iCompli and Merit Group advise on GDPR

How will the new GDPR impact on the ‘world of subscriber data’?

We all know data is the ‘Life blood’ of data base marketing. So if your business is data, if subscribers are the life blood of your business, what does the new data protection regulation mean to you?

This was the question iCompli was asked to address by Ben Tindall of Merit Group, who have rightly positioned the GDPR as one of the most important strategic considerations data rich companies should be acting on, and now!

‘Tall order’

Helping a packed room of publishing houses and marketing professionals get to grips with GDPR in 40 minutes or so is a tall order. But, by positioning the new requirements as an opportunity to develop better data hygiene processes and achieve increased engagement from an increasingly sceptical (privacy aware) audience, it was clear that the audience understood that GDPR was not just about EU bureaucracy and compliance, but also an opportunity to address some fundamental data questions. Consent management, single view of the customer, honesty, openness, transparency, supply chain awareness, value exchange were all key concepts addressed during the session.

Finishing with an 18 month agenda, the audience were challenged with the question ‘so what will you do now?’ Some will wait until the regulation comes into force (Q2 2018?), whilst others (the smarter ones?) will start preparing now and future-proofing their marketing databases. The Canadian implementation of CASL (Canadian Anti Spam Legislation) gave us a great insight into what happens when the law (suddenly) requires consent to market/segment/profile people. Those with their ‘eye on the ball’ were not caught out; the rest…

If you missed this great iCompli/Merit Group session hosted at the PPA, London, you can still get slides. Drop me an email at Duncans@icompli.co.uk, and we will ‘whiz’ the slides right on over.