Actuaries are some of the most successful analytics practitioners when it comes to predicting future events in very specific or individual ways, so this article describing the difficulties many actuaries are having given demographic shifts and the mercurial economic climate reminds me that my own analytics ideas, whether “standard” for all projects or custom tailored to a specific model, should be reviewed and where necessary revised.
Many models I have built have excluded age as a discreet or continuous independent over concerns regarding sensitivity to outliers (sometimes it is however include with grad decade as a proxy). This article presents some interesting information that while I already knew, had never considered in respect to my work: U.S. population is working longer, pushing retirement age higher and higher.
The implications I believe are both explicit and implicit. Directly, the trend towards working longer may necessitate a change in traditional assumptions of major gift work. Often there are general demographic “sweet spots” in age, relatively consistent from institution to institution. Certainly donors in their 70’s and 80’s have different giving behavior than those in their 30’s and 40’s. You may consider these “stages” in a donor’s life where they may have different attitudes towards making a major gift, or a planned gift, etc.
I have not observed a “rule of thumb” regarding major gifts and retirement age. Some individuals like to give while still working full time, others wait until retirement “settles in”, and some even use a major gift as a “kick off” to their transition from employment to retirement. American’s working longer on average impacts all three phenomenons.
Less directly, it may be important to consider the effect of older Americans working longer on younger generations of the American work force. Certainly with a glut of highly experienced employees choosing to remain past the average age for retirement, it may be suppressing the career growth opportunities of younger generations. The boomers will retire however, and this may also produce a vacuum effect of leadership and experience. Younger generations, who may have felt stalled by the logjam “at the top” may suddenly find themselves advancing at a rate greater than predecessors.
Maybe its time I reconsider how to use this most consistent and measureable longitudinal variables in my work.
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Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Dairy Queen applies analytics for its mobile rewards program
Consumers walking into the Dairy Queen in Rochester, Indiana, have been offered something beyond ice creams and hamburgers: A pile of RFID tags that can be activated and affixed to their wallet, watchband or mobile device. The technology can track customers’ purchases and make customized coupon recommendations when they enter the store.
“Our goal is to get a better understanding of customer behavior, and build customer loyalty based on that information” said Jamie Guse, International Dairy Queen Manager. This identification system will provide the retailer with detailed visibility into a customer’s purchase history and coupon redemption rates. Dairy Queen will analyze this information to send targeted marketing and promotional offers via mobile coupons redeemable in-store. The ice-cream merchant will measure the performance of their campaigns via real-time validation and reporting.
Other retailers that are also leveraging analytics to dial into the mobile coupon space include Burger King, Victoria’s Secret and Unilever (through ShopRite). The program is intended to deliver the benefit of a mobile system without the hardware and software integration challenges of having to deal with multiple phone manufacturers and competing carriers.
A total of 900 people have joined the loyalty program since its inception 20 months ago. The RFID tag test, expected to run through the end of the year, is already making a measurable impact to year-over-year traffic and revenue. Eventually, Dairy Queen intends to expand the test and later take the program national.
International Dairy Queen (IDQ), headquartered in Minneapolis, MN, develops licenses and services a system of over 5,600 stores in the United States, Canada and foreign countries. The quick service restaurant offers dairy desserts, hamburgers, hot dogs and beverages. The 69-year-old $2.6B dessert merchant is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Berkshire-Hathaway, Inc.
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