Effectiveness, Efficiency, and Ethics of Marketing Analytics

Abstract The concept of big data has influenced the marketing field in numerous ways. By having access to more information about their consumers than ever before, marketers are presented with a unique opportunity to make the marketing process more streamlined and effective than ever; however, this also creates a challenge in understanding how this targeted advertising affects the brand’s perception by consumers. This study looks at the concepts of data marketing and re-targeted ads from three aspects. First, are marketers being as effective as possible to ensure they are sending the right advertisement, to the right customer, at the right time? Second, are marketers being as efficient as possible when choosing the correct platform to reach their target customers? Third, are companies remembering the ethical components of collecting this information on consumers, and ensuring they understand when consumers feel specialized advertising becomes an invasion of their privacy? To answer these questions, I first performed secondary research in the form of a literature review. From surveying the scope of the subject, I then performed primary research by conducting in-depth interviews and a survey. The results show that there are two distinct type of consumers: one group who is accepting of these re-targeted advertisements and welcoming of the specialized marketing, and a second group who is skeptical of this form of marketing and concerned over privacy issues. Marketers must be aware of these two distinct types of consumers and ensure they are choosing their advertising methods carefully to ensure an efficient utilization of resources and to make sure they are not presenting a detriment to their brand for the consumers who do not want catered advertisements

Ethics of Collection and Use of Consumer Information on the Internet

Consumer online activities can generate massive volumes of data that private companies may collect and use for business purposes. Consumer personal data need to be protected from unauthorized access and misuse. The specific problem is that consumers have little control regarding their data being collected and used by private companies. The purpose of this qualitative archival research was to explore business practices involving collection and use of consumer data without an individual’s consent. This study used the big data ethical conceptual framework to focus on various privacy issues, including those related to ownership, transparency, ethics, and consumer privacy laws. Archival documents were collected from United States government agencies and private companies. Collected archives included transcripts of U.S. Congressional hearings, witness statements, federal agency reports, privacy policy statements, data catalogs, and panel discussions on data privacy. Thematic data analysis was selected to code and identify common themes from collected documents. Findings revealed business practices of collecting and using consumer data were not transparent, third party companies obtained personal data without individuals’ knowledge, and consumers had limited control over their personal data being collected by private companies. The implications for positive social change may help consumers better understand the benefits and risks involving sharing personal information on the Internet. Company leaders may recognize concerns with respect to consumers’ ability to control their data and give them choices to manage their personal information

Developing a Framework for Creating mHealth Surveys

Various issues in the design of surveys for mobile health (mHealth) research projects yet exist. As mHealth solutions become more popular, new issues are brought into consideration. Researchers need to collect some critical information from participants in these mHealth studies. These mHealth studies require a specialized framework to create surveys, track progress and analyze user data. In these procedures, mHealth’s needs differ from other studies. Therefore, there has to be a new framework that satisfies needs of mHealth research studies. Although there are studies for creating efficient, robust and user-friendly surveys, there is no solution or study, which is specialized in mHealth area and solves specific problems of mHealth research studies. mHealth research studies sometimes require real-time access to user data. Reward systems may play a key role in their study. Most importantly, storing user information securely plays a key role in these studies. There is no such solution or study, which covers all these areas. In this thesis, we present guidelines for developing a framework for creating mHealth surveys. In doing this, we hope that we propose a solution for problems of creating and using of surveys in mHealth studies

New Methods in Human Subjects Research: Do We Need a New Ethics?

Online surveys and interviews, the observations of chat rooms or online games, data mining, knowledge discovery in databases (KDD), collecting biomarkers, employing biometrics, using RFID technology - even as implants in the human body - and other related processes all seem to be more promising, cheaper, faster, and comprehensive than conventional methods of human subjects research. But at the same time these new means of gathering information may pose powerful threats to privacy, autonomy, and informed consent. Online research, particularly involving children and minors but also other vulnerable groups such as ethnic or religious minorities, is in urgent need of an adequate research ethics that can provide reasonable and morally justified constraints for human subjects research. The paper at hand seeks to provide some clarification of these new means of information gathering and the challenges they present to moral concepts like -privacy, autonomy, informed consent, beneficence, and justice. Some existing codes of conduct and ethical guidelines are examined to determine whether they provide answers to those challenges and/or whether they can be helpful in the development of principles and regulations governing human subjects research. Finally, some conclusions and recommendations are presented that can help in the ask of formulating an adequate research ethics for human subjects research.Human Subjects Research, Online Research, Biomarkers, Biometrics, Autonomy, Privacy, Informed Consent, Research Ethics

Exploring Consumers’ Attitudes of Smart TV Related Privacy Risks

A number of privacy risks are inherent in the Smart TV ecosystem. It is likely that many consumers are unaware of these privacy risks. Alternatively, they might be aware but consider the privacy risks acceptable. In order to explore this, we carried out an online survey with 200 participants to determine whether consumers were aware of Smart TV related privacy risks. The responses revealed a meagre level of awareness. We also explored consumers’ attitudes towards specific Smart TV related privacy risks. We isolated a number of factors that influenced rankings and used these to develop awareness-raising messages. We tested these messages in an online survey with 155 participants. The main finding was that participants were generally unwilling to disconnect their Smart TVs from the Internet because they valued the Smart TV’s Internet functionality more than their privacy. We subsequently evaluated the awareness-raising messages in a second survey with 169 participants, framing the question differently. We asked participants to choose between five different Smart TV Internet connection options, two of which retained functionality but entailed expending time and/or effort to preserve privacy

How genomic information is accessed in clinical practice: an electronic survey of UK general practitioners.

