The dig­i­tal econ­o­my has re­shaped the way busi­ness­es com­mu­ni­cate with con­sumers. From so­cial me­dia cam­paigns to tar­get­ed ad­ver­tis­ing, the col­lec­tion and use of con­sumer da­ta has be­come the back­bone of mod­ern mar­ket­ing. Yet, this re­liance on da­ta is be­ing chal­lenged glob­al­ly as pri­va­cy con­cerns in­ten­si­fy and reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works tight­en. For T&T, where busi­ness­es are in­creas­ing­ly lean­ing on dig­i­tal strate­gies to reach au­di­ences at home and abroad, the con­ver­sa­tion about da­ta pri­va­cy is no longer op­tion­al. It is a defin­ing fac­tor that will shape the fu­ture of mar­ket­ing, trust and com­pet­i­tive­ness in the lo­cal econ­o­my.

Ris­ing con­sumer con­cern

Around the world, con­sumers are be­com­ing in­creas­ing­ly wary about how their da­ta is used. Search vol­ume for the term “da­ta pri­va­cy” has dou­bled in the past five years, re­flect­ing grow­ing aware­ness and un­ease. A study from the Pew Re­search Cen­ter found that more than 80 per cent of Amer­i­cans be­lieve the risks of com­pa­nies col­lect­ing their per­son­al da­ta out­weigh the ben­e­fits (Pew Re­search Cen­ter, 2019).

Sim­i­lar­ly, near­ly three-quar­ters of Amer­i­cans de­scribe them­selves as “very con­cerned” or “ex­treme­ly con­cerned” about their on­line pri­va­cy, while 42 per cent say they are not com­fort­able re­ceiv­ing per­son­alised ads (Pew Re­search Cen­ter, 2019).

This con­cern is not con­fined to the Unit­ed States. A 2023 sur­vey by Kasper­sky re­vealed that 62 per cent of glob­al con­sumers wor­ry about how com­pa­nies han­dle their per­son­al in­for­ma­tion. In Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean, this is am­pli­fied by low­er trust in in­sti­tu­tions and in­con­sis­tent en­force­ment of da­ta pro­tec­tion laws.

T&T is not im­mune. Al­though lo­cal re­search is lim­it­ed, anec­do­tal ev­i­dence shows that con­sumers are in­creas­ing­ly cau­tious about on­line trans­ac­tions, hes­i­tant about shar­ing per­son­al de­tails on web­sites and scep­ti­cal about un­so­licit­ed mar­ket­ing mes­sages. The pop­u­lar­i­ty of vir­tu­al pri­vate net­works (VP­Ns) in the Caribbean, com­bined with grow­ing so­cial me­dia dis­cus­sions around on­line fraud, sug­gests a shift in pub­lic at­ti­tudes to­ward dig­i­tal trust.

A shift in the dig­i­tal land­scape

Tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies are al­so re­spond­ing to these con­sumer sen­ti­ments. Ap­ple and Google are both phas­ing out third-par­ty cook­ies, a main­stay of dig­i­tal ad­ver­tis­ing. With­out this tool, mar­keters can no longer re­ly on in­vis­i­ble track­ing to build con­sumer pro­files. In­stead, they must re­think how to col­lect and use da­ta.

The im­pli­ca­tions are sig­nif­i­cant. A re­port from McK­in­sey & Com­pa­ny warns that com­pa­nies with­out a ro­bust da­ta strat­e­gy could end up pay­ing as much as 20 per cent more on mar­ket­ing and sales to achieve the same re­sults (McK­in­sey, 2021). This is not mere­ly a mat­ter of cost ef­fi­cien­cy. Busi­ness­es that fail to adapt risk los­ing cus­tomer trust al­to­geth­er. McK­in­sey fur­ther con­cludes that “a strong, trust­based re­la­tion­ship with cus­tomers may be the key to a sus­tain­able, ef­fec­tive da­ta strat­e­gy.”

For small and medi­um-sized en­ter­pris­es (SMEs) in T&T, which form the back­bone of the econ­o­my, this shift can­not be ig­nored. The lo­cal re­tail sec­tor, fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions, e-com­merce plat­forms and even cul­tur­al in­dus­tries in­creas­ing­ly re­ly on dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing. If these busi­ness­es can­not piv­ot to pri­va­cy-first mod­els, they risk not on­ly high­er costs but al­so de­clin­ing con­sumer en­gage­ment.

