MK7040 Marketing in a Digital Age and Corporate Social Responsibility Assignment Sample 2023
Introduction
Marketing in a digital age plays a significant part as because it aids in promoting the product and services for the business organisation along with building their reputation among the competitive business environment (Palmatier & Steinhoff, 2019). The presence of social media platform such as Facebook, Instagram and Watsapp are being used for marketing within the digital age to increase their presence among the customers. Marketing as the corporate social responsibility seek towards community development by building a relationship with the customers while offering them value (Boháček, et al., 2019). Marketing as the CSR activity also comprises of ethical management that comprehends better business operations along with achieving higher growth and opportunities.
This report is based upon examining the business opportunities for Cambridge Analytica along with determining how the company uses the opportunities to grow their business operations. Viewpoints of Alex Nix before and after the scandal of 2017 will also be examined during this report considering the corporate reputation and CSR activities. Brief description of Cambridge Analytica towards Trump’s campaign will also be described within the report. Furthermore, ethical and legal challenges associated with Facebook that disrupt its activities will also be critically identified during this report. The implication of Cambridge Analytica towards the future of Facebook along with their operational activities will be examined exponentially.
Question 1
The UK based business organisation Cambridge Analytica offers services to establishments along with governmental parties that are mostly concerned with altering the behaviour of the viewers. The opportunities that Cambridge Analytica comprehend includes of analysing the data and information of the customers, executing and examining the information of consumer benefits the business establishment in determining latent patterns through which information’s are being categorised (The Guardian, 2020). Cambridge Analytica uses new-age technologies that are being used for data mining through which they generate valuable insights. The sources of data collection for the business organisation includes of social media channels, information that are being publicly available, when all the data are being gathered then they are being processed and validated that harvest data and guides the business enterprise towards achieving their objectives. Business opportunities are being gathered in the form of running and promoting advertisement for political parties through different social media platform including Facebook and other ATL activities (Livemint, 2020). Examining the opportunities that Cambridge Analytica comprehends of including designing and developing a powerful software program, is being used by the business administration to undertake decisions. Investigating further about the opportunities that Cambridge Analytica includes of mining the data of the customers includes information being used to design a marketing campaign for the political parties and business clients. Psychological traits and characteristics of the individual are being built through analysing the profiles of the customers that reflect upon their behaviour and personalities, which as a result increases the capability for the organisation in improving their overall operations (Entrepreneur, 2020). Quiz app was being developed by the Cambridge Analytica where personal details of the family and peer groups are being recorded and documented that are carried forward to develop an emotional campaign that develops the instinct of customers and attract them towards the campaign to grow the operations of Cambridge Analytica.
Question 2
The CEO of Cambridge Analytica Alex Nix addressed the issues that are concerned with marketing communication, CSR activities along with retaining trust towards the brand. The Cambridge Analytica scandal of 2017 increased issues of psychological manipulation along with fake news campaign; as a result of which increased chaos and confusion during the U.S presidential campaign (CNBC, 2018). The scandal of Cambridge Analytica also comprises of using sex workers, bribes and misinformation to help the political candidates win votes around the world. Illegal practices were being carried out where it was noticed that through the app the personal data and information of the customers were being gathered which were then used to develop psychographic profiles of the people and delivered to Trump election campaign.
Before the scandal of 2017, the business organisation could have strengthened their security and services where the guidelines could have been developed under the regulation of GDPR. Furthermore, the organisation could also have been used the app for tracking down whether the data that was being generated and gathered were not being used to transfer to the third-party vendors that increased the risk of data security breaches and impact negatively on the operation of Cambridge Analytica. Information gathered from different sources also points out that during the scandal of 2017; more than 87 million of personal data were being used to run the digital political campaign of Trump (Nytimes, 2020). Had there been proper guidelines and policies then it would have been easier for the organisation in designing and developing processes that would have eliminated the risk of insolvency proceedings along with closed the operations.
Post the aftermath of 2017 Cambridge Analytica scandal the CEO of the company Alex Nix could have undertaken suggestive step towards eliminating such risk for the future. The organisation could use anonymisation techniques to remove personal identifiers. Furthermore, the business entity should also have taken up the responsibility of adequate precautions to eliminate any form of information misuse. Furthermore, the organisation could have also opted for CSR activities that are concerned with offering a digital solution to its investors and shareholders to grow their reputation along with increasing their digital data processing services (Crane et al. 2019). To gain the trust of customers back the CEO of Cambridge Analytica needs to fortified the security system of the organisation that includes of using two-factor authentication that would assist the organisation in keeping the information of customers safe from being hacked that develops and generates the trust of customer towards the organisation.
