The Millennial generation comprise approximately 80 million people – the largest in history. Thus, it is no surprise that every type or organization from financial to automotive to healthcare are seeking to better understand their mindset and habits. Experian also recently took a look at these post-Baby Boomers to learn more about their approach to personal finance conducting a national survey among more than 1,000 people ages 19-34. Interestingly, what the findings showed was that there is a strong dichotomy in many areas; we saw a disconnect between what Millennials know about personal finance (not a lot) vs. how they manage it with the latest tools and resources (on the cutting-edge). The survey respondents are quick to try new products and services but also lack loyalty and always look for the next best thing. They are also torn between feeling concerned about their finances, however are optimistic about their future financial outlook. When it comes to credit, there is a lack of awareness about how credit scores are created (67%) and 61 percent check their credit reports less than every three months. The main reason for not checking reports and scores was that it’s not necessary (35%/37%). Yet, 71 percent feel confident about their credit knowledge. View the survey report here: Experian Millennial Credit & Finance Survey Report Part I of II
Experian Marketing Services, a recognized leader in data-driven marketing and cloud-based marketing technology, has hired digital-marketing industry veteran Bridget Bidlack to lead the global product vision, evolution and innovation for the Experian Marketing Suite. Bidlack, who joins the company in the New York City office as vice president of global product management, will play a pivotal role in further unifying Experian’s industry-leading technology, data and services for digital advertising and cross-channel marketing within the Experian Marketing Suite. In this role, Bidlack will oversee a global team responsible for product planning, execution and training in more than 30 countries around the world. “Bridget’s background in building and bringing innovative digital-marketing products to market and her depth of industry knowledge will be instrumental as we take the Experian Marketing Suite to the next level of cross-channel marketing technology,” said Matt Seeley, group president, Experian Marketing Services. “As a client-centric organization, Bridget’s marketing prowess will be critical in ensuring that Experian continues to deliver market-moving products that put the marketer’s needs at the center of our innovation road map.” Known for her industry savvy and insight, Bidlack was named in 2014 as one of Adweek’s “12 Stars of Ad Tech Who Are Building the Future of the Industry Right Now.” In 2015 she was recognized by the San Francisco Business Times as one of the “Most Influential Women in Bay Area Business.” Bidlack brings to the Experian team more than 15 years of experience transforming and scaling digital-marketing businesses. Most recently, she served as vice president, enterprise products, at Rocket Fuel, where she led product management for the company’s platform business and was instrumental in integrating the company’s people, processes and tools after the acquisition of data management company [x+1]. Bidlack served as senior vice president, product management, at [x+1], overseeing the Origin Digital Marketing Hub platform. Prior to [x+1], Bidlack held numerous leadership positions at Traffiq, Turn and Microsoft. She first cut her teeth in digital advertising and email marketing at Bluestreak, an industry pioneer in digital marketing and started her career at IBM in the Global Services division, supporting Fortune 500 clients using IBM’s Customer Relationship Management, call center and middleware products. “The collision of marketing tech and ad tech is revolutionizing the marketing experience for both marketers and consumers. We’re now able to move beyond the relevant ad and the personalized email to create exceptional brand experiences that transcend the channel,” said Bidlack. “The Experian Marketing Suite has all the right ingredients to bring that vision to life for marketers in a single platform: accurate, quality data at scale; linkage technology; best-in-class security; real-time targeting; campaign management; decisioning and more. I’m thrilled to work with the industry’s best and brightest at Experian to deliver market-moving, customer-first technology for our clients.” Bidlack holds a Master of Science in information systems science from Salve Regina University and a Bachelor of Business Administration in business computer information systems from Hofstra University. Follow Bidlack on Twitter at @BBidlack.
