Cambridge Analytica Scandal: Marketing and Data Analysis Report

This report delves into the Cambridge Analytica scandal, examining its operations within the digital marketing landscape and its implications for corporate social responsibility. It explores the opportunities Cambridge Analytica leveraged, including geographical expansion, cost-effectiveness, measurable analytics, and targeted audience reach. The report analyzes actions the company could have taken before and after the scandal, emphasizing the value of data in influencing business and political decisions. It assesses the effectiveness of Cambridge Analytica's promotion campaign, its relationship with public goodwill, and the challenges Facebook faced. The analysis includes discussions on data-driven decision-making, ethical considerations, and the impact of data breaches, providing insights into the company's strategies and their consequences. The report also addresses the actions that Cambridge Analytica should have undertaken before and after the scandal to maintain its brand value and mitigate damage, including public apologies, internal inquiries, and compensation for affected individuals. It highlights the role of data in influencing decision-making in business and politics, using Cambridge Analytica's election campaign as an example. The report also discusses the effectiveness of the promotion campaign designed by Cambridge Analytica and interrelates public goodwill/license to operate and data-driven technology companies and challenges faced by Facebook in recent time and its implication by Cambridge Analytica.

Marketing in a Digital Age and
Corporate Social Responsibility

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
Opportunities for Cambridge Analytica......................................................................................3
Actions Can be Used by Company Before and After the Scandal..............................................5
Value of Data for Influencing Decision Making in Business and Politics..................................6
Effectiveness of Promotion Campaign that is Designed by Cambridge......................................7
How do public goodwill/license to operate and data-driven technology companies interrelate?7
Challenges faced by Facebook in recent time and its implication by Cambridge Analytica......8
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCE................................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Digital technology used in the business organization to create new values for the business
operation in the market place. by using digital technology organization can provide better
products and services to the customer as per their needs.by using digital technology organization
will be able to provide better value to the customers, its internal operations and knowledge gain
form this system will help the organization to grow in the international market (Shahiduzzaman
and Marek, 2018). This report is about Cambridge Analytica which is a global Information and
Communication Technology which was established in year 2013 by Alastir MacWillson. The
headquarter of the company is in London, United Kingdom. This report is providing brief of
scandal that was occur in year 2017 between Cambridge Analytica and Facebook. The business
opportunities of Cambridge Analytica in the international market. The actions that can be taken
before and after scandal also will be analysed in the report. The value of information and data in
influencing decision of organization also will be studied in the report. The work performed by
Cambridge Analytica also will be studied to evaluate the effectiveness for the election campaign
of Donald Trump. Goodwill and Licence to operate and data Driven technology also will be
interrelated in the report. The major legal and ethical issues that are faced by Facebook in current
time also will be analysed in the report.
MAIN BODY
Opportunities for Cambridge Analytica
In the current time there are a lot opportunities are available in the target market. With
the digital technology this opportunities are even better. These opportunities can help the
organization to effectively perform their business with high profit in target market. Some of the
main opportunities that are associated with digital technology for company are- Geographical
expansion, cost effectiveness, measurable analytics, high revenue and super targeted audience.
These are some main opportunities of digital technology for business organization.
Geographical Expansion-
There are huge opportunities are associated with digital technology for business
organization. Digital technology is capable of providing large platform to the organization in the
international market for promoting their products and services and perform various business

operations. with the traditional approach the area that can be covered or targeted by an
organization is limited (Pagani and Pardo, 2017). This is not possible for organization to improve
their customer base and target by using traditional approach. By using digital technology leader
of the organization can effectively target for much larger market to perform business. Reach of
digital technology is too high and this high capability to reach to people allows this technology to
improve the customer base of the company.
Cost Effectiveness
In the traditional approach of conducting business operation cost is much higher than the
cost of implementing digital technology in organization. It can be considered as one time
investment. By using digital technology in business process Cambridge Analytica can perform
their actions with much effective speed with low cost investment. There are no other resources
are required to conduct business with digital technology so additional cost to the company is
negligible as compared to traditional way of conducting business operation (Korpela, Hallikas
and Dahlberg, 2017). From the comparison of the digital technology with traditional approach of
conducting business is much easier and cost effective to performing business activities in
targeted area. The cost for per activity is lower in the digital technology. So, it can be said that by
using digital technology organization can reduce its operational cost in global market.
Measurable Analytics
In the traditional way of business the actions of the customer are not possible to track to
some extent but through the digital technology organization can track the activities of the
customer. This is very important for the business organization to track the customer activity to
provide them with better services as per their requirement. In traditional business approach some
of measures are not measurable which are important for the company. Through digital
technology many important aspects related to the business can be measured effectively to
improve the knowledge and data base of the company. This is how organization will be able to
conduct business process with high effectiveness.
High Revenue
There are some other opportunities for organization related to digital technology. it is best
process to improve the revenue of the organization. Using digital technology company can target
for much larger market this can allow the company to earn more profit from the market place.
Cost effectiveness of digital technology also will help the organization to earn high marginal

