GDPR Digital Comms: The Good, The Bad and The Desperate

There’s an acronym that is striking fear into the heart of every CEO, CIO and digital marketer. It’s not MIA, USA, or the deeply disturbing LMAO – no, it’s everyone’s favourite piece of data security legislation, GDPR. The General Data Protection Regulation, which comes into force on the 25th of May, is giving pretty much everyone a headache. Failure to comply with the legislation brings with it a chunky fine of up to €20 mil or 4% of global turnover – whichever scares you the most.

So what does it actually do? For the consumer / customer / user (delete as appropriate) it’s great: the emphasis is on affirmative consent – forget preselected boxes and opting out – and you can actually push back against companies that hold your data, asking them what they’ve been hanging onto and even to justify a data driven decision with *gasp* a real life human reviewing it. The most noticeable implication at the moment is that a whole lot of companies that hold your email address on a database for email marketing without a valid record of your consent need to check in to make sure you’re still ok with it, and everyone needs to update policies to ensure compliance. If you haven’t heard of it yet, you will. Companies are all communicating this information in different ways, each with their own merits and idiosyncrasies. All strategies employed tie in with a company’s brand, their messaging, how they think their audience will want to engage with these changes, and most importantly the ways they’re using your data.

Let’s have a look…

Let’s stay friends – you really don’t want to miss out!

I received an email from RainbowEnvelopes.co.uk that manages to pull together just about every platitude in the book. There are a lot of emails like this shooting around, but this one takes the cherry.

*We’ve got incredible new products on the horizon, we really do. The best envelopes. The best colours. The only way to make sure you are receiving the best deals is right here, and with a new piece of legislation this is under threat! This really is your last chance to get the best rainbow envelopes in the game… Click our brightly coloured button of friendship for more love, affection and envelope related deals delivered straight to your inbox.*

To be fair this scattergun approach is probably about right for their audience. They’re unlikely to be the savviest data wise and probably need the importance of these changes to be jazzed up a bit to hit the mark.

Here’s the deal…

*Let’s cut the crap. We’ve had some pretty hot waitlists in the past; we know you’re pretty likely to want our marcoms, you know you want our marcoms; you’re not super interested in GDPR; we’re pretty over it – click the subscribe button and we can both get on with our day.*

Chinese smartphone manufacturer OnePlus went with a punchy subject line, two key points and a subscribe button. Simple and to the point. They even open with a stylish “Friends,” (Romans, data protection fanatics). The company had success with referral schemes, has a committed customer base and are reckoning on some of these customers being in the loop on GDPR already.

We understand GDPR and think you will too

I can picture the average customer of Polish video game developer CD Projekt Red: they’re a male in their twenties or thirties and may well have a great big bushy beard. As a demographic they’re likely some of the most data savvy and will appreciate a company that starts an email with “Dear Gamer” and talks to them like the PC-master-race weapon that they almost certainly are.

“We’d like to inform you that our Privacy Policies are now adjusted to be fully compliant with GDPR. Reading them will now give you a lot more information about things like data retention periods (i.e. how long we will keep your data), our Trusted Partners (i.e. entities that help us bringing you our games or services), or where we store your data.”

You’re not sending a juicy paragraph like this to someone who’s buying brightly coloured envelopes. For these guys it’s the right mix of technical terminology and explanatory asides.

Also, digital card game Gwent is now a 16+ – unlucky, younglings.

Let’s tie this into a 360° Terms of Service update and sing it from the rooftops

Sara Harrington, Vice President of Legal at LinkedIn, sent me a nice long email about various big, exciting changes that the company is introducing on the 8th of May. Hi Sara.

These changes span their User Agreement, Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy and Professional Community Policies. They’ve grabbed the bull by the horns and set themselves an internal deadline ahead of the legislation taking effect, written a whole lot of supporting copy and had a good think about how they manage their communities – and they want you to know it! It’s a pretty well handled too: they’ve made a concerted effort to make it clear what data they have on you, as well as how it impacts stuff like ads.

They’ve even pulled together a GDPR help centre with some pretty decent articles on how different elements of their offering relate to the legislative changes. Nice one, Sara.