Data-Labor-Technology

With enforcement of Europe’s highly anticipated General Data Protection Regulation just a few months away, Oasis Fashion is getting choosier about which companies it shares data with.

The fashion retailer doesn’t buy third-party data nor does it sell any of its customer data, but it does outsource some data-management tasks, and it is those companies that are  being vetted, Oasis’ head of digital, Helena Theakstone, said. Companies like SMS providers and email service providers are among those being scrutinized by Oasis, and it’s turning away any new mar-tech partners that pitch for its business if they aren’t yet compliant.

Oasis isn’t alone in having its work cut out for it in preparing for the GDPR. Fifty-nine percent of marketers haven’t received any GDPR-related training, according to a survey of 381 marketers by the Institute of Direct and Digital Marketing. A separate study from the U.K. trade body the Direct Marketing Association found over half (57 percent) of 197 marketers surveyed admitted their team is under-trained when it comes to the GDPR.

Oasis’ legal firm is vetting the retailer’s existing data partners and prospective suppliers to determine how they gather, use, disclose and manage the retailer’s data. Once the audits are returned, the retailer will determine if it continues with the suppliers. But given it has such a small roster of partners, Theakstone doesn’t predict any wholesale changes to its suppliers. Also, the retailer’s own data has given it a pretty good idea of whether a person’s privacy is infringed upon when it processes someone’s data.

Although a person’s individual rights have been strengthened when it comes to what an advertiser can and can’t do with someone’s data, the foundations of those rights were there all along under existing legislation, said Theakstone.

Oasis has already vetted two potential new partners in the last month. The retailer declined to work with one business when it discovered it hadn’t updated its privacy policy to account for the GDPR and was unwilling to create one with Oasis. It chose another partner that was willing to work with Oasis on such a policy.

Spanish banking group Banco Sabadell is also assessing its third-party vendors for GDPR compliance, including marketing services providers. Speaking at an event hosted by online security firm RSA on Feb. 4, the financial firm’s IT risk director Javier Sanchez Ureta said it now judges all vendors against 14 different areas of risk, such as their security track record, before agreeing a deal.

Beyond the audits, Oasis is also using its GDPR preparations as a chance to take more ownership of its data. It recently hired a website optimization manager, customer insights manager and customer services expert, roles that will help Oasis develop a more rounded view of its customers. The customer services expert, for example, will oversee the company that handles the retailer’s interactions with shoppers. The customer insights manager will help the brand build a CRM platform and do contextual targeting. Industry observers believe contextual targeting will be a better alternative to third-party cookie data, which will be harder to use post-GDPR.

To that end, Oasis is also looking at customer values, such as who they vote for, whether they have kids, and whether they a dog or cat person, Theakstone said. “We’re trying to pinpoint who our customers are so that we can target around those [contextual] themes rather than [cookie data].”

One role the business has no immediate plans to recruit for is a data protection officer. There is still some confusion in the market as to whether the role is compulsory or not. At one point, any company with more than 250 employees needed to hire a DPO, but current guidance says the role is only necessary if a company handles a lot of sensitive personal data.

Image courtesy of Oasis Fashion

The post How Oasis Fashion is protecting its marketing data from GDPR appeared first on Digiday.

A convergence of public and enterprise blockchains is on the horizon, according to the CEOs of two of the most high-profile companies in the space, Chain and Blockchain.

While similar in name, they’re entirely different. Chain is a blockchain startup; it builds databases, effectively, for big companies to move money or other assets and its customers include Citi, Visa and Nasdaq, all of whom actually use the blockchain technology in their businesses today. Blockchain is a definitely more of a crypto company, a consumer crypto-wallet and exchange whose CEO, Peter Smith, does more p-to-p payment volume than PayPal.

“The dichotomy between public and private blockchains is a false one,” Ludwin said at the Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit in New York Wednesday. “Over time there will be more of a convergence of what’s happening in the enterprise and what’s happening on the open Internet to create this future of value over IP.”

Read the full story on tearsheet.co

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As digitally native brands continue to disrupt the beauty industry’s status quo, more and more investors are rushing to back them up.

It doesn’t hurt that beauty at large seems to be having a moment, with U.S. beauty sales rising to $17.7 billion in 2017, a 6 percent increase from the year prior. Skin care accounted for 45 percent of those gains, which is not surprising, given that every media outlet from The New Yorker to New York Magazine has unpacked its current vogue. 

But the consumer stickiness and loyalty the beauty category affords makes it appealing in the long-term, too, according to Sutian Dong, a partner at Female Founders Fund, which has invested in brands like Winky Lux and Manicube.

“That results in very predictable revenue,” she said. “But more and more people are also realizing that it’s a really compelling place to make tremendous margins at scale.”

