Apple’s iOS 15 Update is a Serious Blow for Digital Marketing

You’ve just been chatting with your friend on Facebook Messenger. Your friend bought a great PC at the weekend sale and is enthusiastically telling you about the features, the feel of it, and how awesome it is for gaming. You look it up to check it out for yourself. Soon enough, that same PC will be in your Instagram sponsored posts, your Google Ads, and your Facebook suggestions. That’s the power of digital marketing.

Digital marketing is undoubtedly data-driven; it is what makes it so successful. By accessing hundreds of little bits of information about the consumer, brands can now influence every step of the decision-making process. The use of brand personas, automated campaigns, social media mining, and various other processes has allowed consumers to be hyper-targeted. Instead of broad advertisement campaigns, consumers now receive tailored information, which helps both them and the brand save time and resources.

However, this approach comes with several caveats, the biggest probably being the misuse of consumer data. Let’s take an example.

Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal saw the data of 87 million users collected and used for political purposes. Out of the 87 million, only about 200,000 had given explicit consent for their data to be accessible by third-party apps, and it was used to support the political campaign of Donald Trump in the 2016 election. What this event really showed was how opaque the processes surrounding data were; many users clicked ‘Agree’ on pages of terms and conditions with no clear understanding of what they were actually agreeing to.

While the fallout for Facebook was immediate and severe, they’ve recovered by now. For a while, it seemed like customers had accepted that the cost of convenience was data privacy because usage of social media and e-commerce showed no signs of stopping. However, scandals like CA have only been on the rise since 2018, and consumers are showcasing a definitive dislike for how carelessly their data has been taken, sold, and profited off.

It’s in this environment that Apple comes in. With the iOS 15 update, it allows users the option to disable third-party tracking.

Why has Apple done this? The first is that it aligns with their company values. Tim Cook often repeats the ‘Privacy is a fundamental human right’ catchphrase. This lets Apple position itself as the proverbial white knight contrasted against big evil corporations like Facebook. A series of unsubtle digs at Facebook and Google have only contributed to this image.

The second is that Apple loves being ahead of the curve. This situation can be compared to the launch of iTunes. In the 2000s, the music industry was in decline, aspirated digital copies of songs meant that nobody was buying CDs anymore. It was looking like the government would have to step in with regulations to save it. However, Apple saw this as an opportunity; they struck exclusive deals with record companies and came up with iTunes, making a system where it was easier to buy digital music than pirate it. iTunes became one of Apple’s biggest moneymakers of that generation. In a similar vein, Apple wants to pre-empt inevitable data privacy laws, make the framework for other companies to follow, and establish itself as the people who Did It First.

The third, less charitable reason, is that Apple simply doesn’t need to sell your data. Apple stores your data on the device itself, rather than on servers. Their money comes from the services and products you buy from them. Their ecosystem is famously self-sufficient. When Apple doesn’t profit from selling consumer data, it comes at no great cost for them to magnanimously ban third parties from using it.

So, what’s left for marketers if the data stream dries up? The outlook is not so bleak yet. All data is not personally identifiable; some remain in the public domain.

Google has come up with Federated Learning of Cohorts, in which data is grouped with other, similar users and so cannot be used to expose personal details of each person. Another way is to make processes strongly encrypted, giving consumers confidence that their data cannot be breached. However, these measures are increasingly looking like last-minute attempts to save a sinking ship. Marketers must seriously consider whether to cling on or look for new, innovative ways to reach their audience in the future.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Author: Saumya Pokhariyal
Editorial and Digital Marketing Team, NjM
Class of 2023, NMIMS Mumbai