Tag: big data

How A Health Insurance Is Using Wearable Data To Motivate Its Customers

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
CSS, one of Switzerland’s biggest health insurers, is testing a pilot program to incentivize or, depending on your perspective, penalize its customers based on fitness data. Launched in July, the program tracks the movements of 2,000 volunteers on a daily basis using digital pedometers. The goal is to better calibrate insurance rates based on individual data. Currently, the monitoring can only legally be used on supplementary insurance, but the company reportedly would like to expand it as part of the Switzerland’s mandatory basic coverage.

What Brands Should Do
Fitness trackers and the quantified self movement have grown in tandem, which in turn, generate a vast amount of health data that the healthcare industry can use to improve their service. In fact, CSS is not the first insurance company to utilize fitness data: Oscar Insurance launched a similar test program in the US last year. The company gave away Misfit fitness trackers and rewarded users with Amazon gift cards based on their personal stats. Besides insurers, more healthcare companies should figure out how, within legal bounds, to incorporate fitness data into their incentive programs or even penalization, in order to provide more personalized and calibrated services, understand their customers, and manage risks.

 

Source: Quartz

Facebook Planning Virtual Assistant Service Staffed With Real Humans

Posted on by Lab Team

Facebook is reportedly planning to add to its Messenger platform a new digital assistant service dubbed “Moneypenny,” which will allow users to ask real people for help researching and ordering products and services, among other tasks. Previously, Facebook had already started letting Messenger users communicate directly with businesses, and this new feature feels like a natural, yet significant, development in building out its messaging platform.

Since this is Facebook, there is no doubt that they will leverage some of the user data it has for better targeting and recommendation. The question here, however, is just how much access the Moneypenny staff will have to the vast amount of data that Facebook has gathered on the users across its various services and platforms. While it’d make for a quicker, more personalized service to let the “Moneypennies” tap into the user data and learn about their customers’ preferences and interests, ensuring user privacy and data security remains a big issue to Facebook.

Source: Business Insider

Weinstein Targets Frequent Movie-Goers With Purchase Data

Posted on by Lab Team

The Weinstein Company is leveraging big data to target movie-goers who go to theaters at least once a month. Working with data platform Cardlytics, the company is tapping into more than $1.5 trillion of debit and credit-card transactions from over 500 banks to pinpoint the consumers who frequently buy tickets at movie theaters. The studio’s media agency, Palisades MediaGroup then uses the anonymized data to serve up video and mobile ads of an upcoming Weinstein movie to the selected movie-goers.

While a great use of behavioral data for ad targeting, this campaign verges on the murky territory of consumer privacy violation. While the company claims that the banks only use data from customers who have opted in to a rewards program in order to comply with privacy standards, it remains unknown if those who were targeted gave their consent to have their purchases data to be resold to a third-party company for targeting purposes. We laid out some crucial points in using behavior data for ad targeting in our recent POV, and you can click here to read for additional insights on the topic.

 

Source: Marketing Land

Twitter Launches Persona-Based Targeting Tools

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original article on: AdWeek

Twitter has been undergoing a “reinvention” phase, and today it launched a new ad tool that will make it easier for brands to target specific groups of consumers based on not only traditional demographic info like age and gender, but also includes some newer, “people-based” metrics. Among the “personas” outlined by Twitter, groups such as college grads, parents, and business decision-makers stand out with their specificity and potential for targeting.

Previously, marketers could piece together similar targeting parameters on Twitter, but the social microblogging service is clearly looking to simplify the process, leveraging its ongoing partnerships with data companies Acxiom and Datalogix to enable such targeting options. Obviously, Twitter knows a lot more about their users than mere demographics – the people one follows indicates individual interests, for example. Privacy issues aside, we we expect twitter to build out this feature to fit their strengths in the future.

With vast amount of data available, digital technology has opened a lot of new ways of targeting and attribution. And it is crucial that brands can choose the right channel and tools to ensure their messages get through to the right audience. To learn more about using behavioral data to target consumer groups, click here to our newest POV on targeting tribes through tech.

