What ‘Define’s’ Quality Data?

12 months on since Callcredit's launch of the largest data innovation   

One of the key challenges that marketers face is the continual battle to better understand the consumer, their ever changing needs and their desire to take greater control of what, how and when they consume information.  Callcredit Information Group understands this challenge and as a result we have continued to change our business to fit with what can be deemed a dynamic and somewhat demanding industry. 

Some of these changes include the ways we are open and transparent about data, where our data comes from, permissions, consent, product development and our growth both organic and supported by strategic acquisitions that plug into our vast array of innovative products and solutions that help to enhance the level of data and insight we hold. 

In 2011 we brought two of the UK's largest data businesses together - Callcredit Marketing Solutions and The Trading Floor which, a year later, saw the launch of the largest data innovation - Define. 

Integrating over 162 million disparate pieces of data across 80 contributing partners in 11 markets meant an extremely complex set of data applications had to be developed to authenticate, verify, analyse and finally link and apply the intelligence driven from the data to create Define - giving an unparalleled and unbiased 360° view of today's consumers. 

Given the frequency of touch points on the data - Define processes over 80m records in a standard week - the nature of the database is such that it constantly grows, changes, enhances and expands to reflect the consumer's exact position at the immediate point in time. Since its launch in May 2011, Define now contains an additional 380 pieces of vital information on consumers - from what motivates them, to their attitudinal position, to their financial status and much more.   

Key to the development of Define is the immediacy of view generated, and it was with this in mind that we recently acquired lead generation experts Lifestyles Online to feed directly into the data Define already holds. 

Define's seamless approach to the consumer experience revolutionises multi-channel marketing, by bringing together all available channels to a client this then feeds into the evolution of omni-channel retailing where the omni-channel consumer uses all channels simultaneously.  The acquisition of Lifestyles Online boosts this omni-channel approach further, building on Define's 360° view of a consumer and strengthening that data further to provide clients with real time leads. 

Lifestyles Online enhances the detail that Define offers by working with the consumer to gain their consent and then understand whether they want to find out more about a particular product or service- providing a tangible lead.  By giving the power back to the consumer and enabling them to tell the marketer when they want to be contacted and providing a real time lead, combining this with Define's dynamic 360° view then begins to meet the challenge of the consumer and their continually changing needs. 

This more targeted real time lead saves marketer's time and money and provides the consumer with the information they want making them more receptive to products and services they really want and reducing the amount of unwanted marketing they receive. 

Looking to the future we want to continue to develop ways that will enhance the data we hold and provide our client's and consumers a better experience. We are currently looking at launching, through Lifestyles Online, sector specific websites to help consumers get the best deals and empower them further. Clients will benefit from stronger real time leads of consumers who are actively in play that have chosen to go to that specific website and consumers will then only receive further information from companies they want to hear from. 

2013 will see Callcredit pushing the boundaries even further with our continued focus on helping clients' seamlessly join the 'on- line' and the 'off-line' worlds together. We have found many ways to deliver not only marketing data but information on engagement, channel preference, credit propensity and key life triggers. Our digital capabilities, analytical capabilities and probably the most discriminative dataset in the UK (Define) will sit at the heart of everything we do in 2013. 

Zoe Palethorpe
Data Assets Director
Callcredit Marketing Solutions