digitalmarketing – DiGiTure

Dangers of Big Data & Internet of Things (IoT)

Posted on March 3, 2019 by lijuant12

Everyone today is talking about Big Data and IoT, and I’m sure you’ve heard them being mentioned in numerous TED talks. You may ask though, what exactly are they and what do they mean?

IoT is basically described as the “Senses” while Big Data is the “Fuel” and artificial intelligence is the “Brain” of the future of a smart connected world. The real value of IoT is about creating smarter products, delivering intelligent insights and providing new business opportunities which triggering a massive influx of Big Data. This is done so through increasing the connectivity of devices around our environment.

While IoT devices come with increased connectivity and convenience, it also comes with it’s share of dangers and issues.

1. High Data Volume Leads To Cyber-Security Risk

With the sheer volume of data being collected daily, it poses as a significant threat to cyber-security. With the increasing development of IoT, cyber security risk is here to stay. Companies need to be more vigilant on who they employ to secure their networks and devices against unwanted cyber attacks, as they possess significant amounts of sensitive consumer data. A cyber attack can also hinder business operations.

One example that happened last year was Singapore Health System. This is one of the most serious data breaches in Singapore to date, which caused 1.5 million patient records being accessed and copied by the hackers.

Another example was Uber being hacked and ransomed by hackers.
In 2016, Uber suffered a data breach, where hackers stole personal data which included the names and driver license number of about 600,000 drivers in US. Although the data breach was damaging, the decision by Uber to pay a $100,000 ransom to cover up the breach and destroy the data led to even more negative publicity to the brand.

2. Increasing Connectivity Leads to Increasing Vulnerability

With the increasing number of IoT devices, any weak point in a company or home can be exploited. A casino was even hacked through their fish tank, which was connected to a wireless network! In the digitized world today, every action that you do transmits data, whether you click on a link or purchase something. This can include your personal information, credit card details or medical records.

A Federal Trade Commission report stated that 10,000 households can generate 150 million data points daily which provides a significant number of entry points for hackers. With IoT devices all connected to a wireless network, this information can bounce around and eventually find its way to a device that had no initial connection to your data.

3. More Data May Create More “Headaches” for Marketers

With the continuous exponential growth of data, especially around IoT, there will definitely be massive pressure on marketers to filter and select which data to capture and which will be relevant. The pressure of analyzing data will increase over time as it is hard to determine which data will be useful today or in a few year’s time. Overall, the limitations for marketers at the moment is that there are way too many variables to look at, which restricts marketers from gaining a complete view of consumer behavior.

What do you think are the steps or precautions that companies should take to avoid privacy or security issues to happened?

Below is a short video where I find it really useful about ways to protect your company from data breach.

What NOT To Do If You Want Your Ideas To Go Viral

Posted on February 2, 2019 by lijuant12

Be Safe

Safe is risky. Most marketing campaigns fail because they are being tooOooOoo safe, this results in coming out with an advertisement that is ‘just-like-the-rest’, leading to people ignoring the ads shown. How many ads do you see in a day? And how many do you actually remember at the end of the day? This goes to show that consumers like innovative and interesting products which catch their attention.

One way of being innovative is to leverage on game mechanics. As humans, we all love enjoyment, don’t we? So games give their audiences tangible evidence of progress through point or level systems, and a sense of achievement which gives them instant gratification, which is hard to attain in real-life!

One good example of leveraging on games mechanics is Lazada, which had a marketing campaign called “Slash It!” during the year-end cyber sales (E.g. 11.11, 12.12, etc.). During this period, products are tagged with exceptionally low prices and what users have to do is to invite their friends to “slash” the product for them at low prices or may even be free! This gives them free publicity through word-of-mouth or sharing of the invitation links.

Be Boring

Boring is predictable. A tone-deaf advertisement or one with unappealing visuals would lead to low engagement rate which ultimately, leads to wasting of resources and money as well.

To succeed in your marketing campaign, you need to show your audiences remarkability. Something that is worth mentioning about to their friends, families and even on social media.

I don’t want to be boring, and this point is pretty straightforward.
In short, DO NOT BE NORMAL.

Be Insensitive

Insensitivity is the downfall of your company. Another reason why companies fail is because they say the wrong thing at the wrong time.

One ‘perfect’ example is an ad by Adidas in which their customer received a poorly worded email which stated in the subject “Congrats, you survived the Boston Marathon!”. It may be harmless for some, but in this case it was after the Boston Marathon bombing that took place in 2013. Naturally, many people were offended by it.

From this case, we learnt that messages and campaigns that are sent out have to be time sensitive.

Another example is an ad by Audi who wanted to market the importance of checking out all the features of a car before purchasing it, through a Chinese wedding commercial. In the commercial, it shows a mother in-law walking on the altar and started checking out the facial features of her soon-to-be daughter-in-law with a tagline saying “An important decision must be made carefully.” Of course, this ad has triggered many women as they are being objectified by the ad.

It may be amusing to some, but humor is subjective to individuals. This is also another key point to take note when it comes to marketing, which is to be race/gender sensitive.

To wrap up on the points on being insensitive, marketers may not have intention in offending their audience but if you’re addressing a touchy subject, if it is not handled well, it may cause a backlash and hurt your company’s reputation.

FOOD FOR THOUGHTS

Which advertisement campaigns can you recall off the top of your head and why?

Social Media Has Transformed How Society Receives News

Posted on January 11, 2019January 11, 2019 by lijuant12

It is almost impossible to imagine life without screens, isn’t it?

A few decades ago, it was hard to gain access to social media and people did not find the need to use it, needless to say to even own a device. However, by 2019 the number of mobile phone users are expected to surpass the 5 billions mark with an upward trend in the subsequent years. Furthermore, with the rise of screen time usage it will lead to many potential health problems.

With the increase of users, this has led to two other increase which is the usage rate and content generation and sharing.

There has been an exponential increase in the use of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Facebook alone had 2.27 Billion monthly active users in the 3rd quarter of 2018.

Subsequently, the increase in use has led to a corresponding increase in user-generated content and a increased reliance on user-shared content for news and updates. Newsfeed-based applications are increasingly being relied on by their users instead of traditional sources such as newspapers or Television. However, the fact that such sites are driven by user-shared content means people have less control over the sources of their news, and decreases reliability.

There are 2 major consequences from this shift towards social media-driven news. Firstly, there has been an increase in the spread of fake news through such social media sites. A high profile case recently was the alleged use of fake articles to influence the 2016 US presidential elections by Russian hackers. This shows the severe impact that a site previously used for a social function can have on a Country. There was a corresponding inquiry and reaction by the US government, and indeed several other countries have introduced new legislation to combat such news, including Singapore.

Secondly, the shift in the medium for news has led to people having shorter attention spans. The number of people relying solely on newspapers or the nightly news has decreased and many people supplement their news with inputs from social media. People, especially the younger generation now have a preference for bite-sized news updates and this feeds even more into the increase in social media usage.

Therefore, the question at the end of this must be: is the increase in convenience through this new model of news compromising the quality and accuracy of news we are exposed to?