Category: interactive marketing

Facebook Places and Location Marketing: Plans to `Send in the Crowds’ from Advertisers

You have to read between the lines to understand what Facebook’s new location feature is really designed to do:  Open you and your friends to be more closely tracked by Facebook and its marketing partners, including major advertisers [Fans are worth money to Facebook and their marketing partners].   On Facebook’s blog post on the new location service [which is written in typical Silicon Valley PRspeak suggesting they are doing this only to bring pleasure into your life], the key telling phrase is: “You may want to share your check-in information with third-party applications that build interesting experiences around location, such as travel planning. Applications you use must receive your permission before getting this information. Your friends will be able to share your check-ins with the applications they use to help create new social experiences with location.”

That really means Facebook already has plans to use location data to expand its marketing business (inc. from thrid part apps), which is expected to help the social network bring in $1 billion this year.  Mobile and location applications require greater safeguards for privacy, as my CDD and USPIRG petitioned the FTC to do last year [as a result the FTC has opened up a “mobile lab” examining data collection and mobile marketing practices]. Companies such as Facebook. Google, Foursquare, and others are keenly aware of the huge ad revenue opportunity from location marketing.  One Google backed location social game start-up [SCVNVR] calls this potential the “social coefficient.”  As Mobile Marketer reported, the “Social Coefficient is a score determined by the number of social interactions at a specific location…The more friends at one place or the more users participating in the challenges over time, the higher the Social Coefficient score for that particular location.”  Facebook and others understand that advertisers are willing to pay more if they can encourage friends to market to other friends. 

McDonald’s is already in discussion with Facebook to use this new service.

Leaving Your Data in Las Vegas: Facebook, Online Gambling & Privacy [Annals of behavioral tracking and targeting in online casino gaming and the need for safeguards]

The Las Vegas Casino the Golden Nugget has created a social game [take a look] on Facebook where, says DM News, users can “build their own Vegas casinos, including table games such as Blackjack, Video Poker and Roulette. As they earn virtual money, consumers can create their own customized furniture layouts and decorations by purchasing store items, as well as slots, tables and clothing for a consumer’s avatar. Players can also visit their Facebook friends’ casinos and build their avatar.”

It’s also about data collection:  “That is about data collection, as well as rewarding people who are playing the game,” [said a Nugget representative].  The game’s developer explained that it “will examine targeted behavioral gameplay data to help advertisers and to provide consumers with more compelling experiences.”

As Congress debates legislation that would okay online gambling, one of the key issues should be privacy.  What happens when a consumer is identified by a online casino or a Facebook that they gamble?  How does that get used in their online behavioral targeting profile, along with health and financial information?  Should we even permit the behavioral tracking of any user who engages with online casinos?  There are a host of privacy and consumer protection issues about leaving your data in Las Vegas–or with online marketers such as Facebook.

Online Ad Lobby Raising $1 Million to Help Fight Against Privacy Safeguards

The Interactive Ad Bureau [Google, CBS, Comcast, NBC, Facebook, Fox, Microsoft, BlogHer and many others] is fundraising to “undertake additional coordinated advocacy at the Federal and state level. IAB is nearly half-way to our goal of raising $1 million in cash…”  Funds will be used to support a campaign that includes “our ongoing advocacy efforts to combat legislation and regulation that could damage the interactive advertising industry.”  IAB calls this its “Consumer Protection and Education Campaign,” because it also includes a goal of a billion online ads (to be donated by marketers) used to “support consumer and business understanding and appreciation of the interactive advertising industry.”

We are sure that there will be many–such as the growing interest of the news media in the issue—that will follow this special interest money–especially as the Congress and FTC focus on protecting consumers online.

