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Behavioural Ad Targeting Has Customers Subconsciously Redefining Themselves
A lot has been written about the ethics of data collection and advertisement targeting. We’ve seen a lot of interesting things happen in the industry this year. Everything from ad tech companies using consumer data to profile voters to major tech companies partnering up with law enforcement to track domestic terror threats. Most of the news and discussion has been based on overt situations that are happening in plain sight. A recent (back in April) study on advertising has moved past these cases and instead focused directly on the impact behavioral ad targeting is having on our psyches and the power it has to encourage viewers to not only align themselves with brands but also redefine the way they view themselves as people. Behavioral ad retargeting advertisements may be playing a role in influencing the way we think about ourselves and our favorite extracurricular pursuits.
Here’s a couple quotes from The Harvard Business Review, which has written a TL;DR article that explains what the academic research found.
First:
“behaviorally targeted ads have unique psychological consequences that help make them more effective than ads that rely on traditional demographic or psychographic targeting”
and...
“After receiving a behaviorally targeted ad for an environmentally friendly product, undergraduate study participants rated themselves as more “green” and were (at least in the short-term) subsequently more willing to buy the advertised product and to donate to a pro-environmental charity”
and...
”This targeting may change how consumers see themselves and make them feel like they already have traits implied by the ads”
We often get asked how we reconcile being an ad technology company with being anti-ad targeting or how the industry can move beyond its insatiable appetite for private user data. The information in this study tells most of the story for us. There’s so much we don’t know about its impact, and there’s so much potential for abuse that the dangers far outweigh the benefits from our perspective. User data and the private information gleaned from these modern data collection technologies can obviously be used to sell more products (who wouldn’t want that), but the data can also be used to manipulate people or change them in unethical ways. People are starting to wake up to the fact that the technology can rewire our brains on psychological levels, and then subconsciously re-align our interests to match up with the marketing goals of brands using these techniques.
If that’s not creepy on an Orwellian level, I’m not sure what is any more.
Todd Garland, CEO, and Founder at BuySellAds
Targeted Ads Don’t Just Make You More Likely to Buy — They Can Change How You Think About Yourself
On one hand, it could benefit a brand by increasing interest in a greater variety of products that the brand ties to a specific trait. On the other hand, behavioral targeting may benefit one’s competition by strengthening a trait that can be expressed through purchasing from similar brands.
AdTech News And Editorial
The Ad Contrarian: GOOG, FB, P&G Create Coalition To Do Nothing
This hooey reminds me of an initiative announced over five years ago by the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) called "Making Measurement Make Sense" in which they formed a "coalition" to try to make sense of all the bullshit metrics the online industry was peddling. At the time I wrote...
Getting the whole story on ad blocking
Covering the “adblock wars” (as Doc Searls calls the situation) is hard. It’s like going to a peaceful protest where organized looters show up and mix with the protesters.
Y&R CEO David Sable Wants To Rethink Audience Targeting
It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. If all I’m going to do is target the narrowest group, I’ve lost the ability to inspire someone to buy my product.
Welcome To The Server Side
I predict that in the next three years, more than 90% of ad calls will move to the server. I know this is bold, but it seems inevitable.
A Giant That May Eat Us
Facebook would never say it set out to deliberately undermine the media industry. Yet it is, both through increasing domination of internet advertising revenue and control of a significant part of a critical distribution platform. It has created and defined an entirely new industry between media, communications and entertainment that we call “social media”, taking full advantage of the vast opportunity of unregulated business with a global audience.
Criteo versus SteelHouse 'click fraud' lawsuit just got even nastier
Steelhouse now alleges that 3.6% of Criteo's users are generating 25% of its clicks — a level so disproportionate that it is "indicative of adware, bots, click farms" or some other fraud. Criteo, naturally, denies that claim.
Ad Blocking
Ad tech always wins: Ad blocker users are the new hot ad-targeting segment
The idea of pushing ads at people who have made a deliberate choice not to see them might seem bizarre. But as a demo that’s young, male-skewing and tech-focused, they’re an attractive audience for certain advertisers. Ironically, in their extreme measures to reject the interest of advertisers, ad blockers are just making advertisers more interested. Think of it as the negging of The Ad Game.
You Can Still Reach People Using Ad Block Software
That vocal bunch known as ad block users are quickly becoming one of the most sought after audiences on the internet. This untapped audience, if you can reach them without trivializing their concerns, is a massive opportunity for marketers.
Publishing
Daily Dot lays off 30 employees across company
The cuts were across the board, affecting everyone from upper management and the business side to the newsroom and art department. The entire product team was laid off. The budget for freelancers has also been eliminated.
Bay Area unicorn Mode Media shuts down, leaves bloggers unpaid
The company, a publisher of lifestyle sites and operator of an ad network which placed big brands’ campaigns on smaller websites, told investors and employees Thursday that it was closing its doors after failing to find a buyer or line up financing.
CEO Shane Smith Slams Programmatic, As Vice Trumpets GroupM Deal
“We realized we couldn’t be hostage to Facebook and YouTube. We had to go off-platform,” he told WPP head Martin Sorrell at DMEXCO in Cologne, Germany.
Mode Media collapse: The inside story
Hubert Burda Media, the German firm that poured $45 million into Mode as recently as last year, was very influential in convincing the board to shutter the company, according to multiple former Mode executives. In the months leading up to that point, though, questions about seemingly inappropriate spending by Samir Arora, cofounder and longtime CEO, plagued the company, while layoffs and management changes left the organization in disarray.