Big Data, Big Brother?

Suresh is a qualified, chartered cost accountant and a PMP with more than 30 years of experience in organizations engaged in various industries, such as ceramic tiles, automobiles and engineering.

  Business Intelligence   Innovation   Strategy  

Last week, I wrote in my blog Share and share alike about how a father got upset at Target for sending an e-mail promotion for baby cloths to his 16-year-old daughter. The father visited the store to complain. Within a week, he went back and met the manager again: “I had a talk with my daughter,” he said. “It turns out there’s been some activities in my house I haven’t been completely aware of…she’s due in August. I owe you an apology.”

In some 600 hospitals across the United States, new mothers get gifts from various companies.  Procter & Gamble sends gifts to new moms at hospitals after they deliver the child. Target thought it was too late to approach mothers in the maternity ward, so wanted to predict “future moms” through their buying patterns. They asked data expert Andrew Pole to develop “pregnancy prediction” algorithms based on certain trends such as buying items like lotions, unscented soaps and vitamins:

• A 23-year-old bought cocoa butter lotion, a purse large enough to double as a diaper bag, zinc, magnesium and a bright blue rug. The tool predicted that there was an 87% chance that she was pregnant, and that her delivery date was sometime in late August.
• In addition, a 35-year-old woman…

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