The subtle art of not missing any data

Brands are leaving no stone unturned to trace and track consumer data.Stalking is an understatement and intrusion has become a norm. But this race cannot be won by marching into every ground, especially when consumers are increasingly prioritising data privacy and many consumer touchpoints are still offline. Yet some brands are finding noteworthy and innovative ways of tip toeing closer to their consumers —

1. HUL’s Walls ice cream captures age, ethnicity and gender data along with consumer preferences through their face recognition enabled vending machines
2. Chester Pearce funeral services collects personal data of family and freinds for authentication to view photos & memories of the deceased via QR codes on gravestones.
3. HUL’s free sampling program of smartpick kit helps in gauging consumer preferences specific to geographies.
4. Amazon Go’s AI enabled dash cart requires a sign in and gives a cashier less, “grab and go” offline experience while tracking every movement made by consumers even in the physical store.

Not to mention are the creepier trends of thermal tracking and people counting at many physical stores. Even when we are making offline purchases, are we really offline? It will be interesting to see for how long can these subtle ways of capturing data can go before they are not subtle anymore ?