Hi, it’s Jamie, Senior Intern at the CDP Institute Department of the Obvious. I’m fine and the gruel supply is stable. Coronavirus does seem to have reduced the flow of obvious research, but I’ve hoarded some to share. We’ll start with a Sprout Social study that found 89% of consumers will buy products from a brand they follow on social media. Almost as obvious: consumers want engagement, transparency, and service more than anything else, while marketers overestimate consumers’ interest in memorable content, storytelling, and pop culture references.

Privacy requirements keep expanding. BigID, whose core business is helping companies find where they’re storing personal data, is taking the next logical step with a portal to help manage that data. Capabilities include self-service management of consumer data requests and preferences, data rights management, user experience templates, and authentication of data requestor identities.

The U.S. Senate has passed a bill that could potentially ban TikTok in the U.S. if its Chinese owner, ByteDance, does not sell its holdings within a year. The bill now goes to the President Biden, who has said he will sign it. Court challenges are likely to follow.