More than 2.5 billion gigabytes of data is generated every single day. By 2020, it’s estimated that 40 zettabytes of data will be created. The sheer amount of data available today is changing nearly every aspect of our business and personal lives. Big Data is also transforming the world of sports – from the way General Managers recruit and draft players, to how coaches set lineups and design plays and even how everyday fans watch and participate in professional sports. Today, every major professional sports team either has an analytics department or an analytics expert on staff. By 2021, the markets for sports analytics is expected to reach $4.7 billion. This year, nearly 57 million people in the United States and Canada will play fantasy sports. At Experian, we’re fascinated with this transformation of the sports industry, in large part, because we are immersed in Big Data. Similar to the use of analytics in sports, we are in the business of compiling, analyzing and transforming massive amounts of information into actionable insights. Every day, we are using Big Data for good – to streamline processes, mitigate risk, grow the economy and improve society. To explore the many parallels between Big Data in business and sports, we sat down with Diane Bloodworth, president and CEO of Competitive Sports Analysis (CSA) to find out more. Here’s what we learned: What's the mission of CSA? Competitive Sports Analysis turns today’s overwhelming amount of data into meaningful predictions and useful analytics. Essentially, we provide coaches, fans and fantasy sports players with meaningful information that helps them make decisions ranging from which players should be drafted to which quarterback to start in a fantasy roster. Our vision is simple – to put game-changing data in the hands of as many sports fans, decision makers and influencers as possible. What makes CSA different from other analytics tools and experts? CSA is the only sports analytics company with patented software that merges data from both objective and subjective sources. For college coaches, our scoutSMART app imports data from existing recruitment systems and tracks original data to help coaches make better and more-informed decisions in real-time. More importantly, it helps coaches consider “fit” when recruiting. They can customize skills based on their own system and schemes and the player’s specific position. For fans and fantasy players, scoutPRO cuts through the chatter of pundits, bloggers and sports analysts to take the guess work out of fantasy sports. scoutPRO calculates skill ratings and converts them into fantasy points to give GMs numerical measurements for real time decisions. In other words, CSA is different because we understand that data has to be useful. General Managers and coaches are still the decision makers, CSA is a tool to make those decisions easier. Risk Management is a key focus for us at Experian. This is also relevant in your business, especially with injury and risk management? How can analytics help with that aspect of sports? Just like data can be used to help recruit and draft the right players, it also has potential to maximize player performance by managing risk – helping to predict fatigue and prevent injury. We are exploring new ways to gather data points on athlete performance to help inform training, lend insight to the ideal game day lineups and better predict individual athlete performance during competition. Is sports learning from business or is business learning from sports when it comes to Big Data? There’s a sharing of knowledge both ways. Right now, the business world is slightly ahead of the sports world in terms of real analytics, primarily because businesses are profit-driven and that drive encourages innovation and creativity. But, because sports are universally loved and understood, they are also a good conduit for people – including business leaders – to explore analytics and the advantages that come with them. At Experian, we agree that the sports and business worlds have a lot of commonalities, and more importantly, a lot of knowledge to share. Like Competitive Sports Analysis, Experian is distilling huge amounts of information into actionable insights to drive efficiencies and improve results. We are both providing leaders with tools to manage risk and make decisions. And we both demonstrate that when used for good, Big Data has the power to deliver positive outcomes not only in sports or business, but across the economy and society. Don't miss our #DataTalk with Competitive Sports Analysis this Thursday, November 5 at 5 p.m. ET on Twitter.