Question 3
The data-driven approach towards decision making signifies about the nature of its appropriateness and influence that seek towards improving the overall capabilities and competencies for the organisation. The process of data-driven decision-making process involves validating information, which is then used to make any specific kind of decision that earns profitability and higher performance within the enterprise (Martin and Murphy, 2017). In politics data, the driven approach is being used to identify their characteristics, behaviour and their electoral influence which are then used by the political parties to develop models to determine individual-level predictions about the citizens.
It has also been noticed that data of an individual and the people that are being collected by the political parties are also being used to plot electoral strategy through which election is being carried out. The evidence gathered in regards to the data-driven approach towards decision making crucial information has been achieved that indicates its benefits in making more confident decisions. Both political parties and business organisation uses a data-driven approach to analyse the past trends and streamline their overall process that in order develop marketing campaigns through which advertisement are being performed to attract the attention of the customers towards the campaign (Chambers, 2018). The data-driven approach of business organisation is different from that of the political parties as because during their decision-making approach they carry out survey and questionnaire under which they gather the responses of the respondents. Most of the political parties rely on the data-driven approach to find out the data pattern that managed them to taste success in their previous year campaign. Ethical standards are also being maintained by the business organisation while using the data-driven approach for decision making that includes of Consumer Protection Act 1974 along with general guidelines of GDPR to sustain and maintain the confidentiality of information in regards of the customers (Legislation, 2020). Considering the guidelines benefits the organisation in undertaking better decision for their organisation.
Comparing the data-driven approach of business enterprises from that of political parties contrasting differences has been finding out. Political parties focus towards gathering personal details of the individual that includes of their age, gender and income statement. The information that is being gathered by the political parties is being used to design and develop social welfare services based on similar likeliness of the people that benefit the political parties in gaining the higher amount of votes (Fischer & Miller, 2017). Decision-making approach for political parties is based upon the personal information of customers. Political parties also adhere to legislation and guidelines for being accountable towards community development and social welfare program.
Question 4
As it is known that Cambridge Analytica misused over 50 million Facebook user’s data to manipulate voters during the 2016 USA presidential elections, however, a more detailed assessment of the case found that the company used unethical methods and strategies to help the campaigning members for Trump and even breach the trust of protection and misuse of personal data (The Guardian, 2018a). The detailed report stated that Cambridge Analytica exclusively breached the data of millions of Americans which helped them to track and explore the behaviour of the voters and used this information to manipulate the choices of ballot box and even predict the trend of the 2016 presidential elections. Prior to elections, the case organisation prepared a personality and behaviour based questionnaire whereby many voters were paid and asked to participate in the same (CBS News, 2018). After the same, the personality and the behavioural data from the test were mixed with poll records and voter records and their online activity as well as to develop a model that helped to develop a model to predict the actions and attitudes of the voters. However, it was further investigated and found that Cambridge Analytica actually use more than the mentioned data from Facebook leading to violation of legal aspects whereby for participation of the test the participants had to login using Facebook accounts (The Guardian, 2018b). As a result the case organisation received the user names and activity based information of the participants. This was the negative point of activity by Cambridge which actually led to the case of unethical actions. On a positive note, the main activity that Cambridge Analytica or their services comprised of surveying the perceptions of voters for Trump and others aspects and development of a strategy for Trump to form heat maps for places that Trump should visit to impact on the elections (Bloomberg, 2018).
In some of the reports, even though it has been mentioned that the use of data and all the activities and services provided were legal and did not violate privacy, the use and manipulation of the survey data to persuade voters and manipulate ballot boxes to vote Trump was wrong (Wired, 2017). The data breach of using and tracking the activities of the survey participants was a complete violation of privacy and therefore, it can be implicated that the case organisation lacked ethical aspects or misled its customers or survey participants in using the test data and making it available in public or misuse of the same. However, the work that the company actually did to explore the “psychological profiling” of the voters of USA is something that is done by many organisations and this helps the organisations to explore the attitudes and behaviours and strategies to either change the perceptions or motivate. This was however, an ethical aspect whereby survey data was used to understand and strategize where Trump needed to visit and campaign for winning the elections (Wired, 2017). Plus they also used big data analytics and predictive analytics, which is core to data analytics and helped in achieving the target of winning the elections.
