Tag: Data privacy

Singapore – Omnicom Media Group’s data and analytics subsidiary, Annalect, has teamed with InfoSum, a worldwide data collaboration platform, to build a neutral clean room solution suited for clients in the Asia Pacific area.

The project tackles issues related to dispersed data sources by emphasising data collaboration that is efficient, sustainable, and privacy-conscious. It seeks to get a thorough understanding of companies’ customers and break down data silos.

Annalect in Australia spearheaded the initiative, and in partnership with InfoSum, formed cooperative alliances with the Australian reward program FlyBuys and data provider Experian. This collaboration sought to develop a complete and practical understanding of customers. Audience profiling is critical in this endeavour because it allows marketers to migrate from asserted data profiles to true customer data.

The incorporation of InfoSum functionalities into Omni, Omnicom Media Group’s industry marketing orchestration operating system, permits the secure use of data across the whole marketing workflow, from planning to activation and optimization.

It is expected that privacy-focused measures, such as the elimination of third-party cookies, will have a major impact on data-driven marketing. This innovative industry step aims to improve measurement accuracy and ensure access to consumer information and segment profiling capabilities to prepare itself for the future.

By combining dispersed insights creation with data privacy and data utility, it goes beyond the conventional use of clean rooms. Instead of moving or replicating the data, this entails relying on mobile code and sharing the algorithm that extracts insights.

The InfoSum platform acts as a neutral clean room and creates a statistical duplicate of the given location, behavioural, and purchase data. By ensuring that no vendor data is copied or imported onto InfoSum’s platform, this procedure protects customer privacy and lowers operational risks. All parties involved can work together while still having control over their data.

By maximising match rates across many data sources, InfoSum, among other things, creates lookalike audiences and finds new prospects for offline advertising purchases based on location-based insights.

In Australia, proof of concepts were conducted in a variety of industries, including FMCG, alcohol, telco, and automotive. The concept will be expanded to additional markets in Asia Pacific.

Through the use of these addressable audience segments, Omnicom Media Group clients may improve their communication strategies and applications like data partnerships, channel selection, and adaptive creative messaging.

Speaking about the partnership, Paul Shepherd, president of Annalect, Omnicom Media Group Asia Pacific, said, “This is an important move to ensure data privacy and optimise data utility through the innovative concept of distributed insights generation. This approach offers deeper and meaningful insights into existing and prospective customers from diverse data sources, allowing a holistic understanding of consumer behaviour while safeguarding individual privacy.”

Meanwhile, Richard Knott, InfoSum GM, ANZ, expressed, “We’re excited to see the innovative and compelling use of our technology by Annalect to enrich their clients’ marketing strategies. InfoSum enables organisations to safely scale and leverage their consumer data through privacy-first, multi-party data collaboration. Pioneering organisations like Annalect are leading the industry in this transition, harnessing that concept and turning it into real-world, actionable benefits.”

Singapore – Global adtech firm Quantcast has launched additional modules for its free global educational program, Quantcast Academy. These additional courses will provide marketers with an understanding of ongoing developments in data privacy, identity, and the deprecation of third-party cookies.

Quantcast Academy, which was launched in September 2021, provides an array of online learning modules and a full certification program to help understand the language, tools, and processes of the digital advertising ecosystem, including concepts such as how artificial intelligence works and its increasingly integral role in marketing strategy. It is part of a larger effort by Quantcast to nurture and train a new generation of talent for the advertising ecosystem, preparing young professionals for an increasingly digital-first world.

‘The Digital Advertising: Privacy and Identity’ module will help marketers understand the foundations of the privacy and identity landscape, from industry standards to cookieless environments, while ‘The Quantcast Platform: Future-Proofing the Platform’ module will explain how Quantcast is adapting to the evolving privacy and identity environment with new cookieless capabilities.

Quantcast Academy will be offering certifications in both digital advertising and the Quantcast Platform, which is built on a foundation of privacy and can be used to plan, activate, and measure advertising campaigns in cookieless environments today. 

Andrew Double, Quantcast’s managing director for APAC, shared that as the media industry continues to evolve, developments within complex topics such as data privacy and identity may be challenging to keep up with.

“The new privacy modules in the Quantcast Academy aim to simplify these important elements within digital advertising, and help marketers better prepare for the future,” said Double.

Quantcast said that beyond well-known data privacy legislation, like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), there has been a steep increase in the introduction of data privacy laws in recent years which has prompted brands, agencies, and publishers to adjust their marketing and advertising strategies.

Singapore – MARKETECH APAC, the APAC-wide news outlet dedicated to the marketing and advertising industry in the region, is launching a webinar that aims to prepare brands for the impending change in digital advertising: audience retargeting in a cookieless and privacy-first world. 

Cookies have long stood as the cornerstone for brands’ advertising efforts, and now that the industry is gearing up to foray into a privacy-first digital space, brands and companies remain in the dark on how they can achieve the best of both worlds – keeping consumers’ privacy intact while attaining campaign performance and driving conversions. 

Leading web browser Google Chrome has already announced its intentions to block third-party cookies by 2022, joining the pack, Firefox and Safari; and with this on the horizon, MARKETECH APAC aims to create a dialogue that would open the floor for brands and advertisers in Asia to discuss the best practices and approaches in maintaining creativity and innovation all the while adhering to safe measures in monitoring audiences’ browsing behavior and preferences. 

Titled ‘Creative & Media Innovation in Asia: Preparing your brand for a cookieless world’, MARKETECH APAC has roped in esteemed marketing leaders from various industries for a panel that would discuss the importance of first-party data and how brands in Asia are doing their share of adapting to the emerging privacy-first internet, and how tech agencies and brands can best navigate this new type of digital environment. 

