ER ban a ‘catastrophe’
by Helen Simson, Eclipse client services director
What would happen if direct marketers were banned from using electoral roll data, as recommended in the Prime Minister’s recent data-sharing review? We believe it would be a catastrophe, not only for the dm industry but also for consumers and for our clients.
Far from reducing the amount of unwanted direct mail landing on doormats, such a move could actually increase the problem.
Like other agencies, at Eclipse we use the edited ER as a source of information for cleansing and profiling data. Without it, we would lose a useful targeting mechanism. A ban would also impact on our clients, since the ER is one of the ways we can exclude unwanted addresses such as goneaways, so helping to keep down campaign costs.
Data integrity is critical to the dm industry and here again the ER scores highly, since it provides the UK’s most definitive source for individual names, ages and addresses. Combined with behavioural data, it is an invaluable basis for the creation of relevant and compelling campaigns.
Though calls for an ER ban shouldn’t come as a surprise after the spate of recent high profile data security breaches, we believe the industry should resist it.
Read more about the review here.
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