Callcredit white paper: tracking a decade of changing consumers in UK
The UK Census has come a long way since its inception in 1801; however, the future of this once-a-decade exercise is still uncertain. The UK population has become more difficult to count due, for example, to mobility and migration. A number of proposals are being considered, including the introduction of a primarily online version and one based on existing government data with compulsory annual surveys. In the meantime, the most recent Census has confirmed some significant changes to the structure of society in the UK since the previous assessment in 2001.
Together with the unprecedented advances in the fields of digital communications and consumer data, a ‘perfect storm’ has been created. Take open data — there is now a significant body of data available covering areas such as crime, healthcare, transportation and education. The quality of some sources may still be mixed but it is improving all the time. The government is committed to releasing public data and has launched a portal for this covering more than 14,000 datasets.
The scene is set for a new age of consumer understanding and more relevant marketing. As a relative newcomer, Callcredit (itself only founded in 2001) has picked up on these shifts and created a powerful new consumer universe — DEFINE — not frozen but flexible enough to accommodate the even more monumental changes we are sure to see over the coming years as well as emerging data types such as open data. In line with this, CAMEO data is now more accessible, for example through a new interactive portal due for launch in 2014…
