Monday Morning Marketer: what rentrée can teach us about marketing & GDPR

5 min readSep 4, 2018

This first week in September marks many things — the official end of summer (capped off by Labor Day in the US), back-to-school, the beginning of fall and football season … here in France, it brings the cultural event known to everyone, citizens and marketers alike, as “la rentrée."

Translating to "re-entry," la rentrée illustrates the natural rhythm of French life, as an official milestone marking the end of summer holidays in August and re-entry to normal work and school routines. For many people, myself included, this return to routine — after a summer of kid pick-ups and drop-offs, vacation travel — is actually welcome, as we gear up for another year reenergized from our summer holidays.

In some cases, it may also bring change to our normal routines, perhaps as a result of a life event (new child, new school, new job) or resolution we've promised to adopt (running a marathon, decluttering our home).

La rentrée: a must on any consumer brand's marketing calendar

So what's the connection to marketing and data? Beyond the fact that most brands regularly run a marketing program and promotions affiliated with it, la rentrée represents both routine and change, drawing a parallel to what many marketers (and consumers) are experiencing with user data privacy and marketing efforts post-GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation).

The housecleaning effect

Three months after it officially went into effect, the impact of GDPR on data privacy practices has been relatively unknown. How would brands, agencies, and tech platforms adapt their practices engaging with consumers, and more importantly, how would those changes impact the user experience?

User experience remains pretty much the same

A recent Marketing Week survey noted that while more than half (57%) of consumers believe they better understand how their data is being used, only 27% of them believe their experience with brands is better.

GDPR Guide for Marketers from WFA

Last year, I attended a session at dmexco, where the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) cited that 70% of their members' marketers were still not even aware of GDPR legislation, as many had delegated responsibility to their Legal teams.

Granted, awareness has certainly increased, but to expect those same marketing teams to have cracked the code on their brands' user experience three months in to the new normal of GDPR, is a tall order. Brands are still trying to understand the ramifications of their revised actions, and how they should adapt their practices to ensure compliance (and avoid hefty fines).

So what has changed?

For one, third-party cookies, used to track online behavior for advertising & marketing or design optimization, has decreased significantly. A recent Reuters study noted a 45% decrease in the average number of cookies on UK news sites.

Tech platforms have adapted as well. Facebook, for one, has overhauled its third party data advertising program, where agencies combine first-party data with secondary data (e.g., loyalty programs, research surveys) to create large pools of target users. Effective Oct 1st, Custom Audiences will officially replace the Partner Categories program, which was shut down earlier this year to improve user data privacy (and likely response to the Cambridge Analytica incident).

GDPR as the catalyst for change

Like la rentrée, GDPR legislation represents a milestone in marketers' and consumers' lives, and has changed the rules of engagement. This change has created an opportunity for brands to clean up their data collection and marketing practices, removing unnecessary features or services that could jeopardize user data privacy and negatively impact their brand reputation. In their place, new routines have emerged, taking form in emails crammed with legalese or landing pages requiring users to consent to the use of cookies and data collection/sharing with advertisers. These routines, albeit annoying, enable marketers to "check the box" with compliance to GDPR, then transition to work on new means to engage and delight consumers.

Smart phygital?

Fall typically brings lots of interesting conferences. This year I’m sticking closer to home and checking out Paris Retail Week, with its theme of smart phygital, examining automation’s impact on retail, both on- and offline.

Catchphrase aside, refocusing on core fundamentals — understanding the path to purchase, strategic merchandising (i.e., store layout, equipment, messaging, promotions) — that are augmented by digital technology is the core of this theme, and starts to articulate how to improve the customer experience, transforming buzzword talk into actual action for retailers and brands.

Here are some sessions I'm looking forward to seeing:

Routine + creativity

At Coca-Cola, I constantly reminded our local marketing teams about "freedom within a framework "— how process, in this case, The Coca-Cola Way of Shopper Marketing, can drive creativity. Although it sounds counterintuitive, creating routines around standardized tasks frees up time time & effort to work on bigger, bolder, more strategic items.

GDPR compliance and automation via machine learning and artificial intelligence both represent similar means to that end — a systematic approach to simplify and expedite mundane, albeit necessary, tasks, satiating our natural desire for routine. Like parents at la rentrée, this need for routine is unavoidable.

Yes, marketers are humans too, and this is what we also long for professionally — routine and creativity that can co-exist, and even thrive, as digital technology (and legislation) adds new structure to our lives and free us up to do the fun, creative stuff we love.

Want to talk more about GDPR and its impact on marketing? Drop me a note and let's continue the conversation.