GDPR opportunity knocks

Jo Francis sees opportunities aplenty for print amid the scramble for GDPR compliance.

What more is there to say about the whole GDPR hoo-hah other than this: “This. Must. Surely. Be. Good. News. For. Print.”

Anyone with an inbox will surely have watched with growing disbelief as the number of pleading emails racked up. In my case, some from organisations that I have no recollection of every engaging with, and some, inexplicably, from retailers (are you listening John Lewis and ASOS) that I regularly buy stuff from and am happily signed up to all their loyalty programmes and whatnot.

Amid all the dross, it’s actually pretty annoying to be required to reconfirm permissions and details when it’s not actually necessary.

No doubt a lot of this is because large organisations in particular have developed an understandable level of paranoia about being the first to be slapped with one of those humungous fines we’ve all been warned about.

It’s also pretty obvious that the many and various GDPR consultants out there have been handing out differing advice, which has resulted in some firms taking a belt and braces approach, even when their trousers fitted just fine anyway.

Lots of companies are going to find that their email marketing lists (however ineffective in the first place, she says, looking at the hundreds of unopened email messages in her promotions tab) are decimated. DEC-I-MATED.

All of this should be a gift to the pro-active print pro, who can now step in with some help and advice about ways to put a trusted and effective print-based message into someone’s hands or line of vision without breaking any laws or indeed, breaking sweat.

GDPR? Genuinely Dependable Print Rules.