An asteroid misses; an asteroid hits: privacy crackdown cancelled, as social media age law takes priority
An asteroid misses; an asteroid hits: privacy crackdown cancelled, as social media age law takes priority
Welcome to a midweek update from Unmade. Today: As the threat of a regulation-heavy privacy crackdown on the marketing industry recedes, the government takes on another big target instead. Plus Nine falls past another milestone on the Unmade Index.
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Role of loyalty programs in retail media to be explored at next month’s REmade conference
REmade curator Cat McGinn writes:
Adam Posner, an independent customer loyalty specialist with over 31 years of data-driven marketing experience, will present findings and share key insights from new research on customer loyalty at REmade conference, taking place in Sydney in just over a fortnight.
Posner, founder of The Point of Loyalty, will explore the evolving role of loyalty programs as a data asset for personalisation, while addressing the delicate balance of consumer privacy and trust. Loyalty programs are vital for retail media, as they provide rich customer insights that enable more targeted, relevant advertising.
In his presentation, Adam will offer a practical perspective on why some loyalty programs fail, and how to mitigate these risks. The presentation will emphasise the importance of nurturing loyalty programs as a long-term personalisation platform to enhance the retail media ecosystem, driving sustainable business growth beyond short-term campaigns.
REMade, now extended to a full day of content, takes place on October 1. Ticketsare available via this link.
A tale of two crackdowns
If you didn’t think yesterday’s announcement of an age ban on using social media was about politics, you weren’t paying attention during yesterday’s Question Time.
While there is broad consensus across the main parties that delaying putting the most sophisticated distraction machine in human history in front of still-forming human brains is a good thing, it became clear that this is far from a fully thought through plan.
Having identified the problem and promised to legislate, the government will now run trials to see if that’s possible. Ready, fire, aim.
It’s a contrast to the other piece of (non) legislative news that emerged this week - The Guardian’s scoop that after months of consultations with the marketing industry, the most stringent of the changes to the Privacy Act will be dumped until the other side of the election. Ready, aim, don’t fire.
Both pieces of policy news have implications the media and marketing sector.
The decision not to proceed with the hard bits of the Privacy Act reforms - removing exemptions for smaller businesses and creating a “fair and reasonable” test for what information about the public - is consequential for the industry. But we don’t tend to remember the asteroids that narrowly missed.
In an alternate timeline, Google’s third party cookie deprecation went ahead, and more stringent data privacy rules were legislated. In that timeline the next couple of years would have been mired in red tape and complications for marketers. But at the other end, the industry would have emerged doing its marketing in a way closer to what the public, creeped out by targeting, wanted.
Instead, marketers who choose to adopt best practice, probably based on European law, may well find themselves fall behind rivals who do whatever is legally permissible to get an edge. In the long term that will be bad for an industry which has lost public trust, and bad for consumers. One of the points of legislation is to create a level playing field when short term incentives mean an industry can’t act in its own best interests, and those of the public.
The approach of the now, apparently, shelved privacy shakeup, should be applied to the plans to age limit access to social media.
The privacy reforms would have made it marketers’ problem to make sure their consumer data was responsibly used against that vague “fair and reasonable” principle. It was on them to get to grips with their data. In the case of the age crackdown, the government appears to be taking on the burden by funding the research into the best way of doing it, rather than legislating for the principle, and making it the well funded platforms’ problem to solve.
New rules on betting ads remains in limbo. Reportedly, Cabinet couldn’t agree this week on whether to give the TV networks their carveout or not. And talk about a digital levy for the platforms, with the funds to be given to news owners, is getting louder.
For the media and marketing world, we are entering some of the most significant weeks of the Albanese government. Watch closely.
Nine closes below $2bn
Nine’s market capitalisation declined another 2% on Tuesday, ending the trading day on a market capitalisation of below $2bn for the first time in Mike Sneesby’s tenure as CEO. The landmark came a day after briefly dipping below $2bn during trading.
Broadcast stocks Seven West Media (+2.9%), ARN Media (+1.7%) and Sports Entertainment Group (+8.3%) all grew yesterday
The Unmade Index, which tracks all the ASX-listed media and marketing stocks, closed on another new low, dropping o.12% to land on 443 points.
How Nine has lost $3bn in valuation since Sneesby took the helm:
Time to leave you to your day. We’ll be back with more soon.
Have a great day.
Toodlepip…
Tim Burrowes
Publisher - Unmade
tim@unmade.media