“Would you call it fair and reasonable?”: Daniel Eadon on the new rules of responsible marketing

As the industry braces for Privacy Act reform and rapid AI adoption, Daniel Eadon, Associate Director of Marketing Performance at Optus, believes the future of marketing depends on a single principle: trust. Here, he explains how privacy impact assessments, collaboration and common sense will define tomorrow’s best marketers. 

To start, could you share a little about your career to date?

I initially trained as an industrial designer and worked across a range of industries, from designing welding machines to running steel mills to retail display units. Then, as most manufacturing moved out of the UK, I retrained in web development and started building e-zines and educational websites before moving to Cambridge University to run the web development team. 

I moved to Australia in 2007 and shifted from education to telecommunication. Soon after, I became part of the program building the Optus website and back-end capability, eventually running the content and portal development team.  

In 2014, I moved from IT to digital marketing and implemented Optus’ digital personalisation program, which was an Australian first. I now lead marketing performance, which has responsibility for demand forecasting, marketing analytics, market mix modeling, MarTech and ad-tech integrations. My particular focus is on how regulation impacts privacy, data, governance and contracts. 

What have been some of the professional highlights along the journey so far?

I've had the opportunity to work on major programs at Optus, including the rollouts of our online chat agents, rebuilding the Optus website three times and launching a digital personalisation program.  

To enable the digital personalisation framework, we had to undertake a very thorough and extensive privacy impact assessment process. This gave me a really thorough grounding in  how to apply privacy by design within digital marketing. 

The regulatory landscape is rapidly evolving. What do you think are the most significant regulatory changes that are coming, and how do you see them impacting the industry?

For me, it’s the current uncertainty around the details of the Privacy Act reform, particularly for tranche two. 

Changes to ad targeting, direct marketing and the introduction of the ‘fair and reasonable test’, may cause considerable changes to digital marketing practice. There is also increased scrutiny on the usage of AI as demonstrated by the OAIC’s recently published guidance.  

So really, marketers will need to get comfortable completing privacy impact assessments on a regular basis moving forward.  

What do you see as the biggest challenges for marketers navigating today’s regulatory and consumer trust environment?

As mentioned, the Privacy Act Reform may have significant implications for how some businesses are able to run marketing campaigns. With the increased usage of AI, I think marketers will need to ask questions from their vendors about how any automated decisions have been reached and what data was used in the decision-making process before deploying any of those tools into production. 

What is one thing you wish marketers understood better about privacy regulation?

Privacy, fundamentally, is about trust. The more people trust your brand, the more they will want to do business with you. 

That trust is created by having robust policies and systems in place and providing clarity about them to customers. Marketers need to continue to work closely with the privacy and data governance teams to ensure their marketing approach is future-focused, while still enabling innovation. 

What advice would you give to marketers looking to build their understanding in regulatory matters?

While regulation can seem confusing with overlapping rules and there’s a lack of clarity around emerging technology, we should be asking ourselves: “If I was told about this user case by another person, would it seem fair and reasonable?” 

That’s where a privacy impact assessment comes in. This is when you look at the data coming in and the output, and you determine that you have gates and governance in place for each step. 

If you deem your user case fair and reasonable, then proceed with completing a privacy impact assessment and following any resulting recommendations. If you don’t think the user case is fair and reasonable, then most likely it wouldn't pass a privacy impact test and you shouldn't proceed with it. 

What do you think will have the biggest impact on data-driven marketing over the next five years?

It will be a combination of factors. There'll be an increased use of agentic AI in workflows. There will be a shift in buying behaviour as the next generation comes up (the Gen Alphas), and then there will be increased privacy and data regulations. 

Why do you think organisations like ADMA are so crucial for the marketing and advertising industry?

ADMA provides a range of courses and events which are extremely helpful for marketers in keeping across the latest changes affecting the industry. They also publish very handy guides which are excellent at distilling regulatory guidance into digestible bite size information.  

Lastly, what do you enjoy doing outside of work?

I enjoy surfing, camping, bushwalking, bouldering and just generally being outdoors away from any screens or technology. I also love to spend time with my wife and boys.