Metadata are simply (or not so simply) data about data. A library’s card catalog is metadata about books in the collection — for any one book you can find out the name of the author, year it was published, and, perhaps most important, where in the library the tome is located.
In the digital age, we create metadata without even knowing it; we throw it off like a wet labrador shakes off pond water. Next time you take a picture with your cell phone camera, metadata will be stored with the photo that records the type of camera used, resolution of the image, and date and time the photo was taken. It won’t be long before the GPS chip in your cellie tags on another piece of information: location.
Metadata is the future of marketing, for better or worse. If you appreciate high-touch customer service, retailers who anticipate your next purchase or no-hassle monitoring of your financial or physical health, it’s probably for the better. If you value privacy, it’s probably for the worse.
In the blog post Metadata Marketing: Risks and Opportunities, on Harvard Business, Jan Chipchase looks at the future possibilities for marketers as it becomes easier to collect and analyze “aggregate data” generated by people and their things. Imagine a mash-up of Google Earth and a health-monitoring cell phone. Chipchase, a human behavior researcher at Nokia, envisions marketers using this combination to follow the emotional mood of an entire neighborhood, in the vicinity say of a ballpark just after an important game has been won by the Local Nine.
If you’re a marketer who can read the emotions of large numbers of people in a geographical area, you will know not only where to put your next electronic billboard, but also what it should display at the moment. Cheers restaurant, for example, might post an ad saying “Come celebrate!” or “Drown your sorrows.”
The ability to monitor aggregate data will provide a mighty temptation for companies to exploit, Chipchase continues. “Individuals and companies will need to find and walk a new line between serving customers and exploiting them, either way with pinpoint accuracy.”
Read his thoughtful piece then give us your own metadata on this future vision of marketing.
(Card catalog image by Jay Dugger, CC 2.0)
