Loyalty Cards, those little keychain fobs from the companies that you flash at the cashier when you check out. Kind of like the tags that naturalists put on wild animals to track their migration patterns; Companies do the same to their customers.

Today, companies and advertisers are doing more and more to gather timely and accurate information on as many of their customers as possible in order to sell more effectively, target advertisements for products better, and to "feel the pulse" of their buyers.

Companies keep track of who buys what, and how much, producing multi-Terabyte databases (Wal-Mart as an example) of shopper’s buying patterns. This amounts to customer profiling and identification, which equals a lack of privacy never encountered before the electronic age. Many people bemoan this loss of privacy and start running for the tinfoil hats to prevent the government from taking over their minds. I’m definitely not of that ilk.

Knowledge is Power

I believe that the more a company knows about you, your spending habits and your preferences, the better! Why?? Because I’m tired of SPAM Advertisements. The type of throw-it-on-the-wall-and-see-if-it-sticks type ads that are so prevalent today.

In a previous article "Pervasive Advertising – Nationwide Insurance Takes Advertising a Step Too Far" I talked about how advertising is getting to the point that it blends into the background and most people ignore it. That seems like a lot of wasted effort on the part of the advertisement community. They’re just making their own jobs MORE difficult when they cause people to ‘zone out’ when advertisements come on. The only time I can remember watching ads on TV anymore is during the SuperBowl. (And the quality of THOSE ads has suffered the last few years).

All of this wasted effort, time, and money doesn’t do me or the company any good. How much better it would be if they tried to sell me something I really wanted to buy?!??

Know Thyself (Customer)

Amazon in particular seems to be making a VERY concerted effort to identify, classify, then notify their clientele of items that they might be interested in. Upsell is the common name for this practice, but Amazon and other on-line businesses are working to make this an art form. By identifying my purchasing habits, previous shopping items, and other information, and by then doing demographic and statistical analysis on patterns of shopping, they come up with a way to offer me things I never knew I always needed. Win-win!

On-line shopping isn’t like brick-and-mortar shopping, you can’t view 10,000 things at once like you could at Wal-Mart by just strolling around. On-line you have to make an effort to find things, and the more effort it takes, the less people will make that effort. Bye-bye sales.

Businesses know they only have a finite amount of time to grab the customer and make the sale (studies have shown that web-page views are under 10 seconds in many cases before the customer moves on, and in extreme cases, less than 3 seconds.) So they have a SMALL window of opportunity to catch your attention.

Membership Has it’s Privileges

That’s why I’m all for the loyalty cards and programs (Best Buy, Borders Books, Airline frequent flyer programs, etc) as long as they don’t cost me any money. By the stores having my purchasing patterns, I get targeted advertisements for things I need and want. No more baby products ads (no baby anymore) or feminine hygiene products (maybe for the wife, but not me) that take up that small sliver of my time that it takes to get rid of them. Small slivers of time add up to huge chunks of my life in the end.

I’m in the store, buying something, and flash the card at the scanner. Boom! I get points, or a discount, or at worst a targeted ad sometime in the future. No problem.

Big Brother is Watching

With the Internet and the amount of personal information out there, it’s pretty ludicrous to expect total privacy anymore. Too many people in too many places have your info, and you’re not getting it back! Since there’s nothing you can really do about the situation, use it to your advantage. Get the Loyal Customer cards when offered. Help stamp out untargeted advertisements as much as possible.

If the companies want to play naturalist and track my migration patterns, who am I to say no?

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