Month: February 2007

A Google-Cable Industry Alliance?

A quote from a Reuters story about a Google exec. complaining that the Internet has a lack of bandwidth for delivering video and multi-media. It suggests that Google’s plan to further transform the Internet into a better interactive video ad system will eventually bring it into an alliance with the phone and cable giants.

Reuters: “The Web infrastructure, and even Google’s (infrastructure) doesn’t scale. It’s not going to offer the quality of service that consumers expect,” Vincent Dureau, Google’s head of TV technology, said at the Cable Europe Congress. Google instead offered to work together with cable operators to combine its technology for searching for video and TV footage and its tailored advertising with the cable networks’ high-quality delivery of shows.”

Source: “Internet not Designed for TV, Google Warns.” Lucas van Grinsven, European Telecoms Correspondent. February 7, 2007.

Conflict of Interest: Why NY Times, Wash Post, USAToday, CNN, NBC & More Should Acknowledge Role Promoting Threats to Privacy and other Interactive Marketing Problems

Interactive advertising and marketing are helping shape the transformation of the media, here in the U.S. and everywhere else. A infrastructure is being put in place, without the public’s consent, designed to better sell to us 24/7. It’s using some of the most powerful communications technologies ever created to do so. Among the key issues society should be debating right now include the need for privacy safeguards to protect our personal information online, and what kind of limits should be put in place to check the excesses of interactive marketing (think personalized ads flooding your PC, mobile and TV screens, propelled by a data profile of you created via artificial intelligence technologies, and designed to get you to feel or think in a way positive to the brand).

But critical commentary about interactive advertising is largely missing from the ever-present coverage of the digital marketplace. Each day, major papers run stories in their business section about the latest triumph of technology or company. But too rarely do they examine the negative consequences, let alone the role of their own publisher or media firm. One glaring omission by such major news outlets as the New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, etc. is the relationship they have with the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). The IAB is a trade group whose mission is “helping online, Interactive broadcasting, email, wireless and Interactive television media companies increase their revenues.” Among its goals include: “[T]o prove and promote the effectiveness of Interactive advertising to advertisers, agencies, marketers & press;” and “[T]o be the primary advocate for the Interactive marketing and advertising industry.”

On the board of the IAB include officials from the New York Times Company (Martin Nisenholtz, its leading digital exec); Washington Post Newsweek Interactive, Cox Newspapers, USA Today, NBC, CNN, and Disney. They work alongside board members representing Google, AOL, Conde Nast (attention New Yorker magazine!), Verizon, Comcast, Yahoo!, Forbes and others.

There is a clear conflict of interest here when newspapers, television, and online news report on interactive marketing and have a representative helping direct the key group promoting the industry. These news outlets should be disclosing their membership in the IAB and any other industry trade group (which have a political or marketplace mission). Editors at the Times, Post and other papers should commission stories which more effectively analyze the digital marketing industry, including raising the critical issues which the public should debate. They must also prominently disclose their conflict of interest with the IAB as they report on the industry they are working to serve.

Congressional Dems: Why Help out MPAA When its Members Oppose Network Neutrality?

Today’s New York Times has a story about leading Hill Democrats prostrating themselves before the star-power lobbyists of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) [“Hollywood Takes it Concerns about Piracy and Taxes to Washington” Reg. required] Among the Democratic leaders receiving visits included Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Hoyer, Sen. Pat Leahy and Sen. Chuck Schumer. As the article reported, the MPAA “put on a daylong show for lawmakers, lobbyists and Capitol Hill aides, armed with some A-list talent…” Among the stars helping the industry fly its political flag were Will Smith and Clint Eastwood. Amazingly, part of the Hollywood pol spin was that it was pro-“working class.”

But MPAA’s members include companies opposed to network neutrality for U.S. broadband. Other members have allied themselves with the anti-open broadband cause. MPAA member Warner Bros. Entertainment, controlled by cable giant Time Warner, is one of the leading opponents of network neutrality. Sony Pictures is a partner with anti-open Net ringleader Comcast. The Walt Disney Company no longer supports a national open broadband policy (given its own dealings with Comcast and others, it has reversed its once open Net stance). NBC Universal and Murdoch’s Fox, the other two MPAA members, also support the anti-net neutrality status quo (of course, most MPAA companies have used their political clout to secure additional access to digital and broadband distribution, via retransmission consent).

There should be no tax breaks for Hollywood or help with “piracy” until the organization comes out for restoring network neutrality. Star-struck Democratic lawmakers who support network neutrality should tell the MPAA its Hill agenda is in “turnaround” until they agree to a national non-discriminatory policy for U.S. broadband.

How long will the Federal Trade Commission wait before it decides to act to safeguard consumer privacy and protection online? Advocates will likely have to ask Congress to organize an oversight “Tech-ache” to prod the agency into some sort of action. Note this excerpt below as just one example of how the FTC is asleep at the interactive advertising/data collection `digital’ switch.

“Imagine the value to a national automaker of isolating a swath of people so ready to splurge on a fuel-friendly hybrid they’ve price shopped and maybe even placed an eBay bid to buy a Prius. Now, imagine if that auto advertiser could follow those folks around the web — from news sites to social-networking pages — serving up ads that remind them of the benefits of owning a hybrid car. It’s a pretty appealing prospect to marketers, and exactly what they will be able to do if Yahoo gets its way… “We’re actually in a fairly unique position to be able to take advantage … of the enormous data and insight we have on the largest online audience in the world,” Ms. Decker said in Yahoo’s year-end earnings call Jan. 23. “We can see what people are putting in their search strings. We can see what kinds of ads they click on. We can see what kinds of sites they were on prior to the site that they are currently on…”

from: The Right Ads at the Right Time — via Yahoo: Web Giant Looks to Offer Behavioral-targeting Tools Outside Its Own Properties
Abbey Klaassen. Advertising Age. Feb. 5, 2007 [subscription required]

Susan Decker, CFO, bio link.

