33 Across is one of the recipients of a Google/WPP ad research reward. As 33Across explains, it “enables brand and performance marketers to unlock the power of the Social Web. Our SocialDNAâ„¢ platform uses previously untapped social data sources, in combination with advanced social network algorithms, to create unique and scalable audience segments.”  In a job posting, they add that it can “enable advertisers to deliver high-performance media programs by activating the social graph around their brands. Our patent-pending SocialDNATM platform creates custom segments of people who are socially connected to a client’s existing customers, and reveals deep insights into the social network characteristics of a marketer’s brand. Our clients include many of the top online advertisers.”
Category: Uncategorized
Microsoft breaks from IAB Lobby and supports a stronger FTC Consumer Protection Role
I asked both Google and Microsoft their position on proposed legislation that would enable the FTC to protect consumers. Microsoft, to their credit, has taken a stand, even if it has a caveat. Here’s what they wrote to me:
“…Microsoft has supported the expansion of FTC authority, including in our longtime support for comprehensive federal privacy legislation and in a recent legislative proposal on protecting consumers related to cloud computing, where we said that the FTC should play a key role. In the current environment, there ought to be better alternatives to guide the marketplace than de facto rulemaking through enforcement activity.
It is our view that there is merit to having FTC rulemaking authority mirror that of other agencies — we favor increased certainty and the ability for comment on proposed rules that will impact our industry. At the same time, the reasons the FTC’s existing mechanisms were put in place (as articulated in the industry letter you cite) should not be ignored. Perhaps there is room for a balanced approach.”
Ad Agencies Expand the role of Neuromarketing: Time for EU and US Regulation
The continued growth of neuromarketing to create advertising messages that are crafted to target a consumer (and citizen) subconscious mind should be a top policymaker concern–and we have raised this with both the FTC and EU. Here’s an excerpt from a recent major marketing company’s plans to expand its neuroscience based efforts:
Millward Brown has tasked its head of innovations Graham Page with setting up a neuroscience division with the goal of supplementing its existing advertising research offer with techniques that aim to uncover the inner workings of the human mind.
Page, who takes the role of executive vice president of consumer neuroscience, said the agency was banking on the division as being one of its big growth areas this year.
Advertisers, he said, were becoming more receptive to approaches like electroencephalography (EEG) brainwave measurement, eye tracking and implicit association tests – all of which will be rolled out across Millward Brown globally in the coming weeks and months.
Page said the company had been experimenting with neuroscience techniques for six years, but the creation of a dedicated division marked “an important milestoneâ€, while the research approaches themselves promised “a different perspective†on how consumers respond to advertising and brand communications… Page said some 60 projects had already been completed across the US, UK and Europe, with clients including Panasonic, Kraft and Royal Mail.Partner companies include EmSense, which supplies Millward Brown with the EEG equipment used to record consumer brain activity.
A Glimpse into Google’s Ad Exchange: Account Execs are to “acquire high revenue strategic leads” while they have “mindshare”
Google is currently looking for an account executive for its Ad Exchange. Here’s an excerpt from the posting:
As an Account Executive, you will be charged with initiating and growing partnerships with buyers for the Ad Exchange. You must be comfortable selling the value of the Ad Exchange over the phone and in person. Acquisitions representatives will acquire high revenue strategic leads, close multiple new accounts weekly, and maximize revenue performance during a partner’s first 90 days while we have the greatest mindshare…
- Optimize new buyer performance to exceed quarterly revenue targets.
- Drive hundreds of thousands of dollars in new 90-day revenue each quarter.
Health Privacy: Should Health Marketers Be Able to Target You without Opt-in Consent?