Microsoft’s Global Social Media Marketing Strategy–A glimpse into how it plans to boost its brand, generate more advertising, and tell`branded’ stories

Last March, Microsoft hired a “Microsoft Emerging Media Manager.”  Here’s an excerpt from the job description:

“research, coordinate, project manage and implement emerging media marketing initiatives as across major global brands including Windows, Bing, Office, Windows Phones, and across our commercial business audiences. The ideal person will be immersed in what it means to “live life online” through channels such as Hulu, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. across the three screens of PC, television, and mobile phones… drive the evolution of Microsoft’s engagement with consumers around new and developing experiences including social media and mobile, will leverage and connect paid and earned media activities, and drive business impact in a results-driven manner to increase adoption and scale…be fluent in online campaign engagement…”

and from its current Social Media Manager opening; note the role of story-telling.–“Collaborating with social media BG owners to build a connected social strategy that incorporates BG social properties and brings to life Microsoft’s consumer innovation story.
• Working with the social media agency to build, launch and manage Microsoft branded social platforms
• Member of the One Microsoft v-team building an editorial calendar to tell the One Microsoft story across social channels.
• Become the internal and external voice for Microsoft social media consumer story, participating in best practice sharing and creative idea generation.  This role requires a passion for digital media and intense curiosity about the future of how consumers interact with each other, consume and engage with content, and develop affinity to brands online.“

U.S. Consumers Targeted with 1 Trillion Display Ads in 2010, First Quarter

That’s right–a Trillion.  Think about all the data collected.  Facebook itself delivered 176 billion display ad “impressions,” explains comScore.  Yahoo and Microsoft sent 132 billion and 60 billion ads, respectively.  Leading online advertisers that quarter were AT&T, Verizon, Scottrade, Experian and others–so think about privacy, network neutrality, online financial marketing and consumer protection all together.  These issues are all connected.

Online Ad Industry Exec Warns of Dangers from “Targetocracy”/Urges IAB to Take Privacy Issue Seriously

We’re glad other online industry leaders see that addressing consumer privacy issues is required–instead of the denials coming from the IAB online ad lobbying group.  Doug Weaver, CEO for the UpStream Group writes in response to the IAB’s op-ed in USA Today, for example that:

“I think a sustainable privacy strategy begins with acknowledgment of the problem that exists.   Facts is facts: the “Targetocracy” in our business is big, wildly overcapitalized and a little bit out of control.  What I think consumers want to hear from Randy and the IAB is “we take the issues raised by the Journal very seriously.  The issues and the technology are quite complicated, but we remain committed to rooting out the bad guys and maintaining an environment that’s rich, free and privacy focused.”

As one of the IAB’s earliest board members and one who’s contributed a great deal of time and effort toward its mission over the years, I believe it’s time for the group to act less like the Chamber of Commerce and more like the Internal Affairs Department.  There are both rogues and careless polluters in our industry and their actions poison the environment for everyone.   Not everyone wants regulation, but the consumer wants to know someone’s in charge.  Who’s that going to be?

Data Tracking, Online Ads and the Creation of Editorial Content: Part of the Behavioral Targeting Debate

The relationship between the pervasive online marketing consumer tracking system and its impact on the funding and creation of editorial content is one of the most important policy issues confronting policymakers–as well as journalism professionals.  Producing content that sells is very important; but how do new capabilities that instantly assess what we are interested in affect the overall editorial mix?  Will we see even less investigative reporting, foreign news coverage, etc. as data collecting bots scour our online activities in order to help marketers and advertisers take better advantage.  It’s an issue we have long raised, and will be focused on as part of the privacy debate.  For now, here’s an excerpt from a new IPO just filed at the SEC by Demand Media [our emphasis]:

