This article is part of a series highlighting the Top 10 Global Consumer Trends 2020 report.
The Private Personalisation trend involves balancing the desire for optimised experiences with concern regarding collection and use of personal data.
Consumers expect tailored interactions with brands but must relinquish personal information to accomplish this. Younger consumers are more willing to share their data in return for custom offers; however, according to Euromonitor International’s 2019 Lifestyles Survey, 40-50% of consumers believe that targeted ads based on online searches are an invasion of privacy.
Optimise or Opt-Out
To further complicate matters, brands need data now more than ever before. Retailers that invest in advanced personalisation tactics perform better than those using less sophisticated methods, and many companies are looking into emerging business models that will require an increase in the amount and types of data collected.
Recent legislation, including the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the California Privacy Act in the US and China’s new rules protecting minors’ personal information, is keeping pace with advances in technology and helping ensure privacy. However, security risks persist, along with concerns regarding the improper use of identifying information, such as biometric data, by both companies and governments.
Industry responses to Private Personalisation are creative and varied; for example, some fashion brands are using their products to explore digital invisibility. Reflectacles is a US brand developing “privacy eyewear” that protects its users from facial recognition technology. In April 2020, the company is poised to sell IRpair, a pair of sunglasses that blocks infrared radiation (IR) facial recognition, preventing cameras from identifying a face via eye measurement.
Private Personalisation consumers will become progressively less trusting of companies that extract and use their data without transparency, adequate security and freedom to decline. Recent regulation has helped managed how information is collected and how individuals exercise their rights over privacy; however, as data collection technology pervades more private and public spaces, these consumers will also turn to products that physically block devices to ensure their opt-out.
More Privacy vs. More Personalised Experiences
As brands are employing proactive methods to give customers a more personalised experience with their products and services, they are ever more reliant on data to help them achieve these ends. While many consumers enjoy these customised experiences, many are beginning to wonder what they are putting at risk to achieve them. Private Personalisation consumers will surely become progressively less trusting of companies extracting and using their data without transparency, adequate security and opt-out options.
To learn more, please download the free report, “Top 10 Global Consumer Trends 2020”.