We think not. Consumers should decide–in advance and fully informed–whether they should be sent ads online for health conditions. Take a look at WedMD’s privacy policy–which like most marketers hides behind claims that the “cookie”–a digital file placed on your browser”–isn’t personally identifiable. Here’s what it says [excerpt]:
“Even if you do not register with WebMD, we collect Non-Personal Information about your use of our Web site, special promotions and newsletters…
We collect Non-Personal Information about your use of our Web site and your use of the Web sites of selected sponsors and advertisers through the use of Cookies. Every computer that accesses a WebMD Web site is assigned a different Cookie by WebMD. The information collected by Cookies (i) helps us dynamically generate advertising and content on Web pages or in newsletters, (ii) allows us to statistically monitor how many people are using our Web site and selected sponsors’ and advertisers’ sites, (iii) how many people open our emails, and (iv) for what purposes these actions are being taken. We may use Cookie information to target certain advertisements to your browser or to determine the popularity of certain content or advertisements…Third parties under contract with WebMD may use Cookies or Web Beacons to collect Non-Personal Information about your usage of WebMD’s sites. These third parties may use this information, on our behalf, to help WebMD target our advertising on their sites within their network, and WebMD may further tailor the advertising on these third party sites based on your geographic location (zip code), gender and/or age range to the extent known by these third parties….
WebMD Health Manager tailors the information you receive on your personal Health Manager home page to reflect your interests, concerns and personal health characteristics. We attach a concept unique identifier (CUI) to every piece of information that you provide us. For example, if you complete the HealthQuotient and indicate that you have diabetes, that single piece of information is tagged with a CUI that is specific to diabetes. Every user that indicates he or she has diabetes receives this CUI tag. Each time you view your personalized Health Manager pages, this CUI tag is matched to content from WebMD about diabetes, and if our automated algorithms determine that this is likely to be an important topic to you, it will appear on your personalized pages…”
We don’t mean to single out WebMD–the entire online health and pharma marketing industry requires scrutiny from policymakers and other consumer advocates. That’s why my CDD is asking both the FDA and FTC to conduct a privacy and consumer protection ‘exam’ of this industry. Don’t you think such a process should be covered under the new–and much needed–national health care plan!
NAI New “Study” on Behavioral Targeting: Self-Defense for Privacy-Threatening Data Collection
The Network Advertising Initiative (NAI), the online ad industry’s toothless self-regulatory scheme–has released a report designed to undermine policy safeguards protecting consumer privacy. The NAI engaged the services of Prof. J. Howard Beales--a former FTC official who largely supported self-regulation of online data collection during his tenure at the agency–to issue a study. Not surprisingly–and something anyone who follows behavioral online advertising knows–is that these practices work. When you track, collect, profile a consumer online and know their interests, background, location, you can make a better ad experience. Privacy is only mentioned once in the report.  The study’s message is really that if it makes money, don’t think of protecting consumer privacy.  The NAI explained in a release that “Behaviorally targeted ads sell for twice the price and offer twice the effectiveness of normal run-of-network ads, significantly enhancing the advertising revenue engine driving the growth of the Internet.â€
The suggestion that we should not be concerned about privacy even if these practices threaten consumer protection is absurd. Anyone who suggests that we should permit a wholesale invasion of privacy (and more) because it helps support online publishing isn’t addressing the critical question. How can we protect consumers and also have a robust online content system? Both can–and must–be done.
Online Ads Generate Sales, says Yahoo! Underscores Power of Digital Marketing
One of the ploys online advertisers are using to help deflect the call for privacy and consumer protection rules is that all this data collection & and online marketing really doesn’t amount to much. But we all know the opposite is true: online marketing techniques are designed to trigger consumer behavior. Here’s what Yahoo just blogged, about a speech to advertisers given by their CEO Carol Bartz [our emphasis]:”…a recent study Yahoo! did with a brick-and-mortar retailer that tracked the effect of online ads on more than [sic] million consumers. While everyone involved in the study expected that online ads would drive online buying, the study found that 93% of the effect of the ads caused offline purchases. And every ad dollar spent drove $10 in purchases.“
The IAB’s Targeting/Data Collection Glossary: Oh, What a Tangled Privacy Threatened Web They Weave [Annals of Geo. Orwell meets Madison Ave.]