Today, we stand at the forefront of a digital revolution that is reshaping the financial services industry. And, against this backdrop, financial institutions are at vastly different levels of maturity; the world’s biggest banks are managing large-scale infrastructure migrations and making significant investments in AI while regional banks and credit unions are putting plans in place for modernization strategies, and fintechs are purpose-built and cloud native. To explore this more, I recently had the privilege of attending the annual Reuters NEXT live event in New York City. The event gathers globally recognized leaders across business, finance, technology, and government to tackle some of today’s most pressing issues. On the World Stage, I joined Del Irani, a talented anchor and broadcast journalist, to discuss the future of lending and the pivotal role of data and AI in building a more inclusive financial system. Improving financial access Our discussion highlighted the lack of access to traditional financial systems, and the impact it has on nearly 100 million people in North America alone. Globally, the problem affects over one billion people. These people, who are credit invisible, unscoreable, or have subprime credit scores, are unable to secure everyday financial products that many of us take for granted. What many don’t realize is, this is not a fringe subset of the population. Most of us, myself included, know someone who has faced the challenges of financial exclusion. Everyday Americans, including young people who are just starting out, new immigrants and people from diverse communities, often lack access to mainstream financial products. We discussed how traditional lending has a limited view of a consumer. Like looking through a keyhole, the lender’s understanding of the person in view is often incomplete and obstructed. However, with expanded data, technology, and advanced analytics, there is an opportunity to better understand the whole person, and as a result have a more inclusive financial system. At Experian, we have a unique ability to connect the power of traditional credit with alternative data, bringing a more holistic understanding of consumers and their behaviors. We are dedicated to leveraging our rich history in data and our expertise in technology to create the future of credit and ultimately bring financial power to everyone. The future of lending After spending two days with over 700 industry leaders from around the world, one thing is abundantly clear: much like the early days of the internet, today, we are at the cutting-edge of a technical revolution. Reflecting on my time at Reuters NEXT, I am particularly excited by the collective commitment to drive innovative, and smarter ways of working. We are only beginning to scratch the surface of how data and technology can transform financial services, and Experian is positioned to play a significant role. As we look to the future, I am excited about the ways we will create new opportunities for businesses and consumers alike.
The advertising ecosystem has seen significant transformation over the past few years, with increased privacy regulation, changes in available signals, and the rise of channels like connected TV and retail media. These changes are impacting the way that consumers interact with brands and how brands understand and continue to deliver relevant messages to consumers with precision. Experian has been helping marketers navigate these changes, and as a result, our marketing data and identity solutions underpin much of today’s advertising industry. We’re committed to empowering marketers and agencies to understand and reach their target audiences, across all channels. Today, we are excited to announce our acquisition of Audigent—a leading data and activation platform in the advertising industry. With Audigent’s combination of first-party publisher data, inventory and deep supply-side distribution relationships, publishers, big and small, can empower marketers to better understand their customers, expand the reach of their target audiences and activate those audiences across the most impactful inventory. I am excited to bring together Audigent’s supply-side network as a natural extension to our existing demand-side capabilities. Audigent’s ability to combine inventory with targeted audiences using first-party, third-party and contextual signals provides the best of all worlds, allowing marketers to deliver campaigns centered on consumer choices, preferences, and behaviors. The addition of Audigent further strengthens our strategy to be the premier independent provider of marketing data and identity, ultimately creating more relevant experiences for consumers. To learn more about Experian and Audigent, visit https://www.experian.com/marketing/ and https://audigent.com/.
When it comes to cybercriminals and threat vectors, we need to expect the unexpected. Experian’s 12th annual Data Breach Industry Forecast highlights several potential trends for 2025, with AI playing a central role. This year has already seen more data breaches and impacted consumers than 2023, indicating that global data breaches are not slowing down. Some things to watch out for next year includes the potential for more internal fraud. As companies train employees on AI, there is a growing risk that some will misuse their knowledge for internal theft and sourcing sensitive information. Another trend may be cyberattackers targeting large data centers, with the growth of generative AI introducing power as a new attack vector. It’s reported that a single ChatGPT query uses significantly more electricity than a standard Google search, making data centers and cloud infrastructure vulnerable, especially in countries with varying security standards. We expect AI-related attacks to dominate the headlines next year and investments in cybersecurity will increase to tackle this emerging threat, as hackers leverage AI for phishing, password cracking, malware, and deepfakes. Jim Steven, Head of Crisis and Data Response Services at Experian Global Data Breach Resolution in the UK, anticipates that global data breaches will persist at their current rate next year. He notes that ransomware attacks are likely to become even more sophisticated with the integration of AI. Additionally, Steven predicts that threat actors will escalate their tactics to achieve greater rewards, and the misuse of consumer data to damage reputations will increase in 2025. To access the complimentary report, click here.