Like the Royal Wedding, and with almost as much fanfare, GDPR will finally be upon us this May.

Unlike the Royal Wedding, you’re invited whether you want to be or not. At least, if you run a UK-based business, you are. GDPR affects every UK business, and it’s critical you know what it’s about.

There are plenty of privacy party planners, newly appointed experts who will gladly part you from your hard-earned money to help you with every detail, so I’m not setting out here to catch their bouquet.

What’s been playing on my mind, is to what extent and how Green Tomato Cars should communicate and position itself with regard to the happy couple: legitimate interest, and explicit consent.

What is our GDPR Compliance Action Plan?

Like HRH Prince Henry of Wales and Ms Markle, we’ve been in planning mode since summer 2017.

We’ve got two best men, to coordinate the ushering duties that are Human Resources and IT; one match-maker-in-chief, looking at our customer relationships; and of course, our wonderful maid of honour taking care of the most sensitive details. Then there’s the event planning, including technology development for those who will and won’t be joining the party; and the various edicts summarising security and operating details.

And then, on top of all that carefully crafted cake, we’ve been thinking about marketing. Should we create a branded video explaining GDPR? Or send out an animation that could go … VIRAL?

As with the recent EasyJet video which brilliantly adapts an on-board safety demonstration to explain the nuances of data storage and marketing opt-ins, we could use the metaphor of a customer booking a car and taking a journey with us to demonstrate which information we have to collect and store to provide the core service, while underlining how much useful information we would also like to share about our service and initiatives, but only if the customer expressly agrees. Or we could send out a slick Manchester United-esque cartoon, replacing the famous, overpaid red-shirted-ones with our dedicated, collar-and-tie drivers.

It would be a fun project. It would take significant time and resource to plan and produce. It would cost a fair bit of money to do it well. It would be a really nice piece of ’social’.

And then we took a breath, a step back, asked ourselves: “Is this really the one for us?”

We realised that so many businesses, especially those with massive marketing budgets, will be jumping on the bandwagon in the run up to the Big Day. Like Christmas TV ads, most will go entirely un-noticed other than by the marketeers who devised them; even if we were to reach the altar of going viral…oh ok, forget it, this is Data Protection we’re talking about! While it’s important to us as a business, it’s certainly not our – or 99.9% of businesses’ – core commercial model.

Frankly, we’ve got much more pressing priorities than marketing our marketing guidelines.

To start with, there’s the preparation that goes into fulfilling hundreds of bookings for media teams, event suppliers and even some very special guests, to and from a certain special occasion in Windsor.

Do I think that’s a bigger priority and a better use of our resources than creating a one-night stand piece of social media?

I do.