Author Archives: Shaina Boone
As the moderator of this week’s Wharton School of Business panel, “Analytics Across Industries” Elea Feit (Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative) asked CM’s VP Marketing Science a number of questions about current trends in online measurement. Here’s a glimpse inside their discussion about the transformation happening inside organizations, posing interesting challenges for management and opening up new career paths for students.
Why Now?
Elea: What do you think is driving this move toward analytics?
Shaina: Accountability has been looming for years. Some organizations are still getting away without it, but I’ve seen clients and us fired if Sr. leadership changes and the analytics aren’t up to snuff. The days of bloated business are over.
Elea: All of you have invested your careers in analytics – you have really branded yourself as someone who can use data to provide answers. What led you to do that and where do you hope it will take you?
Shaina: I experienced the .Com boom and the .Com bust. If only we had had analytics widely in 2000, we probably could have saved the industry and a lot of jobs. Every agency in Chicago closed its doors and the industry overall lost the entire middle tier of talent. We now have a talent shortage for all the work that is out there. I chose this profession because a it comes naturally to me, and b to save the industry from tanking again, and to provide the consumer and business a better product.
Privacy and fear. The two are intertwined. Yes, there are real fears related to online privacy–identity theft, credit card theft, stalking, even murder; but marketing? Come on. Marketing is not life or death, folks. It shouldn’t even drive anxiety. It’s simply a means to get you to buy a car, cleaning product, shoes, faucet, bank account, etc.
The US and much of Europe are capitalist societies that have been built and grown based on business success. Companies are going to keep trying as hard as they can to sell their product, but they would much rather try to sell it to a qualified over unqualified consumer. We all get frustrated being so bombarded by advertising in our capitalist markets, but there is no reason to fear being sold window cleaner or basketball shoes. Let’s face it, you are going to buy this stuff anyway. That’s what humans who have jobs and money do. We all try to live our lives more easily and more pleasurably, and companies that develop and sell products help us do that.
Yet “privacy” is being used as a blanket issue and marketing is the scapegoat because it’s far easier to attack than the big unsolvable issues like identity theft or stalking. Read More