The Interactive Advertising Bureau has released for public comment a telling document that illustrates why Congress and the FTC need to develop some rules to protect consumers. Take a look at the definitions the IAB has embraced on targeting and data collection–and ask yourself. Based on what they say, can this really be–as the IAB claims–non personal information? Here are some of the definitions from the Networks & Exchanges Quality Assurance Guidelines [Feb. 2010]:
*Audience Targeting:A method that enables advertisers to show an ad specifically to visitors based on their shared behavioral, demographic, geographic and/or technographic attributes. Audience targeting uses anonymous, non-PII data.
*Behavioral Targeting: Using previous online user activity (e.g., pages visited, content viewed, searches, clicks and purchases) to generate a segment which is used to match advertising creative to users (sometimes also called Behavioral Profiling, Interest-based Advertising, or online behavioral advertising). Behavioral targeting uses anonymous, non-PII data.
*Attribute – A single piece of information known about a user and stored in a behavioral profile which may be used to match ad content to users. Attributes consist of demographic information (e.g., age, gender, geographical location), segment or cluster information (e.g., auto enthusiast), and retargeting information (e.g., visited Site X two days ago). Segment or cluster information is derived from the user’s prior online activities (e.g., pages visited, content viewed, searches made and clicking and purchasing behaviors). Generally, this is anonymous data (non-PII).
*Behavioral Event – A user-initiated action which may include, but not limited to: searches, content views, clicks, purchases, form-based information and other interactions. Behavioral events are anonymous and do not include personally identifiable information (PII).
*Clickstream Data – A Clickstream is the recording of what a computer user clicks on while web browsing. As the user clicks anywhere in the webpage or application, the action is logged on a client or inside the web server, as well as possibly the web browser and ad servers. Clickstream data analysis can be used to create a user
profile that aids in understanding the types of people that visit a company’s website, or predict whether a customer is likely to purchase from an e-commerce website.
*Cookie – A small text file sent by a website’s server to be stored on the user’s web- enabled device that is returned unchanged by the user’s device to the server on subsequent interactions. The cookie enables the website domain to associate data with that device and distinguish requests from different devices. Cookies often store behavioral information.
*Cross-site Advertiser Analytics – Software or services that allow an advertiser to optimize and audit the delivery of creative content on pre-bought publisher inventory. Data can range from numbers of pages visited, to content visited, to purchases made by a particular user. Such data is used to surmise future habits of user or best placement for a particular advertiser based on success.
*Deep Packet Inspection – A form of computer network packet filtering that examines the data and/or header part of a packet as it passes an inspection point. In the context of online advertising, it is used to collect data, typically through an Internet Service Provider, which can be used to display targeted advertising to users based on previous web activity.
* Retargeting (or re-targeting) – The use of a pixel tag or other code to enable a third-party to recognize particular users outside of the domain from which the activity
was collected. See Creative Retargeting, Site Retargeting.
*Creative Retargeting: A method that enables advertisers to show an ad specifically to visitors that previously were exposed to or interacted with the advertisers’ creative.
*Unique User – An individual user that has interacted with online content, which is smaller than or equal to the number of cookies observed. The number of unique users to a website is usually an estimate. Â
Facebook: `Social identity revolutionises ads’
That’s the headline on a Facebook executive’s presentation at Social Media World Forum in London. As reported by StrategyEye, “[S]ocial network profile identities “fundamentally change” the relationship between online marketers and consumers, according to Facebook EMEA strategy and planning head Trevor Johnson. Tailoring marketing campaigns to people rather than IP addresses or other anonymous online identities provides far better ways of reaching consumers and targeting ads, says Johnson.” The story says Johnson explained “that Facebook ads which use social context produce a 25% increase in user actions and a 68% increase in “brand lift”. He also says that posts published by brands and firms are almost seven times more likely to create a user action than paid advertising on the site.”
“Medical Searches made up 45% of total online traffic”
That’s what Hitwise says, according to a recent report on search engine marketing. Online ad spending by pharma is predicted to be $2.2 billion in 2011, “up from $1.2 billion in 2008.
source: Take advantage of pharma sem: Your Rx for success. Dan Brough. Search Engine Marketing: Essential Guide. DM News. 2009