Q&A: James Wawne on why trust is the strategic key to remaining relevant in digital

James Wawne, managing director and principal consultant ANZ at DMPG discusses how brands must build consumer confidence through progressive digital experiences which engender trust and lay the foundations for sustainable customer relationships.

 

Recently appointed managing director and principal consultant ANZ at DMPG, James Wawne heads the company’s Australian operation from its Brisbane office. A former PwC manager and Venntifact director, Wawne has over 14 years of international expertise in data analytics, innovative technology, and digital transformation.

Following COVID’s dramatic impact on consumer behaviours, Wawne shares why Australian brands must craft customer experiences that transparently address privacy concerns and provide controls around the use of first party data.

 

Why is trust is an emerging priority in Australia?

Wawne: Privacy, value exchange, and trust have received a lot of attention in Australia since the end of last year, following high profile confrontations between ad giants and regulators including Google and Facebook.  While ‘compromises’ were reached, few observers were left without some degree of anxiety about the power and control held in Silicon Valley.

In parallel, there have been other ‘bold’ unilateral decisions by the tech giants, including Google and Apple, which have unsettled the global ad industry and marketers alike. Marketers now appear to have finally come to terms with the negative implications for tracking and retargeting individuals across the web and on apps without the use of third-party cookies and some other identifiers (IDFA).

While things seem to have gone slightly quiet as of late, the Australian government is preparing to review the 1988 privacy act against a backdrop of research from last September by the OAIC on ‘Australian Community Attitudes to Privacy Survey 2020’, which makes for some pretty disturbing reading.

For these reasons, I believe that privacy and trust are going to rapidly ascend to being among the hottest topics in ANZ in the next six to 18 months.

How is customer experience and trust linked?

Wawne: To build consumer confidence and develop trust, companies must be transparent about how they leverage data across touchpoints. A few obvious manifestations of this as part of a typical customer experience includes: privacy/cookie policies, T&Cs, consent management solutions or opt ins/outs during the checkout and sign-up processes.

If a brand can effectively demonstrate that privacy is core to its digital strategy, and involve consumers in the decision making process, then consumers will feel empowered to engage on their terms which will in turn help to build trust.

While privacy legislation in Australia demands less than Europe’s GDPR for example, brands should not wait for legislation to mandate for change but instead proactively undertake to empower users.

Proactively building digital capabilities and experiences that earn trust will help organisations position themselves ahead of amendments to the privacy act (1988) and potentially, reduce their dependence on third-party tech and data to personalise customer experiences in the process.

How can digital experience enablement agencies help when it comes to trust?

Wawne: Digital experience enablement agencies can provide deep expertise spanning strategy and delivery services for omni-channel personalisation, marketing automation, and much more. DMPG is an example of an independently owned digital experience enablement agency certified in a variety of solutions; including Google and Adobe martech platforms. The ANZ region has experienced remarkable digital growth in the last six months and our team has been working hard to help brands capitalise on this trend.

From the fundamentals of establishing and maintaining data quality to driving decisioning with actionable insights through to advanced capabilities which leverage customer data platforms (CDPs), DMPG is passionate about supporting brands to take full advantage of digital’s growing opportunities.

What should the industry look out for over the next twelve months?

Wawne: Through 2021, the digital industry will continue to prepare for life without third-party cookies and so it is important for organisations to understand where dependencies exist and how best to mitigate – where possible to do so.

Closely related to the cookie cataclysm will be significant limitations around what can be done in and around app tracking and advertising, though the full impact and efficacy of alternatives being proposed/tested by Google/Apple/Facebook are emergent at the time of writing.

We can expect large agencies, content publishers, and specialist data exchanges to grow out of the ashes of the third party data industry using ‘clean room’ initiatives, as a privacy-compliant means to ensure effective data sharing, audience based targeting and attribution.

The most robust action that organisations can take to reduce risk and their dependence on third parties is to increase priority of first party data assets and invest in associated capabilities to drive relevancy using their own data assets in a compliant manner.

The DMPG team have been implementing consent based personalisation programs for many years, across multiple sectors and during this time we have observed many examples of the value potential for increasing relevance in customer experiences.

Consent based personalisation can deliver happier customers, as measured by Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) and Net Promoter Score (NPS), incremental growth in revenue, improved profitability and reduced churn.