Target Customer Tracking

Target has found itself in hot water due to some investigative work by Charles Duhigg that uncovered the work of Andrew Pole, a genius statistician who discovered that patterns in tracked shopping habits could be linked to upcoming life events. For example, they came up with 25 products that could be analyzed together to give a pregnancy prediction. While expectant parents welcome coupons that are relevant to them, the realization that Target sent them because they were tracking shopping habits was not well received. Acknowledging that they were creeping out consumers with their tactics, Target adjusted their marketing campaigns slightly. Now, instead of sending unsolicited coupons and promotions to mined segments, they “hide” product offers for selected segments among ads for non-related products. In the case of mom and baby, in Pole’s words, “as long as a pregnant woman doesn’t think she’s been spied on, she’ll use the coupons.” But don’t expect Target to make too many changes to its shopping habit research; since Andrew Pole was hired in 2002, revenue has increased by $23 billion.

The premise of Duhigg’s investigation, as outlined in Hill’s article, did reveal ethical questions, but ultimately, Target was not doing anything illegal, nor was it doing anything new. Companies have used data mining techniques for years, Target just became the best at it. They could have continued doing what everyone else was doing – check local registrars for births and send coupons to new parents, but Andrew Pole decided to take things a step further, and the organizations of the world have another example of how the routine way of doing things is not always the best. Understanding habits can be very helpful in corporate America, not just to understand consumers, but for management to understand everything about the organization, including how to get the most from employees. A worker who consistently reacts to instructions may be missing an opportunity to improve processes,...