Dating Sites, Cell Phone Calls: Alternative Sources for Marketing Data

Dating Sites, Cell Phone Calls: Alternative Sources for Marketing Data

Marketers - the ones willing to experiment at least - are finding a treasure trove of data in some unorthodox sources. The most current example of this trend is a blog by the dating website OkCupid, called OKTrends, which has been dissecting its user information to reveal some interesting patterns – such as people who own iPhones have more sex than people with BlackBerrys. And that atheists have the highest writing proficiency of any religious or nonreligious group or Oregonians tend to be more gay-curious than other Americans. (via Newsweek).

"We've collected one of the largest, most thorough databases of human interaction ever, and I have to make sure that what I'm writing about maximizes that resource,” Christian Rudder, founder, tells Newsweek. “We try to explore stereotypes, especially ones you’ve never heard of." The list goes on: Rudder claims he can pull up the books 30-year-old bisexual Latina women from Michigan are reading or the political leanings of six-foot Indian-American males who play piano.

Cell Phone Records

Another untapped - but very rich - source of data can be found in most consumers' cell phone record'. Who calls who, for how long and via what device is all valuable data for marketers. Telenor, a carrier in Scandinavia, has been using this data to map out social connections between people - measured partly by how often they called each other. (via Technology Review). Now Telenor wants to take the insights it gleaned to use in marketing campaigns, Technology Review says, helping, for instance, a company that wants to send promotional text messages to people whose friends already use a product.

How Valuable?

Before marketers jump on such data though, it is worthwhile to ask how reliable it truly is. The OKTrends blog "is a fascinating source of data about people on OkCupid, but I am skeptical of many of the broader claims based on these data," says Andrew T. Fiore, a media expert at Michigan State University. (via Newsweek). "Claims like 'Oregonians tend to be more gay-curious than other Americans' are suspect … It is very unlikely that Oregonians who use OkCupid are a representative sample of all Oregonians."