Cambridge Analytica’s secret psychographic tool is a ghost from the past

The novel ways in which marketers and also political institutions can now harvest our social-media data and divide us into homogenous groups suited for mass-customised and targeted messages has been one of the hot issues unfolding from the aftermath of recent Facebook and Cambridge Analytica big-data scandal. Many articles have already sought to summarise the events, actions, participants, and the points of view – not least the unethical ones. However, our attention was drawn to the fact that there is currently little empirical evidence of the actual effectiveness or impact of the psychographic analytical tools used by Cambridge Analytica (CA). This is surprising, considering that the method has so far been featured as something that could be termed “the ultimate marketing weapon”.