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Author: Marketing

GDPR: 5 years of Compliance and Impact

By Marko Batarilo, Senior Development Lead

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has had a significant impact on data protection regulations globally since its introduction in the EU five years ago. This subject continues to keep us on our toes and in this blog, I explore its effects and discuss the updates we have been navigating on behalf of our clients.

The right to be forgotten

One of the key objectives of GDPR is to give individuals more control over their personal data, including the right to be forgotten. This means that businesses must be able to demonstrate that they have a legitimate interest in processing personal data. As data privacy regulations continue to evolve, businesses must keep up with changes to ensure they comply with the latest rules to avoid fines, loss of customers, and reputational damage.

Falling foul of the regulations

Many countries around the world have used GDPR as a model to develop their own rules around personal data protection. Companies have had to review their business processes to ensure compliance with GDPR, including double opt-in rules and email marketing best practises. GDPR enforcement has been minimal to date, but the likes of Amazon, Meta, British Airways and Google have had significant fines and more widely, it’s expected that fines will reach record levels this year.

To date, we’ve mainly seen large corporates receiving fines, but there is a trend emerging where many smaller companies are unaware their websites are not GDPR compliant. Since the implementation of GDPR, website owners require explicit consent from users before recording their personal data.

Many websites are collecting user information through cookies before obtaining explicit consent. This typically happens when websites employ cookies to gather data as soon as a user lands on the site, rather than first presenting a clear, affirmative option for the user to grant permission for data collection. This is a critical oversight as it operates under the assumption that continued use of the website signifies consent, a notion that is no longer acceptable under GDPR. As such, this practice puts these businesses at risk of non-compliance and the associated penalties.

This regulatory landscape is here to stay

Privacy-driven spending on compliance with privacy laws has increased dramatically since the introduction of GDPR in May 2018. Companies have had to invest more in privacy technologies to gain the trust of their users and avoid fines. The use of business models that rely on sharing personal information is changing rapidly.

GDPR has therefore had a profound impact on the way companies operate, from how they collect and use personal data to the way they market their products and services. As privacy regulations continue to evolve globally, businesses must be able to adapt and demonstrate their compliance with the latest rules.

What’s been the impact on digital traffic?

Studies show that the introduction of GDPR has led to a 15% overall reduction in website visits for businesses across Europe and the United States, with direct website traffic and email marketing message visits decreasing by 4.5% and 7%, respectively. Email and display advertising traffic was also shown to have reduced by 35% and 29%, respectively.

These are significant figures and therefore a key challenge is to comply while minimising the impact on digital marketing results.

Staying on track

Cookie management tools and privacy-enhancing technologies will continue to play an important role in ensuring compliance with data protection regulations and building trust with users in the years to come. We offer expert assistance in implementing cookie management tools and optimising website traffic while minimising the negative impact on direct website traffic and email marketing.

If you would like to know more about GDPR and its impact on your website or digital marketing efforts, then get in touch here.

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The Pursuit of Excellence

By Katy Galasinski, Chief Growth Officer


As our CEO, Alastair, said, at Aspectus, branding, marketing and communications is all about creating client success. And when we recently launched our new brand, we shared our formula for success, our X factor, our special sauce.


A key part of this is Excellent Execution. I want to let you all in on what that looks like at Aspectus. And what better way to do so than crowdsourcing intel from my talented Aspectus colleagues, whose endless energy, talent, and precision deliver success after success for the businesses and brands we call our clients.


“Clients don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.” – Charlie Bonner-Davies, Junior Designer


Excellent execution for clients begins with striving to be an extension of their team. We count financial services, tech, energy, industrials, and capital market companies as clients. But in practice, our clients are not companies at all. They are people: the one, two, or three executives, heads of communications or marketing, or CEOs that trust us with protecting their businesses’ reputations and brands. This trust is something every team member at every level works hard to create.


“Excellence for me means showing up every day as a safe pair of hands for my clients – making sure they trust us to get things done when we say we will, to a high standard.” – Nuala O’Sullivan, Account Executive, Energy


“In my eyes, excellence consists of many moving parts – stellar communication, insightful recommendations, valuable results and always putting your best foot forward, so we can build a strong and trusting relationship with clients.” – Ivy Gitarts, Senior Account Manager


It also means knowing what clients need before they know they need it. To do that we have to put ourselves in their position and adopt their POV. It takes time to develop this informed intuition with a client. We must immerse ourselves in the company’s marketing, sales, and business objectives. We have to fully comprehend the nature of their business, the marketplace in which they compete, and their offerings. And we must truly understand them, what their ambitions are, what keeps them up at night and how they like to work.