profit in the target market (Aleksandrova, Vasiliev and Letuchev, 2018). This is how by using
digital technology in business process Cambridge Analytica can address much larger audience
and earn high revenue in business operations.
Super Targeted Audience.
In the traditional business approach this is really difficult for the organization to collect
information and data about the target audience. This is also difficult for the organization to know
the needs and requirements of the customer. This is completely different in digital technology.
Digital technology allows the organization to track the activities of the customers to get better
knowledge about them. Though this process organization will be able to focus of the people who
could be targeted as the customer of the organization. This is how digital can help the
organization to target their customer and marketplace to conduct successful business operation.
Actions Can be Used by Company Before and After the Scandal
There are different actions can be performed by the company before and after the
scandal to maintain their brand value in the market place and prevent high level failure of the
company in the target market. The main target of the Cambridge Analytica to conduct election
promotion for the presidential candidate of United State of America. To maintain the campaign
with high effective operations organization needs specific information and data base regarding
the target audience that can be used by the company to make effective promotional plan. In the
scandal Cambridge Analytica has used the hack the information and data from the social media
company Facebook (Limani, Stapleton and Groumpos, 2018). Organization has steal data of
Facebook users to plan the election promotion campaign in effective way. There are some other
actions could be used by the company to make their operation legal and good for their image in
the market place. By performing false activity organization can face major defeat in the market
place and loose its impact for the customers. Over all acts like can affect the reputation of the
company in the market place. Before scandal organization should have used specific process to
get information of the social media users of any social media site. This is much better way to
conduct business instead of using wrong and illegal ways to perform business activity. This
could have cause some cost to the company but t is much lesser then the fall of organization in
the market place due to the false activities of the organization. This is how company could have
used a business contract with the organizations like Facebook and other social media site to fine
related data about the customers. There are some other process also could be used by the

company to collect information about the target audience. These processes are conducting
market survey, use research process to track the behaviour of organization. Through this process
organization can collect effective data about the customer base to improve the effectiveness of
promotion campaign that they were running for Donald Trump. These are some actions that were
possible for company before misusing the data of Facebook users and decrease their image in the
target market.
Apart from the actions that would have use by the company before the scandal. There are
some actions are also required in order to recover the damage occurred through their action of
misusing data of Facebook for the promotion campaign of Presidential candidate Donald Trump.
The first thing organization should have done is to make public apology to regret the actions of
the company to improve the value of company in target market customer. Company should have
implement an enquiry on the complete process that was followed in the promotion campaign for
the election of United States of America. They also have to pay to the people who might got
affected with the process of data breach due to the action of the company in the target market.
Compensation must be provided to the people who are mainly targeted by the organization in the
data misuse act (Zarubin and Deev, 2017). This is how organization can recover the damage that
is result of misuse of data that is performed by the Cambridge Analytica. This is how the actions
of the company should be effective for the company before and after the scandal was done.
Value of Data for Influencing Decision Making in Business and Politics
Decision making process that is used by the business organization is crucial for the
organization in order to run their business successfully in the target market. There are various
factors are present which are need to be considered in the decision making process to avoid
failure and poor performance of company in target market. TO keep the actions of organization
effective in market place this is important to the company to use data driven decision making.
This is same for the organization and political scenario. Data and facts available to the
organization can be used by them to make effective decisions for the business organization.
These facts, data and information can affect the decision making process of company and
government. Most of the decisions of the organization and government are based on the patterns
and relationship of data and information with company operation. For example the process that is
used by the Cambridge Analytica for election promotion process (Li and Found, 2017). The data
that has been collected from the data base of Facebook is used by the company to drive effective

election promotion campaign. There are different ways data driven decision making can affect
the decision making process that is used by the business organization and government. These
processes is used by the organization to make effective decision for the business process. Data
and information can influence the company most because this process id effective for the
company to reduce the biasness of decisions of the organization. Data collected by the
organization provides them facts about the factors for which they are going to make decision this
is how the information and data that is possessed by the company can affect the decision making
process of company. For example the data collected by the Cambridge Analytica was highly
influencing for the election campaign that is designed by them in election campaign for Donald
Trump.
Effectiveness of Promotion Campaign that is Designed by Cambridge
The Election campaign that is designed by the Cambridge Analytica was too effective
and focused for the promotion of Presidential candidate Donald Trump. The campaign that is
designed by the organization was focused on the target people of United States of America.
There are different actions has been performed by the Cambridge Analytica to improve the
operations with in the promotion process. There is a specific process and blueprint has developed
by the company to promote Donald Trump for election in United State (Schallmo, D.R. and
Williams, C.A., 2018). The campaign was focused with the intense information that is collected
form the data base of the Facebook. The people that are targeted in the campaign process are
tracked by the information that is collected by the organization. Because of effective tracking
actions of the organization are highly effective for achieving better result.
How do public goodwill/license to operate and data-driven technology companies interrelate?
Emerging new technologies are changing the way consumers interact with brands which in turn
provide avenues for marketers to reach their target consumer across a myriad of digital channels
Public relations are the communication of the different activities which is being deigned to have
the proper in manner to be considered in prestigious the clear inclusion of the publicity along
with information regarding the companies. Facebook is facing major issues regarding the
licensing in more manner to have the respective identification of the approval of differenced
hashtags holographic sticklers. Facebook have the clear attachment of their respective hand tags
along with officials labelling which will be the ensuring the customer regards after having the

