There’s first-party data, second-party data, and, of course, the hot-dog meat of data, third-party data. Apparently, a fourth type of data just dropped .

Called zero-party data, its existence was recently debated on Twitter—is it real? Is it a marketing buzzword? How the heck is it any different than first-party data? Is it…loyalty data? Answers ranged from “It’s not a real thing and I will die on this hill,” to “Yes, it’s a ‘thing.’”

So, what the heck is it? Those who think it’s real say zero-party data is information a person volunteers to a brand in exchange for something that might improve their experience or interactions with a company. Forrester invented the term in 2018, but it’s entered the digital zeitgeist as conversations about data privacy heat up.

Some examples:

• You give Netflix your email address when you create an account (first-party data), but you can also tell it what shows you like and dislike (zero-party data).
• You share your zip code with Yelp when creating an account (first-party data), but you also tell it you prefer vegan food (zero-party data). In turn, Yelp recommends the best tofu stir-fry in your neighborhood.

Some marketers call it zero-party data, while others call it customer-first data. Tomato, tomato.

Of course, this sounds a lot like first-party data, which is a brand’s own data and insights from its customers. This can include things like preferences, which seems to be the industry’s rub with the definition of zero-party data. It’s tricky.

• If Spotify sees that a user is listening to funk and then recommends Parliament-Funkadelic, that’s an assumption.
• On the other hand, zero-party data has “explicit meaning and requires no inferences,” argues Wendell Lansford, a cofounder of Wyng, a company that helps brands collect zero-party data.

“[With first-party data] you don’t know all the data that’s being collected about you…because it’s happening behind the scenes,” he said. That “behind the scenes” data is often things like items added to or removed from a shopping cart, the amount of time users spend on a site, and what users search for on that site.

“Just because you took an action…doesn’t mean you want a brand to have that information and use it to make recommendations,” Lansford explained. “Just because you listened to a song doesn’t necessarily mean you liked it.”

Character zero

Like so much in the advertising industry, the rise of ZPD comes back to the death of third-party cookies. Without them, it will become more difficult for advertisers to track people across multiple websites and target them based on (sometimes inaccurate) information.

It’s even more relevant for brands without much of a digital presence, explained Stephanie Liu, an analyst at Forrester, calling ZPD a “marketing construct.”

“There’s a huge interest in this from the CPG world…manufacturers who have traditionally been disintermediated are trying to understand their customers directly,” she said. “You need to make the value exchange really clear to motivate customers to share their data.”

Zero-party data is often gathered via product-finder quizzes and similar widgets on e-commerce websites, which you can read more about here.—RB

Last year, Sephora debuted an ad highlighting Black culture’s role in beauty trends and products. It came roughly a year after it was the first major retailer to join a pledge to allocate 15% of shelf space to Black-owned brands.

Shannon Washington, SVP and executive creative director at R/GA, the agency behind the ad, told Marketing Brew that Sephora didn’t want its commitment to be perceived as self-congratulatory. According to Washington, Sephora recognized that the 15% pledge “was something that they should be doing,” so it “sparked the conversation away from making an ad about a CSR opportunity.”

What they came up with instead was more of a thesis, she said, disguised as a short film. Directed by Academy Award nominee Garrett Bradley, “Black Beauty Is Beauty” is just one minute long, but packed with historical references to the Black community’s influence in the beauty industry. We chatted with Washington to discuss the creative vision behind the film. Read the full story here, or see some of what she had to say below.

Bridging the gap: “The biggest misconception when it comes to Black-owned brands, women-owned brands, Asian-owned brands, etc. is that when you put that signifier in front of something, generally, the public thinks that product is for that signifier only,” Washington told us. That’s why, she said, it was important for the ad to highlight beauty items and techniques that people of all races use, thanks to the work of Black inventors. One example featured in the film is the synthetic-bristle hairbrush, patented by Lyda D. Newman, a Black inventor, in 1898.

Inclusivity: “[Black beauty culture] has always, typically, been a very safe space for trans people, for LGBTQI+ people as a whole. And so we wanted to honor that,” Washington said. The ad celebrates ball culture and its makeup innovations, like “baking.”—KH

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At Paramount+, every original series has a chance to be a star. That’s at least what the streamer hopes for.

To gain subscribers and attract advertisers, the less-than-a-year-old streaming service wants every new show to be a breakout hit as it leans further into originals.

• “We’re looking for every show to be a tentpole show at this point in time while we’re building out the service,” Nicole Clemens, the president of original scripted series at Paramount+, said Tuesday at the Television Critics Association’s annual winter press tour. “We’re taking big swings to cut through.”
• Some of those big swings include two series from Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan: The Yellowstone prequel series 1883 and Mayor of Kingstown, which were the first and second most-watched originals on the service this fall, respectively. Overall, ViacomCBS said in November that its streaming services, including Paramount+ and Showtime OTT, had nearly 47 million subscribers.
• This spring, the company is banking on forthcoming shows like Halo, a TV adaptation of the video game franchise, and The Offer, a limited series about the making of the groundbreaking 1972 film The Godfather, to keep drawing viewers in.

Check the math. More than one in three new subscribers join Paramount+ specifically to watch originals and other exclusive programming, chief programming officer Tanya Giles told reporters. (Another big driver is live sports—the streamer just reported its most-streamed NFL season ever.) Meanwhile, nearly 80% of subscribers have watched at least one of the service’s new originals since the service debuted in March 2021, Giles said.

Zoom out: Paramount+ is playing catch-up with streaming giants like Netflix and Disney+, which have also found that original programming is key to attracting subscribers. Following that is another daunting challenge: How to keep audiences around.—KS

There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren’t those.

Group gang: If three is a crowd and four’s a party, then what’s a group? A giant asset for your social strategy. Here’s everything you need to know about Facebook Groups in 2022.

Frasier it: Don’t let psychologists have all the fun! Here are four psychological “triggers” marketers can use.

Small biz: How 10 small businesses are marketing differently this year.

Check it out: Want to level up your daily life? Check out Sidekick, the twice-weekly newsletter that curates recipes, productivity hacks, and content recs to help you live smarter.

Stat: $61.2 billion. That’s how much money Google made in advertising revenue last quarter, a 33% jump year over year.

Read: Martin Sorrell’s comeback plan, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Quote: “The owners watch the games from atop NFL stadiums in their luxury boxes, while their majority-Black workforce put their bodies on the line every Sunday, taking vicious hits and suffering debilitating injuries to their bodies and their brains while the NFL and its owners reap billions of dollars.”—former Miami Dolphin’s head coach Brian Flores in a class-action lawsuit filed yesterday against the league that alleges racial discrimination in NFL coach-hiring practices

Catch up on a few Marketing Brew stories you might have missed.

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• Streaming TV’s Great Resignation pressures