“Get a solid handle on your client’s objectives and your client’s boss’ objectives right from kickoff. Understand their obstacles and challenges and identify the gaps that you and your account team can fill.” – Christina Hong, Account Director


Once a client is confident that we have their backs, are in their corner, and consistently watch out for their best interests, they really do think of us as indispensable extensions of their team – integral partners in their business. Partners that support them from strategy to success in a way that creates meaningful business outcomes.


“No matter how good your strategy, in the end success always hinges on the execution. Ideas have to be distinct, relevant and challenging enough to change people’s hearts, minds and behaviors – or all your great thinking up front will go to waste. The reverse is also true. Execution is only excellent if it serves a brand’s big picture and takes it a step or two further towards success.” – Dan George, Associate Director


Different agencies undoubtedly treat their clients in different ways. For us, the term “client” doesn’t do justice to how we think about those companies who keep our lights on. And since each client point-of-contact has a unique personality and different workflows, and objectives specific to their businesses, we must be agile and adaptable.


“When I worked in-house, the agencies that stood out the most that we worked with were the ones who were able to proactively anticipate our needs, as well as reactively gauge when our needs or usual way of doing things had changed and switched pace accordingly.” – Christina Hong, Account Director


So that’s what Excellent Execution means to us. As you can see there is nothing formulaic about it. It’s an attitude that runs deep here at Aspectus. An attitude that empowers our people to do their very best work for our clients, for Aspectus, and ultimately for themselves.

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Insight unleashed: rediscovering the real magic behind the buzzword and harnessing its value in a data-driven world

By Ellie Jackson, Chief Client Strategy Officer

‘Insights.’ It’s one of those words, isn’t it? You know – the ones that get thrown around rather liberally over a period of time. And then, almost without you noticing it, you realize its true meaning has been diluted. 

For me, a true insight comes at the far end of a spectrum where ‘information’ sits on the left-hand side and ‘intelligence’ in the middle. Information is simply organized data. Intelligence is what the information tells us. Insight is the ‘a-ha’ moment. It’s that intelligence cleverly applied to the wider context of the situation that gives us an edge over everyone else. True insight requires us to understand what others don’t so we can make moves they can’t see. 

An Axe (marketed as ‘Lynx’ in the UK, Ireland, Malta, Australia, New Zealand and China) campaign from a couple of years ago really brings this to life. They worked with Google to investigate young men’s online searches: that data is the information. Searches like, ‘Is it ok for guys to eat tofu?’ and, ‘Is it ok for guys to do their eyebrows?’ formed the basis of the intelligence: there is a high level of insecurity among this group about what masculinity really means. The insight therefore was that what men are searching for is reassurance that it is okay to be themselves. Thus, a campaign was born: ‘find your magic’. 

Here at Aspectus, we talk about ‘intelligent insight’ – that’s core to how we support clients. In many ways, the ability to offer insight is a central reason to hire an agency. It’s something we see as being at the heart of the value we can offer our clients. That’s why our sector specialisms in technology, energy & industrials, financial services and capital markets are so important to us. It’s only because we understand these markets so well, and from every angle, that we can truly understand different stakeholder motivations and concerns. And although every situation is unique, now we’ve grown to around 100 people globally without diluting our sector focus, that wealth of experience is a real goldmine for us – and by extension our clients – to draw on. The ability to see the full picture from the outside is one of major sources of value of hiring an agency, after all. 

Intelligent insights goes deeper at Aspectus, too. We have a specialist Brand, Insights, and Strategy team, which works alongside our sector specialists. We are firm believers in rooting our strategic decisions in evidence, and that’s why we preface all our brand and messaging projects with stakeholder mapping, audience research and a deep-dive into competitor/partner/client positioning. That basis ensures we have the necessary information to generate valuable insights. True creativity cannot exist without that insight to hang off.  Insights are needed to steer that punchy, possibly even provocative, idea that’s really going to deliver success. That kind of creative energy only delivers when it’s grounded in meaningful insights and real-world thinking. 

For clients, this approach might mean identifying trends in their own data that they would not otherwise have been able to pinpoint. Or spotting industry themes that can align with their messaging and resonate with their audience. Or hitting upon the perfect mix of channels to communicate with their stakeholders. It’s that neat idea that is usually so brilliantly simple that once you see it, you can’t imagine how you didn’t think of it sooner. Ultimately it means getting them to their communications and business successes.  

While all this value will remain, we are standing on the brink of a major shake-up of our industry. The increasing use of AI technologies will bring considerable changes – well-documented already by others – not least of which will be to support an insight-led approach. The ability to more quickly and  easily interrogate data will provide strong foundations of information and intelligence for insight-led thinking – the ‘human-in-the-loop’ layer where we add our value. 

Whatever happens, we’ll continue to focus unapologetically on insight-led strategies. And we’ll try to be strict with ourselves about only using the word when we really, really mean it. 

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