The panel includes Eileen Borromeo, head of marketing of financial services company Payoneer for Southeast Asia and Pakistan, and Anny Huang, head of digital business of Singapore-based insurance company Income. Joining them is Travis Teo, executive director of Asia-wide ad tech Adzymic. 

Within the webinar, Teo will also be delivering a presentation that aims to dig deep on the landscape of programmatic advertising amid a new cookieless digital space. The presentation also aims to shed light on how programmatic creatives can fit into overall media strategy and process and will explore the topic of ‘Hacking programmatic display’, exploring how creative innovation and variation drive performance. 

Shaina Teope, regional editor of MARKETECH APAC, commented, “Just like ‘old habits’, we need to make way for new ones, especially if it has stopped serving peoples’ best interests, and this has been the case for digital advertising. For a long time, the use of cookies has only been benefitting best the brands and companies in hitting their campaign and sales objectives and it is time to draw the line. This webinar is positioned to help advertisers to take the necessary first step – and that is to recognize the problem and immerse in the conversation of how we can not only learn to adapt to a privacy-first digital advertising but the ways brands can be the very agents of the transformation into using first-party cookies.”

Meanwhile, Teo, who will be one of the speakers in the webinar, said, “Every change in the digital advertising landscape brings new opportunities and innovation to the space, despite the challenges and unknowns. While moving to a cookieless world remains an uncharted territory for most brands, it provides a great opportunity to reboot old practices and move to a more sustainable and responsible way of audience targeting, and re-focus on how creatives can help provide the necessary cut-through. I’m also keen to discuss with brands the practices and approaches they can adopt to best transit to a cookieless digital environment.” 

The webinar will be held on 2 June at 2 pm SGT. You can register for the event here.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Despite concerns of WhatsApp users on its new privacy policy, which the platform announced in January of this year, 7 in 10 of users in Malaysia are still shown to stick to the messaging app, a recent study by marketing data insights platform InsightzClub shows.

The new terms require users to share their personal data with Facebook. WhatsApp clarified that it has nothing to do with the messages and profile data, and instead is related to business advertising purposes.The new policy stirred panic among users worldwide, with a large portion migrating to other messaging applications such as Telegram and Signal. 

According to the report, reliance on WhatsApp usage among Malaysians increased during the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, swelling to 68%, compared to pre-pandemic periods. Even when the platform amended its privacy policies, Malaysian patrons were shown to stay, which majority, or 65%, use for personal and professional communication. 

Still, amid the changes, Malaysian users were still shown to be in tandem with majority of users of the platform, creating a mild state of paranoia, worrying about their location sharing (60%), stored private messages (56%), and accessing media files (54%). 

The report stated that Malaysians’ loyalty is necessitated by circumstances to remain on the platform, and only 3 out of 10 users installed an alternative app compared to the big chunk of WhatsApp users worldwide, which is said to be 82%, who have installed one or more additional messaging apps recently, like Signal and Telegram, owing to the bandwagon effect.

Meanwhile, the small portion of Malaysian users who made the switch were due to concerns over migrating personal circles (48%), and simply, curiosity (32%).

Telegram is already capitalizing on this opportunity in the coming year, as they have set a target of gaining 1 billion a user base by 2022 – something that’s unimaginable just a year ago. 

Manila, Philippines – The National Association of Data Protection Officers of the Philippines, or NADPOP, an organization in the country for data privacy and protection, has announced a training and certification program for Filipino micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) on data privacy and protection fundamentals to help them manage the privacy of their customers online and offline.

The program, which equates to ₱3.8M in total value, is specifically targeted to members of BounceBack PH (BBPH), a movement that started on Facebook and was created during the onset of the pandemic to help entrepreneurs, front-liners, and disadvantaged communities in their recovery from the crisis. Currently, it has more than 70,000 members with industry verticals communities and regional and city-based groups.

NADPOP, which is a non-profit organization that serves and protects Data Protection Officers (DPO) in the Philippines, will work together with BBPH to identify a total of 100 recipients of the program and will make the announcement in the coming weeks. Each of the scholarships is worth at least ₱38,000 based on commercial rates. 

NADPOP together with BBPH partner, Bluepoint Foundation, a non-profit open-source education & development center, will be providing the eLearning infrastructure for the program.

According to Sam Jacoba, NADPOP’s founding president, most MSMEs have less than five full-time employees, making the training program a top necessity for businesses’ online transformation journey.

“The shift of businesses online has exponentially increased the reach of MSMEs which brought a lot of opportunities, but at the same time, this increased the risk of their customer databases being breached by hackers,” said Jacoba. 

NADPOP will be conducting four classes with 25 participants each. Primarily, the scholarships will be given to active members of BBPH and its communities. Those that are deemed qualified for the program are those that have an ongoing business, are currently financially-challenged, are diligent with their business requirements, and are ultimately those that are seen to implement what they will learn from the course. 

Once participants have finished the course, they will have to take a certification exam, and once passed, will gain a Data Privacy Specialist certification valid for two years.

“We welcome this generous support to our MSME members from NADPOP as now more than ever, protecting the personal information of customers should be top of mind of all entrepreneurs going online,” commented Jason Dela Rosa, founder of BBPH. 

“We also welcome the scholarships that NADPOP is going to provide to our members who will not be able to afford the training especially during this time of the pandemic. We thank NADPOP for responding to the call of the Digital Bayanihan Initiative of BBPH, which aims to help our members be better than ever and shine through the pandemic,” added Dela Rosa. 

BBPH members who won’t be selected for the 100 scholarship grants can still avail of NADPOP’s Data Privacy training and certification program which will be afforded on a competitive rate exclusive to active members of the community. All participants of the program will then be part of a ‘Community of Practice’ of data privacy and protection practitioners, whom they can consult with as they continue with their online transformation efforts.