Customer data platform (CDP)

CDPs promise to unify siloed customer data, delivering a singular view of the customer. Marketers rejoice, imagining tailored messaging delighting customers.

In reality, most customers feel uneasy, even violated. They prefer brands know less, not more. Privacy and convenience outweigh relevance.

But marketers tend to ignore such qualms. Lured by surveillance capitalism’s siren song, they assemble exhaustive dossiers on customers.

The path forward: less data for targeting, more delight for customers. Serve needs, not algorithms. Only then will relationships feel human, not transactional.