The rise of first-par­ty da­ta

As third-par­ty da­ta be­comes less ac­ces­si­ble, first-par­ty da­ta is emerg­ing as the most valu­able as­set for mar­keters. First-par­ty da­ta refers to in­for­ma­tion col­lect­ed di­rect­ly from cus­tomers, such as pur­chase his­to­ry, web­site reg­is­tra­tions, sur­vey re­spons­es and app us­age. Un­like third-par­ty da­ta, it is both cheap­er and more ac­cu­rate and it al­lows com­pa­nies to build stronger re­la­tion­ships with their cus­tomers.

Ac­cord­ing to the Search En­gine Jour­nal, 36 per cent of mar­keters say pur­chase his­to­ry will be the most valu­able form of first-par­ty da­ta in the years ahead (Search En­gine Jour­nal, 2022). Prop­er­ly in­te­grat­ed, first-par­ty da­ta has been shown to dou­ble the rev­enue gen­er­at­ed from a sin­gle ad place­ment and im­prove cost ef­fi­cien­cy by up to 1.5 times (McK­in­sey, 2021).

For lo­cal busi­ness­es, this presents an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­cal­i­brate mar­ket­ing strate­gies around di­rect con­sumer en­gage­ment. Su­per­mar­kets, tele­coms providers and banks al­ready cap­ture cus­tomer pur­chase his­to­ries and pref­er­ences through loy­al­ty cards, mo­bile apps and dig­i­tal bank­ing plat­forms. The chal­lenge is en­sur­ing that these sys­tems are not on­ly func­tion­al but al­so trans­par­ent and re­spect­ful of con­sumer pri­va­cy.

Da­ta pri­va­cy reg­u­la­tion in T&T

T&T has had a Da­ta Pro­tec­tion Act since 2011, de­signed to safe­guard cit­i­zens’ per­son­al in­for­ma­tion. How­ev­er, the Act has been on­ly par­tial­ly pro­claimed, mean­ing not all its pro­vi­sions are in force. This has led to a reg­u­la­to­ry gap com­pared to oth­er mar­kets such as the Eu­ro­pean Union, where the Gen­er­al Da­ta Pro­tec­tion Reg­u­la­tion (GDPR) sets high stan­dards for con­sent, trans­paren­cy and

ac­count­abil­i­ty.

The ab­sence of a ful­ly en­forced da­ta pri­va­cy frame­work cre­ates two key risks. First, con­sumers may con­tin­ue to dis­trust lo­cal dig­i­tal plat­forms, lim­it­ing adop­tion and growth. Sec­ond, lo­cal com­pa­nies seek­ing to op­er­ate in glob­al mar­kets may face com­pli­ance chal­lenges. For ex­am­ple, ex­porters of dig­i­tal ser­vices to the EU or North Amer­i­ca must align with GDPR and oth­er reg­u­la­tions, re­gard­less of the lo­cal le­gal en­vi­ron­ment.

By ful­ly pro­claim­ing and en­forc­ing the Da­ta Pro­tec­tion Act, Trinidad and To­ba­go would not on­ly re­as­sure cit­i­zens but al­so align it­self with in­ter­na­tion­al best prac­tices, mak­ing lo­cal busi­ness­es more com­pet­i­tive.

Build­ing con­sumer trust

The les­son for mar­keters is clear: trust is now the cur­ren­cy of the dig­i­tal econ­o­my. A re­cent Google sur­vey found that 73 per cent of peo­ple use on­line tools to pro­tect their pri­va­cy (Google, 2022). This sig­nals that con­sumers are not pas­sive; they are ac­tive­ly man­ag­ing their dig­i­tal foot­prints.

Ad­ver­tis­ers who can demon­strate trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty will be re­ward­ed. Stud­ies sug­gest that con­sumers are more will­ing to share da­ta when they un­der­stand how it will be used and when they feel they are get­ting val­ue in re­turn. This could mean per­son­alised of­fers, faster cus­tomer ser­vice, or en­hanced on­line ex­pe­ri­ences.

For T&T busi­ness­es, this means mov­ing away from the “spray and pray” mod­el of mass ad­ver­tis­ing and to­wards a val­ue-ex­change mod­el. For in­stance, a lo­cal re­tail­er could en­cour­age cus­tomers to join a loy­al­ty pro­gramme by clear­ly ex­plain­ing how their da­ta will be used and of­fer­ing tan­gi­ble ben­e­fits such as dis­counts or ear­ly ac­cess to pro­mo­tions.