Buzzy companies like Glossier, Huda Beauty and Charlotte Tilbury have all received recent funding, but new investor cash isn’t just reserved for high-profile brands. Last February, the customizable hair-care company Function of Beauty secured a $9.5 million Series A round led by GGV Capital, while its competitor, Prose Beauty, raised $5.2 million of its own this past December in a Series A round led by Forerunner Ventures.

All in all, the beauty sector saw an all-time-high of more than 149 deals in 2017, according to an April report from CB Insights, representing a 19 percent jump from the year prior.

Even the traditional beauty players left in the wake of these younger brands are catching on to their appeal, which has led to a frenzy of M&A activity over the last few years.

After scooping up Smashbox early in 2010, Estée Lauder purchased Too Faced Cosmetics for $1.45 billion in 2016. The same year, L’Oréal purchased It Cosmetics for $1.2 billion. After Unilever acquired a slew of brands in 2015, including Kate Somerville and Dermalogica, the company continued its buying spree last year, shilling for brands like Carver Korea ($2.7 billion) and Hourglass Cosmetics (for an undisclosed sum).

But the beauty startup space is increasingly crowded, and not all new, digital-first brands meet the mark for investors. What it comes down to is a combination of product efficacy, transparency, innovation and customer connection.

Product is king
In the age of Instagram, good branding matters. But it won’t lead to success in and of itself, especially in the beauty space, where results are key. Evidence that your products work is not just essential to courting consumers, but potential investors, too.

“A company might be able to pull off bad product with good branding at first, but I think it will be short-lived,” said Jonathan Keidan, the founder of Torch Capital, an early stage venture fund.

“You know which products work right away from consumer behavior,” agreed Matt Scanlan, the founder of the seed-stage fund Softmatter Ventures, an investor in True Botanicals. “They create a repeat-purchase behavior that is highly identifiable and profitable, and that leads to healthy, organic growth for the company.”

Clinical trials are also helpful, even if, as Scanlan pointed out, many young brands avoid investing in them for fear of the results or the belief that marketing dollars are better spent elsewhere.

“That’s a mistake — they’re a huge indicator of value,” he said.

Everything that True Botanicals produces, for example, goes through rigorous clinical trials to ensure that its results are top-notch.

Legitimate transparency
Those trials also offer an important reflection of your supply chain, something investors agreed is crucial for beauty brands to be open about today.

“Customers want to know what ingredients are involved and where they’re coming from,” said Keidan. The more natural or organic they are, the better — but only if the products actually work, added Dong: “You can’t rely on natural in and of itself.”

Sustainability, or the assurance that a product’s creation has not had a negative impact on the environment or its producers, is also important.

“It’s a huge category-buster right now,” said Scanlan, whose company considers it the No. 1 factor when investing. “It’s really changing beauty at large.”

He added that sustainability has even reached Sephora, and the retailer will be rolling out a sustainability initiative in most of its store in the coming months. Although Sephora didn’t respond to a request for comment, the retailer has promised in the past to better audit the suppliers it relies on for Sephora Collection.

Of course, many companies today have jumped on the sustainability train for the good PR it affords, so Scanlan and his peers seek out those who’ve been validated by an external source, like those vetted by the Organic Consumers Association or that have been Fair Trade certified.

“I could tell you how sustainable I am until I’m blue in the face, but without some sort of auditing service to validate those assertions, it doesn’t hold a lot of weight, especially with consumers who can Google results and get information so easily,” he said.

Innovation meets personalization
Beauty brands that are truly doing something different, and at warp speed, are the golden ticket for investors today.

Dong points to Winky Lux, which she calls “the Zara for beauty,” as an example.

“They have a very differentiated backend production and logistics network,” she said, which allows them to take products from ideation to release within 45 days on average. “They’re giving consumers beauty that is always fresh and always evolving according to what they want.”

One investor, speaking under condition of anonymity due to current fundraising, said that Winky Lux (and its speed-to-market capabilities) has exactly the brand blueprint he and his colleagues are looking for today. Alongside its constant customer-listening that leads to speedy product innovation, it’s selling lower-priced and trend-driven products, like eyeshadow palettes and highlighter, largely online (the company only has one storefront in NYC).

Customization is also on investors’ minds these days, with many pointing to the aforementioned hair-care brands Function of Beauty and Prose, which offer products curated to customer needs, as particularly exciting.

“That level of personalization is crucial across categories today,” said Keidan.

Knowing your customer (and where to find them)
Of course, none of this matters if a brand can’t effectively reach its target consumers.

“Product market fit is vital,” said Scanlan. “You need to know who your customer is, and your branding needs to service that audience.” Glossier, for example, has succeeded thanks to its knowledge of its target “cool girl,” the aesthetic she likes and the channels she hangs out on, he said.