Question 5
Public licence companies are those companies that allow the public to use their company products, share them and even modify them if needed. It is sometimes also known as GNU General Public License and allows the end users to have an independent control over the company’s this public licence to operate allows the company to process and operate by the wills of its employees, general public and stakeholders (German and González-Barahona, 2009). Therefore, this is sometimes also called as social license to operate (SLO). Therefore, there are two aspects to public licences to operate one is the free use of its products by stakeholders and the other is that the company is run by the decisions of the employees and all other stakeholders (Demuijnck and Fasterling, 2016). On the other hand, the data driven companies are companies that specialise in data analytics and reporting aspects and use data from different resources to help its clients and stakeholders with different goals and objectives (Provost and Fawcett, 2013). These companies may use any type of data based on accessibility and legal aspects to privacy of data and security of the same and analyse them to interpret the findings so that readers can easily understand the same. However, there are certain linkages between the public licenced companies and the data driven companies, one of which is that any data in the former type of company can be accessed and manipulated because it is public owned and not protected by privacy or legal aspects. So, data driven companies may gather massive amounts of data from the same and use them to conduct their own tests and even manipulate which actually happened in case of Cambridge Analytica. As a result, it may be stated that there is a strong relationship between the two company types one provides data and the other analyses the data. However, there are both positive and negative aspects of this relationship unless one of the companies starts operating unethically.
Question 6
Facebook had faced several issues in the past years based on the security and confidentiality of user data along with late response for the socially harmful post. One big challenge associated with Facebook is reflected through the regulation of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union. The company should appeal the Europe users for their consent to utilise their data for targeting advertisement and other concern (NYTimes, 2018). The regulation has also put the limits on the particular information that is collected by the company and their using pattern. It has impacted negatively in the ability of Facebook for targeting ads effectively and potentially minimising its power of prices. On the other hand, Facebook has also faced the issues of more bad headlines, monetization pressure, governance troubles and trust declination in technology (The Guardian, 2017). The ad load saturation is considered as another issue along with the rising number of fake account. Although the company has improved their system for resisting against fake accounts, the user can easily create those till now which has caused serious issue for the company. Spreading misinformation and hate speech along with meddle in election are associated with the accounts which does not obey the legal aspect (Kim et al. 2015). German Government had also provided reminder for checking the posts that would not spread hatred or other things. In March, 2019, the joint investigation report of The Guardian, The New York Times and The Observer had stated that the UK-based consultancy, collaborating with presidential campaign of Donald Trump had misused the information of more than 2 billion users (Wired, 2019). So-called hinge to the privacy is in different patterns the logical summary to the response of Cambridge Analytica that has plunged the company into greatest crisis in the history of last fourteen years.
Facebook has also taken several strategies for addressing the pressing challenges which are considered as interference of battling election and misinformation, strengthening the privacy with protecting the information of user. Moreover, focusing on the well-being and safety along with providing the user more data related to their seen advertisement with following regulatory measures (NYTimes, 2018). Post Cambridge Analytica, the firm has incorporated with measures to provide permission to the company after gaining knowledge of the purpose of using. Facebook has applied expert investigators and advanced technology to identify and remove the bad factors with removing millions of fake accounts (Kim et al. 2015). The company has also detected 99% of the terrorist-based content and 97% violence along with 96% nudity which indicated stable framework and monitoring of the content. Facebook had also suspended 400 applications which have violated the policies and procedures. They had also made privacy tools which are simpler to use and identify the content that justified the following of GDPR regulation (The Guardian, 2017). The social media has also developed new transparency standard for the political advertisement with searchable library. The team has also worked with the lawmakers for accomplishing the smart legislation that has aligned between the competing tensions. Thus, the safeties of the platforms are modified for adding value to the user.
Conclusions
This report critically examined the business opportunities for Cambridge Analytica by using the information of customers and analysing them to identify their trends and pattern. Past trends of data and current information are being used as business opportunities for the same. The scandal of 2017 Cambridge Analytica increased challenges for the CEO of Alex Nix, the firm could have strengthened its data-driven approach and security procedure to avoid the issue and sustain better operational activities. The data-driven approach during the decision-making process for business organisation and political parties help in understanding the nature and traits of the people in regards to gaining their trust and loyalty. In addition, the service details to Trump election campaigning members by the case company has also been detailed in the current report whereby on one hand they did violate the data privacy aspect but also helped the Trump election campaigning members to explore where Trump needed to visit and influence people to vote. Furthermore, this revealed the vulnerability of Facebook and its data protection policies, which is why the report also presented the threats to Facebook with respect to ethical and legal aspects. Lastly, the report also presents a perceived relationship between public goodwill/license to operate and data-driven technology companies.
References
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