GetCloser.com by HMV – a honey trap to profile the unsuspecting and market to them (in the guise of social networking)
Posted by: Marketing Guy Date posted: August 11th, 2008 Published in: Social Media MarketingAn interesting new development from HMV (UK based High Street DVD, music, etc sales) – GetCloser, a social networking type site for music and movie fans. Basically, you network with other users in a similar way to Bebo or FaceBook – but for films and music.
Let’s call a spade a spade here. It’s a nice big glossy way of extracting loads of reasonably accurate information out of people in order to market to them better. You add in your music and film tastes and preferences so you can “explore other people’s tastes” – what a crock of shit!
What it boils down to is that some bright spark at HMV thought, “hey – social networking site users are very forthcoming with their personal details – can’t we use that in some way?” and GetCloser.com was born. What a goldmine of information – these days you don’t really need solid contact details to market to people – mass market user data can be a little FUBAR at times anyway (as people fill out fake details) so it becomes a fruitless exercise trying to disseminate any traditional marketing demographic data.
But user tastes and preferences are great and something that was never really available to marketers (focus groups or other kinds of feedback and research are very limited). With specific user preferences and interests (that you know will be pretty accurate), companies can conduct a much more serious level of marketing – micro marketing (user specific) as opposed to macro marketing (mass market).
So obviously you can’t just churn out a social networking site expect people to give you their information for nothing – you need to fluff it up a bit. That’s where the “features” of sites like these come into play. GetCloser has a (admittedly mildly interesting) feature where you can add in two films or music and you’ll get a “connection” returned – i.e. a story or fact that connects the two entities.
Seems a little ambitious to me – I would hazard a guess at the connections might be made based on user input – i.e. 10,000 users have the favourite film “Star Wars” and music artist “Queen” – and possibly supplemented by user or company generated stories (star appearances, cameo roles, before they were famous). It’s a nice little concept (not sure if it’s worthy of a dedicated site – more akin to a FaceBook app IMO) but my initial thought would be how do they get that critical mass of information to user a good result for every query (see how I brought SEO back into this)? HMV is a big company so there’s a load of resources going into this no doubt – but the combined music and film industry (in terms of information) is a huge market – getting a complete collection of data is an immense task.
ADDED: Just read that they only intend to populate the site with staff first and closed Beta. Way to avoid hiring any editorial staff guys! 
From what I can tell, their strategy is very web focused, something along these lines:
- Use of “Hubs” – basically optimised portal pages for band names, actors, etc. Think IMDB meets Bebo.
- User generated content – reviews, etc.
- User profiles – my films, my reviews, etc. Has a “DNA” feature which tells you if your film collection is lame or not…
- Gimmicky stuff – see DNA feature / connection feature.
- Promos and videos – naturally.
Basically, a dressed up excuse to encourage people to add their music and film collections to the site so they can be profiled and marketed to.Â
Giving your data to Bebo or Facebook is one thing. At best you get generic ads forced on you – no big deal.
But here we’re talking about giving your details to a company that sells the products you own. It’s not like your Amazon purchase history / recommendations – that’s just a neat little feature that is helpful and is good for marketing as a consequence. With this you would be giving very detailed information about your lifetime purchase habits (almost anyway) to a company that has the intention of selling more to you.
I may just be a little cynical in my old age but that seems like a step too far. It’s not just “monetising a site with advertising” or “making best use of company information” - those are legitimate business activities (although social networking sites can be difficult to monetise). This is setting up a process that is likely to be popular with kids and adults alike who aren’t going to pay any attention to the privacy policy.
It’s a honey trap for user data IMO. As with all areas of life, there is a fine line between what is acceptable and what isn’t (and that line differs for everyone) – my article on doorway page spam for example shows how this is the case in the SEO industry. I just think the intention behind any activity is the key – Bebo set out to be a social networking site. GetCloser is setting out to farm user data.Â
Thumbs up from a SEO perspective – nice looking site and covering all the prime keywords in an original way (and not just the bog standard, pseudo doorway page crap that most SEOs produce).
Yah boo sucks from a user’s perspective though - an excuse to trick unsuspecting users into handing over personal information. Someone explain to me – if Phorm are getting so much heat from the UK Gov and the EU over privacy concerns, how is this any different? At least Phorm provides a service to businesses and is unobtrusive to users – GetCloser is literally the largest legitimate phishing venture we’ve ever seen!
Boo, boo and thrice boo! I think “get closer” refers to how they will “get closer” to their users! My advice would be to “Get Further Away”!
Scott
Comments
I can see your concerns but I don’t think there is anything wrong with doing this as long as they are being up front about it in the terms and conditions (although I know most people don’t read them but they should).
All the fuss about Phorm is the fact that the system in it’s current form (pardon the pun) it is an opt-out system which is surely against all sorts of data protection laws you would think. Most people wouldn’t even be aware of Phorm so therefore wouldn’t realise their data is being monitored. Phorm is at the ISP level so is close to phone tapping in my opinion.
Going back to GetCloser if this the website is providing a real benefit most users won’t have exception to their data being used to profile them. After all there are millions of websites doing this already with data they capture.
I understand the privacy debate but as long as this data is used respectfully it can actually improve the online experience. Online adverts are always going to be there – why not actually have adverts that I might be interested in?
Yes it is a honey trap for HMV but how does this differ from other methods such as online prize draw surveys etc. really?
Hi David,
Yup I agree this post is mainly me ranting a little!
But I do think the intent behind any activities is important. A prize draw for example is clearly a marketing activity – I don’t think anyone participating in these things have any doubt about that. But a social networking site setup simply to farm that data is slightly more insidious IMO – it has the facade of a “real” site but a different underlying intention.