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Google Comes A’ Courting Madison Avenue

As Google begins working more closely with big brand marketers, expect the `do no harm’ digital behemoth to continue to transform into something less than honorable. Here’s an excerpt from a recent Advertising Age online article [subscription required]:
“In the past three months, Google has visited a couple dozen ad agencies, introducing and demonstrating to chief creative officers and creative directors its suite of products and tools ready to be used in ad campaigns…”I’m not sure Google even knows how to use all of [its tools],” said Rich Silverstein, partner at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners. “They’ve got a lot of tools in their box for ways to connect to their consumers. They’re engineers. They come up with this amazing stuff and then ask, ‘What are we going to do with it?”‘

And that’s the point, Ms. Crow [Google’s director-online branding] said. “We don’t bring the creative ideas. … We show examples of how other people applied these tools.”… She highlights a Saturn campaign born out of one of the first creative meetings with Google’s down-the-road neighbor Goodby, in which a viewer clicks on a city and is flown through the world of Google Earth right through the doors of a local dealership. Google Earth then morphs to Google Video, where the local sales manager greets the viewer and introduces a “test drive,” which is really a 30-second spot.”

Source: “Google to Creatives: Check Out These Toys.” Abbey Klaassen. Jan. 29, 2007

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Sunday N.Y.Times Magazine Story on Bud.TV Misses the Story

Lorne Manley’s story in the magazine today [“Brew Tube”] should have focused on the implications of the interactive ad industry’s role in creating/distributing digital content. What A-B and others are doing taking control over editorial content has critical implications for journalism, at the very least. It also says a great deal of what will be happening to our broadband system. The piece should have also given more attention to critics who are concerned about the negative consequences of alcohol consumption for youth. But the Times Co. and its editors and writers would also have to address the paper’s own embrace of digital marketing–where it’s been an industry leader. For a post written a while ago about Bud.TV, see here.

With the Whole World Warming, Will the Advertising Industry Act Responsibly?

The direction advertising is taking us in the digital era, by fostering a digitally-driven, personalized and ubiquitous marketing system, should be of profound worry to all (that means you environmentalists, inc. Greenpeace, Sierra Club, NRDC, and responsible investors). The global goal of the ad industry is to perfect a system where we are constantly surrounded and targeted with brand messages. “Buy this,” “desire that,” and “consume, dear, consume” interactive marketing communications which have the power to be displayed everywhere—our PC’s, mobile devices and digital TV’s. The ad industry’s current effort to better harness neuroscience to direct our unconscious emotions on behalf of brands will ultimately be used to strengthen a global consumerist society. But as the new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change global warming report warns us, our planet has taken a dangerous turn. That’s why leaders from the ad and marketing industry need to address their role in all this.

We know that the advertising industry is working to get people engaged to be ever-better consumers. For example, they wish to drive tens of millions of Chinese to buy cars, among many other products. Here’s a quote via Brandweek from a middle-class Chinese mother, who could be living anywhere: “The more products, the more stuff I have, the more happiness I feel,” says the young female head of the house. “I have very realistic thinking: Economics is the foundation of happiness. I want to have more money and enjoy a better life. This is a warm, happy family … but it is based on what kind of things you have in the family.” We don’t want to single out China, whose people deserve the best that life can offer. But we know that marketing efforts to promote consumption are aimed at China now, with businesses salivating about its market. The same story in Brandweek notes that “China’s car culture is taking off: It’s expected that 4.1 million passenger cars will have been sold in China in 2006, a 25 percent jump over 2005, with more than 10 million private cars in China now, or about one car for every 120 people… The government can’t build roads fast enough to keep up with the growing numbers of vehicles. In Beijing, a city of nearly 15 million people, 1,000 new cars hit the road every day, causing round-the-clock traffic jams and pollution.”

The digital ad “brandwashing” machine will be working everywhere. Sophisticated technologies are being deployed to expand the power and reach of a global culture shaped by greater consumerism. It’s time we embraced a system that help put our lives—and planet—back into a better balance. Madison Avenue today is part of a global marketing machine, fueled by digital steroids. But the clock is near midnight. Will marketing’s leaders demonstrate any responsibility, beyond meaningless PSA campaigns?

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Time

It’s not just that the public is super-sensitive about the potential of terrorist attacks that the incident in Boston has raised. It’s that the advertising and marketing industry’s zeal to create a 360 degree world of ubiquitious uber-marketing has been revealed for the excess it is. Advertising wants to surround us with 24/7 brand promotions, including viral, product placement, blog sponsorship, buzzmeisters, and pre-roll broadband ads. It’s an “ad, ad, ad, ad, world” we are creating, all so we can be sold to at every location and time. We hope that the Boston flap serves to also encourage Congress and the FTC to begin investigating how the marketing industry is using its power over old and new media to create a irresponsible environment where our privacy and the public interest is sacrificed for a lesser god (that being cash from brands such as Time Warner). Our real national security depends on marketers actually helping create a digital era society where there are ethical limits to what advertising is permitted to do.

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