This Movember, participants can change the face of men’s health directly from their mobile device. Experian Marketing Services and The Movember Foundation, the global charity raising funds and awareness for men’s health, are kicking off a new mobile program for Movember 2015 participants. The mobile messaging program will give participants the option to receive reminders and updates from The Movember Foundation directly from their mobile device. Powered by the Experian Marketing Suite, The Foundation will be able to reward, encourage and inform participants with more immediacy and relevance across channels, including email and mobile. “Mobile messaging is a natural extension of our mission to start more conversations around men’s health and inspire people to get active,” said Mark Hedstrom, U.S. Country Director of the Movember Foundation. "In partnership with Experian, we’re mobilizing men’s health awareness and giving participants a more personal and immediate way to understand how their contributions are helping us to tackle some of the biggest health issues faced by men.” The announcement of The Foundation’s new mobile messaging program comes just days before the kickoff of the annual Movember campaign. Since 2003, The Movember Foundation has raised more than $650 million and funded more than 1,000 world-class programs in 21 countries. Every Movember, the hairiest month of the year, The Foundation challenges men to grow a moustache and women to support a moustache or to increase their activity and commit to MOVE, the foundation’s 30-day fitness challenge, all to help raise funds and awareness for men’s health. Men and women who choose to participate in Movember and then subscribe to the mobile messaging program can stay connected to the men’s health movement through special rewards, event information and innovative fundraising ideas delivered straight to their mobile device. “Mobile messaging done right isn’t just promotional. It’s an opportunity to drive meaningful, two-way communications between a brand and its audience, particularly for brands that can add value in a specific location or moment, such as Movember,” said Matt Seeley, group president, Experian Marketing Services. “Movember participants are more than customers; they are brand ambassadors for the men’s health movement and want to receive information and ideas when they need it most. We’re thrilled to contribute our expertise to help The Movember Foundation take those communications to the next level to make Movember a more personal and rewarding experience for those involved.” To sign up for the Movember campaign or for more information about mobile messaging, go to Movember.com to Grow, Give or MOVE.
It was only a few months ago when millennials officially surpassed baby boomers to become the largest living generation. Since millennials are so numerous, it stands to reason, that they could also become the most prevalent population of small business owners in the U.S. As a matter of fact, everyday there are hundreds of new start-ups being created by this younger demographic. Clearly, the millennial generation is gravitating toward entrepreneurship, but what do we really know about this segment of the population? While we know they are deeply rooted in technology, what industries are they most likely to enter? Where are millennials more apt to establish their companies? How do they handle credit? In order to put a face to the average millennial business owner, Experian recently conducted an analysis exploring the demographic and its credit characteristics. Interestingly, we found correlations between their education level and the industries in which they were most likely to start a business. Interestingly, the analysis showed millennial business owners had the highest percentage of those without a high school diploma and subsequently established companies in industries that typically do not require a college degree. For example, the top three industries for millennials include business services, building cleaning and maintenance and general contractors. From a geographic perspective, we found more than 68 percent of millennials establish businesses primarily in three states, including California, Texas and Florida. While the number may seem a bit high, it makes sense considering one of the states is a hub for technology, and the other two do not have state income tax. We also found millennial business owners have the lowest commercial* and consumer credit scores at 32 and 628, respectively. However, despite their low scores, millennials show to be the most credit active generation. More than 17 percent of millennials have opened a commercial account within past 24 months. While they have a brief credit profile, which can impact their credit score, millennials seem to understand the importance of building credit by opening new accounts. By putting a face to the name, so to speak, creditors and suppliers will have a better understanding of what drives the millennial business owner. These insights will enable them to better market to this growing segment of entrepreneurs, as well as position them to service these young business owners and uncover their own growth opportunities. Millennials are the future, and the more we understand how to help them succeed, the better off our economy and society will be. *Based on a scale of 1 to 100 (with 100 being least risky); predicts the likelihood of severe delinquency (more than 91 days past due) within the next 12 months
The appetite and need for data within businesses is continuing to grow at a rapid pace. Organizations are viewing data as a strategic asset and using analytical insights for everything from key business decisions, to the customer experience and more. However, the methods for managing first-party data and ensuring it’s accuracy have not kept pace with the growing data demand. The majority of businesses today are still relying on siloed, departmental strategies for data management that have little data governance or consistency in terms of people, processes, and technology. This very clear gap between data usage and data trust has been realized. Organizations are starting to put better structures in place and assign owners to data. In some businesses, especially in highly regulated industries, a chief data officer (CDO) position has been created. The CDO is viewed as a trusted advisory and a custodian of data. That individual is responsible for evangelizing data usage within the business and ensuring that individuals buy-in to information management practices. But a C-level focus on data has only occurred in a select number of organizations. For the thousands of other organizations who have data and need to improve data trust, who do they turn to today? In many instances, we are finding that the CIO is taking ownership of data management in a bigger way. In fact, according to a recent Experian Data Quality study of 250 CIOs from large organizations, 52 percent stated they have become increasingly responsible for data management in the last 12 months. The main responsibilities for the CIO around data management are: Improving the bottom line through lowering the cost of compliance Providing platforms and technologies to support analytics Measuring and managing data value and risk These executives are adding data management to an already busy work-load. Most CIOs report working longer hours and increased personal stress levels in the last year. However, they are seeing increases in their budgets, allowing them to hire additional help and invest in new technology. While the CIO is perfectly capable of handling the weight of data management with the right team around them in place, there are a few pitfalls that have occurred in the past that need to be avoided when modernizing any data management strategy. Data management isn’t just about technology There needs to be a large investment in people and processes to make sure there is organizational buy-in around data quality. Whenever there are policy changes that employees do not like, they will inevitably find a work around. With data management it is no different. Data owners need to evangelize data and make people want to maintain and use quality information. Data should not just be controlled and manipulated by IT While a central data stakeholder should provide consistent data governance and management across the organization, they should also an empowerment of departments and individual users. A large problem with data today is it is difficult to access. Sometimes departments will have to make requests with IT in order to have reports generated for analytics and wait weeks while their request becomes out of date. Today, data owners need to think about business users. How can they make data governed, accurate and accessible while allowing individual departments to manipulate data themselves for specific purposes? Don’t think about big data, think about insight We all have talked a lot about big data over the last few years. But, at the end of the day it is just data. It doesn’t matter how much data we have, we ultimately need to be able to access and manipulate that data for analytical purposes. When you are looking at technology, don’t just think about Hadoop clusters and data lakes; think about what you need to build models and access analytics in real-time. One of the biggest gaps right now for organizations is central ownership of data. A few organizations are looking to answer need by creating a CDO role. However, before this role becomes main stream, much of the work will fall to an already overloaded CIO. They need to maximize their time around data management and ensure that information is fit-for-purpose. Consider the pitfalls above and be sure to hire a great team of data professionals. To learn more about how data is affecting CIOs, download our research report, The role of the CIO in data management.
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.