effective enjoying of services (Chaudhuri and Basu, 2018). On the other hand, the companies
have increased the level of security along with interest in application of data driven technologies.
There is need for the company such as Facebook to have the application of the right tool along
with correct technologies in order to gains more level of competitive advantages and application
of business strategy. There is need for the implication of the proper level of licencing as the
process has the clear inclusion of the of system, process and implication of culture. as the
creating of good will and effective public relation, it important to create mindset in which the
analytics has been formed of all the fact-based decision making which is being embraced by all
level of organization.
On the other hand, the companies like Facebooks which are data driven have the riper level of
commitments in driving the appropriate gathering regarding transparency and creating of more
public trust (Alatalo and et.al., 2018). There is more right data is need to be used which acne
help the Facebook in more foster conclusive decision-making and becomes part of the
companies’ competitive advantage. So, Cambridge Analytica needs to make use of other source
from which information which is legal and trusted can collect. This will assist them in following
the ethical code of conduct. This will be helpful in gaining there more level of trust of consumers
(Wilson, 2019).
Hence, the public relation or the good will company such as Facebook can be more level to be
solved with the positive level of integrations to create mindset in which the analytics has been
formed of all the fact-based decision making
Challenges faced by Facebook in recent time and its implication by Cambridge Analytica
Facebook is to be considered as the biggest level of social media platform which is been used by
the million of the users all around works. This have the clear level of supporting in terms of
different individuals, communities and the group which used as to have the differentiate sharing
of information’s to one and other. The more level of social media helps to have proper
development of business along with effective communications which is considered to be very
important for growth. This helps in providing proper level of assistance in way of doing the
market research along with analysing appropriate marketing trends which have supported the
business to gains more level of competitive advantage among the competitors in business
environment.

Facebook has the supporting of various business analysing the various legal and ethical
challenges which is being faced by the Facebook in more recent times. This is the aspect which
have laid the information which has been shared by Cambridge Analytica during the time of
Brexit. The information given by them has also been considered as unethical and illegal?
On the other hand, it has bene analysed that’s one he more legal challenges which is regarding
the protection of data which is been raised as issues due to lack of data integrity. The company
have alone a huge amount of privacy data which have the clear engagements of there data
protection acts with the risk that’s these data is been leaked by the individual’s companies for the
Facebook data protection. The company consciously fails to make the effective strategies so that
more of personal data can be protected as this have laid the negative impact on the profitability
and growth of Facebook (Pflaum. and Gölzer, 2018). This tuned out to be the major reason why
the people have been stopped using the Facebook as comparative to the other technologies and
apps. On the other hand , regulator have claimed that’s Facebook provided that third party to
access the personal information of proper as in facts the app could access nearly all of a user’s
personal data. This has laid negative impact in the mind of users. In addition, that Cambridge
Analytica was also been violated as they have grabbed all the information related to the event
from Facebook. There is more level of legal and ethical issues which is being faced by more way
having the losing the level of users which have impacted in reduction in revenue generation
along with profitability. The users have faced the difficulty to have the proper level of
communications as Facebook may not have the trust on the Cambridge to face more level of ill
effects. The customer are no able to trust the data which is been uncollected by the Facebooks
which is major concerns over as the ethical issues. So, Cambridge Analytica needs to make use
of other source from which information which is legal and trusted can collect (Zhou, Fu and
Yang, 2016). This will assist them in following the ethical code of conduct. This will be helpful
in gaining there more level of trust of consumers. On the other hand, it has been analysed that’s
the information which has been collected from the Facebook is not considered as more tested and
ethical in manner. The social media of platform which have leasing he users of information as
the data are keep more confidential.

CONCLUSION
This report is concluding discussing on scandal that is act by Cambridge Analytica with
Facebook data misuse. The opportunities for the Cambridge Analytica has been discussed in the
report to understand the importance of the digital technology for business organization.
Recommendations has been provided in the study that could be used by the organization before
and after the scandal that is done by Cambridge Analytica with Facebook. Value of information
and data has been conclude in the report. The effectiveness of promotion campaign has been
analysed in the study. The interrelation between the license to operate and data driven
technology has been evaluated in the report. Current challenges that are related to ethical and
legal consideration has been discussed and analysed in the study.

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