442 CHAPTER 13 DIRECT MARKETINGPrivacy concerns
With the rising use of databases linked to the growing desire to get to know individual cus-
tomers, consumers are concerned about what companies know about them and how those
companies obtain and use personal information. The primary source of consumer privacy
concerns revolves around personal or individual-specific data such as names, addresses,
demographic characteristics, lifestyle interests, shopping preferences and purchase histories.
Growing numbers of marketers are assimilating and using information from (and about)
individual consumers and renting or exchanging data or lists describing the habits and charac-
teristics of individual consumers. The privacy literature suggests that most of the individual-
specific consumer information used for marketing purposes falls into five broad categories:
demographic characteristics, lifestyle characteristics (including media habits), shopping or
purchase habits, financial data, and personal identifiers such as names, addresses, social
security numbers. A survey has found that consumers are most willing to provide marketers
with demographic and lifestyle information and least willing to provide financial information
(such as annual household income, the kind of credit cards they possess and the two most
recent credit card purchases) and personal identifiers. On the other hand, the majority of
respondents were always willing to share their two favourite hobbies, age, marital status,
occupation or type of job and education. Although most consumers understand the need for
financial information when purchasing on credit, a request for income information, particularly
from a non-financial or non-insurance service marketer, has a profound negative effect on
purchase intentions. Most consumers desire more control over the collection and use of infor-
mation. They want to control what companies do with their information as well as control the
number of catalogues and the amount of advertising material they receive. The DMA strongly
recommends an opt-out format (allowing consumers to remove their names from a list by
checking a box on a form). Apart from the control of information disclosure, privacy also has
to do with control over unwanted intrusions such as telemarketing, unwanted direct mail or
unsolicited commercial e-mail (spam). The Internet channel in particular has fostered a new set
of privacy concerns resulting from the ease with which data in this channel can be collected,
stored and exchanged. Additional consumer concern results from the volume of spam due to
the low absolute cost and waste inherent in sending commercial e-mails.^58 In some countries
people can add their address and/or phone number to a blacklist. Once they are on the list,In March 2010, AS Adventure (a retail chain of sports garments and equipment) opened a new store in the heart
of Brussels. The store is a combination of a normal AS Adventure shop combined with a specialised ski store. The
direct mailing communicating the opening aimed to increase traffic to the shop, raise awareness of the specialised
ski shop and boost sales by stressing the promotional offers. It was targeted at young families and winter sports
fans living in the Brussels area. The creative concept was based on famous ski resorts, turning Brussels into
Belgium’s newest winter sports area. The envelope featured a teaser ‘new winter sport resort in Brussels’. It had a
ski pass inside offering discounts on winter sports material and a folded map displaying the ski collection and with
the newest shop featured as the central spot of Brussels’ newest sport area. The mailing was sent in November
2010 to a carefully targeted 16 000 families. December resulted in the peak month for this AS Adventure store,
recording 7239 individual sales visits (more than in November, the traditional peak month) and sales of winter
sports items increased 403%.^57business insights
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