Kylie Cosmetics and LimeCrime have seen similar success targeting their makeup-heavy and edgier consumer, respectively, on social media.

“These brands only go after who their girl is,” said Scanlan.

Many of these less mainstream or minority demographics have historically been shunned by legacy brands, said Dong, and tapping into that whitespace is key. Fenty Beauty, which has shot to success thanks to offering a more diverse product range — including 40 foundation shades — is a prime example.

“We look for companies that can leverage the reach of social networks to really speak to and capture these consumer groups that have long been on the periphery,” she said.

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Amazon.com said it will start delivering Whole Foods groceries via its fastest delivery option in four markets, marking the first major integration between its e-commerce operations and its new brick-and-mortar grocery chain.

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With the Winter Olympics getting underway on Feb. 9, NBC Sports is eyeing partnerships with social platforms such as Snapchat and Musical.ly to reach younger viewers.

For the first time, NBC Sports will be broadcasting live Olympics videos on Snapchat, using a new Snapchat Live tool designed for TV networks to distribute live clips on the messaging app. Starting Feb. 10, NBC Sports will go live on Snapchat covering key moments during the Games, the companies said.

The new live video feature will consist of two screens. At the top, a viewer will see a vertical version of the broadcast, and at the bottom, the horizontal TV broadcast. This will let viewers choose which angle they want to zoom in on, said Snap. Snapchat users will be able to subscribe to the live broadcasts, which will be available at the top of the new media and Discover section of the Snapchat app, by pressing and holding on existing NBC Sports Olympic content. Subscribers will receive notifications both inside and outside the app whenever NBC Sports goes live, said Snap.

While Facebook and other major digital platforms are aiming to compete with TV networks for live sports rights, Snap has been pitching itself as a complementary, second-screen platform for live and linear TV. With the new live video feature, the idea is that networks can market important broadcasts that matter the most — and reach a potentially new demographic along the way.

“We believe the best place to watch a live game or award show is still on a big screen,” said Ben Schwerin, vp of partnerships for Snap, in a statement. “That’s why we build products like Our Stories and Live that compliment and amplify what our broadcast partners are doing on television.”

Beyond the new live element, NBC Sports is also producing two shows for Snapchat about the Olympics. “Pipe Dreams” is a four-part series profiling Olympic snowboarders that premiered on Feb. 6. “Chasing Gold” is a 16-episode show that will profile U.S. athletes such as Lindsey Vonn, Gus Kenworthy and Chloe Kim. It debuts on Feb. 8, with plans to air one to three episodes per day for the first 10 days of the Games.

NBC Sports will also be programming two public stories a day covering behind-the-scenes action from PyeongChang, South Korea. And as previously announced, BuzzFeed will again produce a daily Olympics-themed Snapchat Discover channel for the duration of the Games.

NBC Sports parent company NBCUniversal, as part of a $500 million investment in Snap, has a broader advertising and original content partnership with the company. NBC Sports and Snap said they have signed up more than 20 advertisers to spend on Snapchat Olympics content as part of broader ad buys for the Olympic Games — double the number of advertisers that had spent on Snapchat during the Rio Summer Olympics.

Snapchat is NBC Sports’ biggest social play for the Olympics, but the broadcaster has also partnered with Musical.ly for the Games, bringing two Musical.ly stars, Nia Sioux and Ross Smith, to PyeongChang to document their experience of the event. NBC Sports will share Olympic highlights, behind-the-scenes content and GIFs on its new NBC Olympics account on Musical.ly.

Other social initiatives for NBC Sports include a partnership with Giphy to turn Olympic game highlights and other clips into GIFs, which users can share across social platforms. The company has also signed up “Stranger Things” star Gaten Matarazzo and YouTube stars Jenn Im and Monica Church to share Olympics-themed videos before and during the Games.

In total, it’s a huge endeavor for NBC Sports, which will have hundreds of people in South Korea and at NBC Sports headquarters in Stamford, Conn., involved in the production, distribution and marketing of Olympics content over the next two weeks. This includes NBC Sports’ plans to stream more than 1,800 hours of live competitions during the Games, up from 1,000 hours of live streaming from the previous Winter Olympics in Sochi.

On the social side alone, NBC Sports will have about a dozen people on hand in South Korea to shoot original footage, not including staffers from BuzzFeed, Snap.

“Our social team becomes part of a much bigger content factory,” said Lyndsay Signor, senior director of consumer engagement at NBC Sports Group. “[The Olympics] are bigger than anything we do because there’s so much going on at the same time.”

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Agencies use their Instagram accounts in dozens of different ways, often giving the feed over to employees to curate themselves. Leo Burnett Chicago does something a little different, though related–using a series of posts to regularly spotlight a “day in the life” of a staffer who’s doing interesting things. The series is called simply “Day…