Direct marketing conference raises hot topics

The two draft bills - the Protection of Personal Information Bill, and the Consumer Protection Bill - completely change the way information is both stored and handled by list owners and users, and give all personal information confidential status.

Unaware

"Unfortunately," says Mike Sham, MD of Vibrant Media, most South African marketers are not aware of how dramatically this new legislation will impact the way they do business - or how far reaching the consequences of this new legislation will be."

For example, penalties for the contravention of these two acts include fines, as well as imprisonment - for a period of up to 10 years!

Delegates from many of South Africa's top companies joined in the dialogue, and two of the UK and European Union's top direct marketing specialists, Jenny Moseley and Rosemary Smith of Opt-4, joined delegates to discuss how they have successfully navigated similar legislation for the past two decades.

At present, many would say that living in a data protection zone makes huge sense for consumers - especially with the high levels of identity fraud that are being experienced worldwide. The ramifications for marketers though, can be huge, especially when you consider scare stories such as a European marketer being fined the equivalent of R5.6 million for one failed suppression on request.

Fortunately, it's not all doom and gloom, says Sham: "There are unexpected benefits to this legislation."

Greater reach

For instance, permission-based lists allow for greater reach to consumers who are more likely to be interested in, and purchase, your products - eliminating the cost and effort involved in marketing to clients who are not interested. In addition, the introduction of legislation acceptable at European standards allows for sharing of lists to outsourcing regions such as South Africa - strengthening our standing as a reputable farshore outsource contact centre service provider, creating much-needed local jobs.

Another topic that featured highly on the day's agenda was opting out versus opting in. "And this is going to be the point to watch," comments Sham. "The degree of impact of this new legislation will rest heavily on whether the Government decides that personal data can only be collected if the owner opts in, or whether list owners and users can continue using information until such time as the owner chooses to have that information suppressed."

Opting out will definitely make the lives of marketers easier, as well as industry codes of conduct easier to implement. All is not lost if Government chooses the opt-in option though, as Moseley and Smith clearly portrayed in their presentation, particularly as it is possible to cleverly align your brand to your permission request, and build strong customer loyalty, as evidenced by the success of loyalty programmes such as those of Tesco. "The key though," says Sham, "is impeccable database management."

Rights to access info

In addition, delegates were privy to a talk by Brendan Hughes of Michalsons Attorneys, who has worked closely with the DMA and Business Unity SA (BUSA) in compiling an industry submission on the draft bills. Hughes raised awareness around whether or not the impending data privacy legislation takes the right to privacy too far. Hughes also shed light on marketers' rights to accessing information - particularly as it relates to marketers' constitutional right to protect their own business interests.

All in all, this DMA-endorsed event raised as many questions as what it offered answers, but certainly got the community talking about the implications of the Bill, and imbued a greater clarity on what we can expect.

Various presentations from the conference may be downloaded from www.frontfoot.co.za/dmadownloads.php.