities. Thank you for reading my articles and have a good day.
Sarah Erfina's Blog 
Companies should protect customer personal information when they conduct their marketing activities in the workplace. The marketing activities must be ethical towards customers to be able to understand their behavior and enhance their experience.
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Privacy and ethics are very important aspects that companies should consider before they operate their businesses in society. Customers would find the brand more valuable. They will become attached and loyal since the brand is very thoughtful to their target market and treat their customers as the main priority to advertise and promote their products.
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There is a grey line here on the usage of consumer’s personal information as many government agencies are not as up to date. I do believe there is a need for a global agency that oversees the usage of personal information so big companies such as google and facebook do not compromise our personal data. There should be a proper and up to date guidelines standardised worldwide to help prevent malicious intents.
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Companies should follow Code of Ethics and advertising standards regulated from AANA hence advertising agencies adhere to the rules when they conduct their marketing activities that may not breach customer’s privacy or harm their customers reputation. Consequently, the companies may also operate based on these protocols to avoid spreading customer personal information database.
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Hi Sarah! I think it is okay for companies to collect information on their consumers as I can understand that they may want to better cater to their marketing strategies to their consumers and also some companies will typically ask for the consumer’s consent before collecting data. However, on the contrary, when companies hold this information, it also up to them to keep their consumer’s privacy as their priority, and should probably implement guidelines for the company to follow. This would enable trust between consumers and the companies, which can also help convert them to loyal consumers etc. Cheers!
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Thanks for the feedback, Cherlyn. AANA has established Code of Ethics and advertising standards for advertising companies to follow where they advertise and promote their brands and products towards customers. The advertising and promotion will be more ethical towards customers and companies will be more respectful towards customers personal information and will not breach their privacy.
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Yes, I do you agree that the marketers should gather customer data to create feasible personalised and targeted marketing. However, I think marketers should also protect and respect customer information by keeping the data to themselves.
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You’re absolutely right, Aveline. It is important for companies to respect customer’s privacy and protect their personal information and use it for the better society and their businesses itself. They should not misuse and manipulate this personal information for their own purposes. They should have integrity and be more honest when they operate their business in the marketplace to gain customer’s trust and arouse customer desire to purchase and use your brand’s product.
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I agree that by marketers should collect datas, since it allows them to provide a better service, however there have been so many cases in the past regarding data breaching, do you have any tips on to how to mitigate these risks?
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https://cipher.com/blog/5-effective-ways-to-prevent-data-breaches/
You may find more information about the way to eradicate data breaching on the above website. Thank you for your curiosity.
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