 

Header image taken from Twitter Blog

On Trend: Tech Companies Improving User Privacy Measures

Posted on by Lab Team

On Monday, Facebook announced that it has added support for PGP-encrypted emails, which will help encrypt the maintenance and notifications emails Facebook currently sends. This means that, theoretically, email services like Gmail and Yahoo won’t be able to scan those emails for data-collecting purposes. Moreover, the social network has also reportedly started testing Security Checkout, a new in-feed feature that will prompt users to check important security settings such as multi-device log-ins.

Similarly, Google unveiled a new ‘My Account’ page that aims to serve as the centralized hub for controlling all privacy settings across Google’s myriad of platforms and services. It also includes quick access to its Ad Settings tool , which allows users to easily customize or opt out of Google’s data collection for personalized ads.

Last October, we dissected the delicate balancing act of brands utilizing big data to add value without infringing privacy in a POV deck that centers on winning consumers’ trust. Therefore, it is heartening to see leading tech companies starting to respect user privacy with new services like these to provide better tools for security and self-management of personal data. All brands that collect data to gain insights about their audience need to take notes and act.

Cablevision To Team Up With ESPN For Data-Sharing Deal

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: AdWeek

In a first-of-its-kind data deal between a cable TV provider and a cable network, ESPN is teaming up with Cablevision to combine audience data, taken straight from set-top boxes, with viewing habits and other behavioral data, the premium sports channel announced at its upfront presentation earlier today.

The new deal will help match ESPN impressions with sales data and other relevant information to accurately determine value, demonstrating ROI to advertisers, who will be able to see how long ESPN’s audience spends on a particular sport and the time of day they’re most engaged.

As both companies reportedly expressed interest in making similar deals in the near future, we expect to see more mutually beneficial data-sharing deals between content providers and service providers coming soon.

Facebook To Supercharge Targeted Ads With IBM Partnership

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original article on: Wired

Today, Facebook and IBM announced a new partnership that will see Facebook’s existing ad targeting technology integrated into IBM’s line of retail tools and services. By combining retail data, both online and offline, with Facebook’s user data, the two companies hope to create effectively personalized marketing campaigns that don’t rely on cookies.

The news came just on heels of Facebook’s new deal with Nokia’s Here, as the social media giant doubles down on data-driven ad targeting. With this partnership, new tools would allow targeted ads to be placed directly into individual user’s Facebook feed, while also enabling marketers to go after specific behavioral segments, such as runners, foodies, and new parents. It is clear that Facebook is determined to keep up its momentum in offline attribution through these new partnerships and solidify its leadership in mobile ads in general.

 

Apple Releases App Analytics Beta For Better Attribution

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: VentureBeat

One year after teasing its arrival at last year’s WWDC, Apple has finally released a beta test for its App Analytic tool for iOS developers. Given that Apple has not been sharing the app user behavior data with any third-party analytics services, this release marks the beginning of huge opportunities for developers and managers to improve attribution of app downloads and learn crucial insights into app users’ behaviors and preferences. It should also be of great help for brands that operate their own mobile apps to adjust their development and marketing efforts accordingly.

Apple HealthKit Continues To Gain Support From Medical Field

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: 9to5Mac

Since its launch, Apple’s HealthKit has been continuously gaining support from the medical community, with at least 14 top U.S. hospitals starting trial programs to integrate Apple’s health data service. The latest is the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

During the past weekend, the LA hospital added HealthKit support in its patient records systems, allowing its doctors access to synchronized data from various health and fitness apps that support Apple’s platform. One potentially controversial aspect of such integration, however, is that use of HealthKit data is opt-out, rather than opt-in. Furthermore, patients will simply have to cease using HealthKit-enabled apps if they wish to opt out.

 

Google To Become The Ultimate Fashionista With Search Data

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: New York Times

Once again putting the vast amount of data it gathers to good use, Google has announced a plan to issue fashion trend reports biannually based on web searches. This move underscores the company’s bid for greater influence in the fashion ecommerce space. Such insights, for example, have allowed Google to begin consulting for major retailers including Calvin Klein, which use Google search data in fashion planning.