It’s amazing what “they” know

One of the issues my marketing class is exposing me to is the amount of information available on you, and me, that’s out there.

When you pay for something at the store, do you regularly get asked for your ZIP code or your phone number? Why do they need that?

For one thing, that gets input with your purchase and those records go into a database, or two, somewhere.

What’s the end result? A site like Prizm from Claritas Inc. You can punch in your ZIP or someone else’s and get some basic information about folks that live around you and just how homogeneous you are. You can get a snapshot of your neighbors in your 5-digit ZIP and compare your neighbors with those from, say, Winston-Salem.

From some other services, you can get very detailed information with a 9-digit ZIP (which narrows the field down to 10 to 15 households).

Some of the categories are interesting. In our ZIP, we have country squires, gray power, new empty nesters, upper crust, and young influentials. I’m not sure where we fit in.

There’s tons of information out there that marketers use.

The ACLU doesn’t liking this, of course. The picture of what can happen is painted kind of bleakly in this presentation.

Watch if you dare.