Sure we’re always going to get online adverts so relevance is preferable to most people (which is why I quite liked the Phorm concept to be honest, but I understand the privacy concerns). But look at the difference between Phorm and Get Closer – Phorm is 3rd party and no associations are made between users and habits. Get Closer is a company – the second you purchase anything from them then all your profile information is associated with your payment and contact details. Phorm has no facility to profile by estimated disposible income – or by postcode – or by prefered film genre – or by how often you purchase music gig tickets – or by how many reviews you’ve written – Get Closer *could* do all those things.
That’s a much more serious level data farming. That’s not just about serving relevant ads when you are browsing the site – it enables direct email and postal marketing which is venturing into the area of becoming much more obtrusive. Phorm just tracks habits and serves results based on that (and possibly location or other suitably generic factors) – Get Closer is serious consumer profiling.
My problem with it is that Phorm is very up front – some people may not like their concept, but it is open and honest and that allows debate, discussion and investigation as required. Fair enough.
But Get Closer is a glossy front to a potentially more elaborate privacy concern. My concern is that it will fly under the radar and frankly I don’t see why companies like Phorm should face public scrutiny for being open and honest about their intentions, while ventures like Get Closer sail by Scot free!
I read their T&Cs – it’s the same generic crap that all T&Cs have – “we may use information for marketing purposes” (possibly the most overused and meanlingless statement in the history of marketing). That could mean anything from someone simply looking at the data to compile a management report to them sending some sales people ’round to the home of every individual registered on the site with the intention of flogging DVDs to them! OK that probably won’t happen, but all the same there’s no disclosure there really.
Bebo was setup because the founders wanted to setup a social networking site – ditto Facebook, LinkedIn and so on. Sure they have since made use of their user data in different ways, but that’s no different to making use of customer feedback. Get Closer is being setup with the intention of capturing that user data in the first place – that’s the purpose of the site. It’s a marketing driven project – just like competitions and surveys – and IMO it should be treated as such. People should be going in knowing this – but I can’t help feeling most people won’t.
I guess time will tell. It’s probably one of the few new ventures I’ve seen that I’d be happy to see some random 3rd party rip off the idea and do a better job. But then again think about the numbers – social networking sites are hard to monetise – HMV can monetise Get Closer much better than you, me or the next guy could from ad revene – that’s the whole point of it!
Scott
Looks like they are also getting grief because their marketing agency (Cake Group) have been spamming forums for the past year trying to get Beta signups:
http://getcloserbeta.blogspot.com/2008/02/getclosercom-how-hmv-are-spamming-you.html
I’ve read some forum threads on the subject and one of the main criticisms is that they are requesting user information but registering on forums using different names and alias’s – not exactly what you’d like to see from a big brand! I wasn’t too happy when Jobsite spammed my forums!
Big brand hires agency. Agency comes up with concept. Project is underway. Everyone is happy. Someone decides forum spamming is an acceptable form of “marketing”. No one really cares how bad it makes big brand look. Big brand is oblivious to the negative PR.
It’s a classic tale.
[...] produced by HMV and isn’t getting the best of press. I’ve had a discussion with Scott Boyd at Fused Nation and he’s got some valid points about how this service is basically a cynical customer profiling system. While I agree about [...]
I totally agree but it comes down to people not being so naive about websites. If someone came up to you in the street and asked you for the information you enter into social media websites you’d generally send them packing. It’s a real issue how free and easy people are with their own privacy. Government has real problems online just because it can’t keep up how quickly things move. In any case I’m not sure regulating everything is a good idea anyway – you’ve just got to apply your common sense before you click that register button.
As for forum spamming *rolls eyes* – what were they thinking?
I’ve commented on my blog that if Phorm was an opt-in system I probably would opt-in but the approach they’ve taken is just plain greedy. Allowing an opt-out in this context opens so many debates.
Heh yeh, but in fairness I don’t think many agencies perceive registering on forums to “inform users” as spam!
There’s an illusion of safety on the web though – when registering with most sites all you really give away is your email address (and you can always block any junk emails) – so any “preferences” become largely irrelevant and somewhat anonymous. You also don’t bother so much when you give your address details when ordering something as it’s a necessity. Connecting the two is such a small step but opens up such a huge potential for marketers – I don’t think most consumers will realise this.
Ah well – if it works out for HMV we might see an explosion of micro / niche / vertical / in house / pseudo social networks! How funny would that be? The concept would be so devalued because there would be so many “networks” to join that people would lose interest lol!
Watch this space – everyone can join my “Beligerant, slightly sarcastic, Scottish SEO network”!
Scott
At the end of the day most people only sign up for a social media site if it provides them with a useful service they can’t get anywhere else or else it’s popular or seen as the cool place to be. I’m sure we are going to see a mini explosion of this kind of thing until companies realise people don’t just sign up for the next social media thing – you’ve got to come up with a bit of a unique spin on it. Unless of course it’s Apple in which case it falls under the third category of cool place to be and will undoubtedly swallow up the rest of cyberspace in one go!
A friend of mine experienced some social media bandwagon jumping a while back. I still don’t get people that jump on bandwagon’s they don’t even understand!
By the way your idea for a network – I think has a niche!
Hmmmm. I hate these things where they try to build profiles of users to increase their sales. I don’t see anything in the website itself that would be of benefit to me – can’t even blag some worthwhile links as the website doesn’t have a decent structure
Haha!
That brings up a good point – if the social networking aspect is secondary to the data collection aspect – how prepared do you think the system will be for the legions of people looking to expoit, manipulate or otherwise benefit from the traffic there? Cos I reckon that not much thought has gone into it and self moderation and spam patrols may be minimal.
Setting up fake band / actor profiles to drive traffic to businesses anyone?