Genomic technologies are having an increasing impact across medicine, including primary care. To enable their wider adoption and realize their potential, education of primary health-care practitioners will be required. To enable the development of such resources, understanding where GPs currently access genomic information is needed. One-hundred fifty-nine UK GPs completed the survey in response to an open invitation, between September 2017 and September 2018. Questions were in response to 4 clinical genomic scenarios, with further questions exploring resources used for rare disease patients, direct-to-consumer genetic testing and collecting a family history. Respondents were most commonly GP principals (independent GPs who own their clinic) (64.8%), aged 35-49 years (54%), worked as a GP for more than 15 years (44%) and practiced within suburban locations (typically wealthier) (50.3%). The most popular 'just in time' education source for all clinical genomic scenarios were online primary care focussed resources with general Internet search engines also popular. For genomic continuous medical education, over 70% of respondents preferred online learning. Considering specific scenarios, local guidelines were a popular resource for the familial breast cancer scenario. A large proportion (41%) had not heard of Genomics England's 100,000 genome project. Few respondents (4%) would access rare disease specific Internet resources (Orphanet, OMIM). Twenty-five percent of respondents were unsure how to respond to a direct-to-consumer commercial genetic test query, with 41% forwarding such queries to local genetic services. GPs require concise, relevant, primary care focussed resources in trusted and familiar online repositories of information. Inadequate genetic education of GPs could increase burden on local genetic services

Going Rogue: Mobile Research Applications and the Right to Privacy

This Article investigates whether nonsectoral state laws may serve as a viable source of privacy and security standards for mobile health research participants and other health data subjects until new federal laws are created or enforced. In particular, this Article (1) catalogues and analyzes the nonsectoral data privacy, security, and breach notification statutes of all fifty states and the District of Columbia; (2) applies these statutes to mobile-app-mediated health research conducted by independent scientists, citizen scientists, and patient researchers; and (3) proposes substantive amendments to state law that could help protect the privacy and security of all health data subjects, including mobile-app-mediated health research participants

Exploring the Serbian consumer attitude towards agro-food products with ethical values: organic, fair-trade and typical/traditional products

The new Millennium has seen a renewed and intensified interest in issues of business ethics and corporate social responsibility (CSR). This has been partly driven by a wave of concern about conduct and governance of business and partly reflects a growing interest amongst consumers, policy makers and businesses, in forms of production and consumption that are more sustainable and more ethically oriented. This is typified by growth in demand of products encompassing ethical values such as organic and Fair Trade products. However, research knowledge base about consumers and their behaviour and attitude from an ethical perspective is relatively weak. Consumer attitude to foods is mainly influenced by concerns (e.g. food safety, human health, environmental impact) and commodity attributes (e.g. quality, taste, freshness and packaging). The objective of this paper is to get an insight on Serbian consumer attitude towards agro-food products with ethical values (AFPEV) namely organic, Fair Trade and typical/traditional products. This paper is based on the literature and an online self-administered questionnaire, carried out from December 2010 through June 2011 with 104 Serbian adult consumers, dealing with understanding of and knowledge about AFP and relationships with ethical values; AFPEV buying frequency; main criteria and reasons for buying AFPEV; opinion about AFPEV price and consumer willingness to pay; potential impacts on animal health and welfare as well environmental, economic social and civic impacts of buying AFPEV; purchasing channels; and main sources of information about AFPEV. Serbian consumers have a good knowledge about AFPEV that are bought by 98% of the sample. Most of the respondents relate ethical values to the respect of environment (73.5%) and organic production (49.0%). The main reasons for buying AFPEV are quality (35%), organic certification (17%), and taste (15%). Price seems less important. The main sources of information about AFPEV are mass media, newspapers and magazines (summing up 46%). However, the majority of Serbian consumers prefer to get information directly from the supply chain actors mainly sellers and/or producers. AFPEV are bought mainly from the specialized shops (34%) and supermarkets (26%) to achieve personal satisfaction, for health, safety, natural resources conservation, and environment protection. Consumers do not always buy sustainable products as consequences of environmental concern or to benefit the community or due to personal beliefs but mainly to give priority to health. Ethical factors are important in some cases, but they may be overstated. Results indicated that most Serbian consumers perceived that AFPEV as healthier and portray a positive attitude towards AFPEV thus showing a high willingness to pay higher prices. Serbian consumers seem to have a positive attitude towards organic, fair trade and typical products due to the sustainable benefits that they can bring about. Therefore, institutional and domestic market conditions should be improved for insuring long-term market development and information campaigns should be organised to increase Serbian consumers’ awareness and consciousness and to strengthen their positive attitude towards AFPEV