Finally – wait, we’re out of CDP news. So let’s finish with news that consumer products giant Unilever is funding free showers and other hygiene services for homeless people across the USA. It’s both on-brand (they make soap) and bold (no brand wants to be preferred by street people everywhere). Good for them for knowing what’s important.
Privacy, fraud, and other concerns may loom but the third party data industry had a great 2018, growing by 17.5% over the previous year, according to a Winterberry Group study for the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). Total spending on data and solutions was nearly $19.2 billion. Data management solutions, which includes Customer Data Platforms, grew by 25% to just under $5.0 billion. Download for details.
Oh wait – what about hacks at tech-savvy Amazon, Facebook, Equifax, and so many more? You can add Quora to the list: “approximately 100 million” Quora users’ data was compromised including name, email address, and public comments, the company said yesterday. They’re “very sorry for any concern or inconvenience this may cause.”
Salesforce kicked off its big Connections conference yesterday, and if you’re surprised the focus was on generative AI, you haven’t been paying attention. Still, the focus this time was on marketing applications that draw on Salesforce CDP data, so it’s right up our alley. They also announced direct access to Google BigQuery data, ticking the “zero-copy” box as well.