Fig­ure 1: Re­spon­si­ble Com­pa­nies Build and Re­tain Trust Through Trans­paren­cy and Da­ta Stew­ard­ship (Source: BCG Analy­sis)

Lo­cal mar­ket im­pli­ca­tions

The push for greater da­ta pri­va­cy has sev­er­al im­pli­ca­tions for T&T:

1. Dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion of SMEs: Many lo­cal SMEs re­ly on so­cial me­dia ad­ver­tis­ing, which has tra­di­tion­al­ly been pow­ered by third-par­ty cook­ies. The de­cline of this mod­el will force them to adopt new tools, in­vest in CRM sys­tems and gath­er first-par­ty da­ta.

2. Fi­nan­cial ser­vices sec­tor: Banks and cred­it unions must strike a bal­ance be­tween dig­i­tal con­ve­nience and cus­tomer trust. Trans­par­ent com­mu­ni­ca­tion about how per­son­al and fi­nan­cial da­ta is pro­tect­ed will be­come a com­pet­i­tive dif­fer­en­tia­tor.

3. E-com­merce and re­tail: As more Trinida­di­ans shop on­line, trust in da­ta pri­va­cy will de­ter­mine which plat­forms thrive. E-com­merce busi­ness­es that adopt clear pri­va­cy poli­cies and eth­i­cal da­ta prac­tices will gain mar­ket share.

4. Tourism and hos­pi­tal­i­ty: Ho­tels and air­lines in­creas­ing­ly re­ly on per­son­al­i­sa­tion to at­tract trav­ellers. How­ev­er, to ap­peal to in­ter­na­tion­al vis­i­tors, lo­cal providers must com­ply with glob­al pri­va­cy stan­dards or risk be­ing side­lined by larg­er glob­al com­peti­tors.

5. Pub­lic sec­tor: With the gov­ern­ment push­ing for more e-ser­vices, the need for a ful­ly en­forced Da­ta Pro­tec­tion Act be­comes ur­gent. Cit­i­zens are un­like­ly to em­brace dig­i­tal gov­ern­ment if they feel their da­ta is vul­ner­a­ble.

Chart­ing the path for­ward

The glob­al move to­ward pri­va­cy-first mar­ket­ing is not a pass­ing trend; it is a struc­tur­al shift. For Trinidad and To­ba­go, the key lies in turn­ing this chal­lenge in­to an op­por­tu­ni­ty. Com­pa­nies that in­vest in first-par­ty da­ta strate­gies, build trans­par­ent re­la­tion­ships with cus­tomers and ad­vo­cate for stronger da­ta pro­tec­tion laws will be bet­ter po­si­tioned for sus­tain­able growth.

In prac­tice, this re­quires in­vest­ment in tech­nol­o­gy such as cus­tomer re­la­tion­ship man­age­ment sys­tems, em­ploy­ee train­ing on da­ta ethics and the re­design of mar­ket­ing strate­gies to fo­cus on qual­i­ty over quan­ti­ty. It al­so re­quires cross-sec­tor col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween busi­ness­es, reg­u­la­tors and con­sumer groups to cre­ate a cul­ture of trust.

Da­ta has long been de­scribed as the new oil. Yet, with­out con­sumer trust, it risks be­com­ing a tox­ic as­set rather than a dri­ver of growth. T&T stands at a cross­roads. By tak­ing proac­tive steps to strength­en da­ta pri­va­cy pro­tec­tions and em­brace first-par­ty strate­gies, lo­cal busi­ness­es can not on­ly adapt to glob­al trends but al­so build a stronger foun­da­tion for dig­i­tal growth.

The fu­ture of mar­ket­ing will be­long to those who re­spect pri­va­cy, pro­tect trust and put the con­sumer at the cen­tre of their strate­gies.

Kirk Ram­per­sad is an ac­com­plished ex­ec­u­tive busi­ness and mar­ket­ing pro­fes­sion­al with over 25 years of ex­pe­ri­ence dri­ving strate­gic trans­for­ma­tion and rev­enue growth.

📧 Email: kirkram@hot­mail.com

🔗 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kirkrampe