I was on the phone to a friend of mine the other day, and I was talking about how much I was craving Vegemite. A few hours later, when I opened up Facebook, the first thing I saw was an ad for Vegemite!! How weird!! Has Facebook been listening to my phone calls? Does this sound familiar?...Well it could actually be true!

​Earlier today I came across a tweet from Dylan McKay claiming that he'd downloaded his Facebook data as a zip file and it bizarrely included his entire call and sms history. See for yourself.​

So I decided to do some digging into my own Facebook data. After downloading my personal data directly from Facebook I realised the immense amount of data they have available on me i.e. my posts, messenger activity, timeline, friends, places I have been, ads I have interacted with, instagram specific interactions and strangely my entire phone contact list. I admit, I was aware of most of this data being available however not my phone contact list.
​
​Access your own Facebook data by going to settings and clicking on the "Download a copy" link. Example below.

​

Companies regardless of them being a fashion retailer or technology giant need to give control back to their customers. Allow your customers access to control the information you have, the information you collect and more importantly the information you use. This should also be designed in a way that is clear and simple to understand - not designed in a way that is strategically complicated so users abandon the process.

It seems Facebook has worked tirelessly over the years to gather as much data on users as it can – and to profit from it. As of the fourth quarter of 2017, Facebook had 2.2 billion monthly active users. Facebook's revenue grew from 7.87 billion in 2013 to 40.7 billion US dollars in 2017, it accumulated a net income of 15.9 billion US dollars and majority of that revenue was generated via advertising.
​

In 2004 Zuckerburg used the term “Dumb fucks” when he described the users of Facebook for trusting him with their personal data.  Zuckerberg also talked about what Facebook insiders called radical transparency, an idea that partly amounted to an insistence that old ideas about privacy were becoming outdated. “To get people to the point where there’s more openness – that’s a big challenge,” Zuckerberg said. “But I think we’ll do it. I just think it will take time. The concept that the world will be better if you share more is something that’s pretty foreign to a lot of people, and it runs into all these privacy concerns.” 

Facebook has gone to great lengths to convince members of the public that it’s all about “connecting people” and “building a global community”. In 2016 this became the tale of Facebook & Cambridge Analytica, a saga that highlights the awful mess that the biggest player in billions of online lives has enabled. If you aren’t familiar with the story Cambridge Analytica spent more than $1 million dollars harvesting personal data through Facebook so they could micro-target you with advertising. Advertising which Christopher Wylie (ex Director of Research at Cambridge Analytica) claims is grossly unethical and uses new constructs of psychology to target you based on personality. He say’s they used apps such as games that have special behaviours that harvest your data and pull all your friends data while they are at it. Once they have this data they know how to talk to you, via what medium and how often they have to show you a message in order to change your behaviour. This strategy is what most claim was used in the 2016 US presidential election which led to Donald Trumps success and in the same year Brexit. Chris says they are responsible for creating the worlds largest psychological warfare tool and full service propaganda machine who can influence how people behave and react. They did this by whispering in the ear of each and every voter using Facebook. In my opinion this is one of the worlds biggest data breaches.

To dig more into the revelations surrounding the Cambridge Analytica scandal click here.

​Well I’m not Elon Musk and won’t make headlines about joining the #DeleteFacebook movement, but I plan on taking a stance. Data should be treated like a precious gift and until Facebook start to take peoples data more seriously I will be deleting my personal account.

Actions speak louder then words Mark. Make it happen!

2015 was the year of the Customer Journey, 2016 was the year of Design Thinking....so what's does 2017 have in store for businesses and marketers across the globe?

To find an answer I decided to do some research on how the economy has changed over the last 50 years. It was evident that consumers are willing to pay a premium for a product or service based on it's perceived value; such as does it save me time? does it create a memorable experience? does it have long lasting qualities?

Thanks to Joseph Pine II and James H Gilmore they made it quite simple to understand with an article on HBR called 'Welcome To The Experience Economy.' They simplify the entire history of economic progress across the four stages of evolution using a birthday cake as the example:

1. The Commodities Economy: As the agrarian economy advanced, mothers made birthday cakes from scratch, mixing farm commodities such as flour, sugar, butter and eggs. That together it would cost a dollar - however it took time to buy the ingredients and make the cake.
   
   
2. The Goods Economy: As the goods-based industrial economy boomed, mothers paid a few dollars to Betty Crocker for premixed ingredients, where all you had to do was follow the recipe and bake the cake - you saved time and ingredients by buying it all in one box.
   
   
3. The Services Economy: When the service economy took hold, busy parents ordered quality made cakes from the bakery or grocery store. It would cost $10-$15, far more then packaged ingredients however it was convenient, desirable and saved you time in the kitchen.
   
   
4. The Experiences Economy: In the time starved late 90's, parents neither make the birthday cake nor even throw the party. Instead, they spend $100 or more to outsource the entire birthday event to Mc'Donald's so they can stage a memorable event for the kids - and the cake is thrown in for free.
   
   

An experience occurs when a company intentionally uses services as the stage, and goods as props, to engage individual customers in a way that creates memorable events. Experiences have always been at the heart of the entertainment business - think Walt Disney. However if you could charge admission for consumers to interact and engage with your brand, what would you do differently? - thats a good place to start brainstorming.