Content.  We create highly relevant and specific online text and video content that we believe will have commercial value over a long useful life. During the quarter ended June 30, 2010, we generated an average of over 5,700 wholly-owned text articles and videos per day. The process to select the subject matter of our content, or our title selection process, combines automated algorithms with third-party and proprietary data along with several levels of editorial input to determine what content consumers are seeking, if it is likely to be valuable to advertisers and whether it can be cost effectively produced. To produce original content for these titles at scale, we engage our robust community of highly-qualified freelance content creators. As of June 30, 2010, our content studio had over 10,000 freelance content creators, a significant number of which have prior experience in newspapers, magazines or broadcast television. Our content creation process is scaled through a variety of online management tools and overseen by an in-house editorial team, resulting in high-quality, commercially valuable content. Our technology and innovative processes allow us to produce articles and videos in a cost effective manner while ensuring high quality output. …Monetization.  Our goal is to deliver targeted placements to advertisers who seek to reach consumers based on the content these consumers are seeking and discovering. Our platform generates revenue primarily through the sale of online advertisements, sourced through advertising networks and to a lesser degree through our direct advertising sales force. The system of monetization tools in our platform includes contextual matching algorithms that place advertisements based on website content, yield optimization systems that continuously evaluate performance of advertisements on websites to maximize revenue and ad management infrastructures to manage multiple ad formats and control ad inventory. In addition, our platform is well-positioned to benefit from the continued growth of advertising networks by giving us access to a broader set of advertisements we can more precisely match with our content, thereby increasing advertising yields.

Google’s interest in better bandwidth access for video and interactive ads—do negotiations with Verizon reflect recent changes for YouTube?

Google recently made an announcement that will require likely greater bandwidth for Google’s YouTube.  According to its July 9, 2010 post, “Today at the VidCon 2010 conference, we announced support for videos shot in 4K, meaning that now we support original video resolution from 360p all the way up to 4K…We’re excited about this latest step in the evolution of online video.” Also perhaps relevant to its Verizon dealmaking is Google’s move towards long-form ad supported videos on YouTube, to better position itself as a commercial video provider. If they want to ensure they are first in the `que’ with other entertainment companies, then reversing its position on network neutrality is part of their business plans.  They are ultimately in the same show biz/advertising space as everyone else is.   Btw, given that the media/telecom companies really don’t see a difference when marketing and distributing across multiple platforms, inc, mobile, it’s outrageous mobile would be exempt from network neutrality rules.  But perhaps blame it on Google’s Admob acquisition and its [and everyone else’s] plans for mobile location ad targeting!

Here’s an excerpt from today’s Ad Age article on Google’s new higher resolution and more bandwidth system for YouTube:  “YouTube recently announced support for “4k video,” meaning video files with a dimensional size up to 4096 x 2304 pixels — in other words, much larger than your computer can handle.  Online video is booming, and marketers are still trying to figure out how to create the optimal user experience and achieve the best results for their campaigns…YouTube mentions that watching videos in 4k requires an “ultra-fast high-speed broadband connection,” but this is actually the least-important requirement. While users on slower broadband connections can always wait for enough of the video to download and buffer before watching it (though why would a marketer force consumers to do that?)…

Tracking Consumers to Identify their “Intent” to Purchase Products and Services. Safeguards Required for Predictive Behavioral Targeting

As the FTC and Congress work to create new safeguards, they must address a range of issues related to new forms of data collection, profiling and tracking.  As the WSJ series illustrates [which used information provided by my CDD], privacy is at risk in today’s digital marketing system.  The growth of so-called “predictive” behavioral targeting is one example of marketers pushing the data collection technology envelope without considering the consequences to consumers and citizens.

Yesterday, for example, display ad company Dapper released a new ad product designed to improve display marketing that incorporates “user intent determination” with the “real-time” online ad auction process that sells access to individual consumers to the highest bidder.  In its release, Dapper explains that it can:  “Infer users intent: Through IntentMatch, Dapper DisplayDR goes far beyond retargeting to harvest and combine behavioral (via the advertiser’s own data or 3rd party data), semantic, contextual, geographic, and performance signals to match each product and offer to user intent and inform the bidding process. This multi-dimensional approach improves accuracy and performance, and significantly expands the reach of display efforts beyond behavioral targeting alone…Serve dynamic display ads that match products to intent and are optimized for performance: With Dapper DisplayDR, advertisers can show each consumer the most relevant offers from the Product Search Engine matched to their intent…Receive insightful analytics on a product level: Each campaign is tracked for clicks, conversions, and interaction down to the most granular level of specific products and offers.”

All of this is combined with the online ad exchange system that sells us to advertisers as if we are cattle at an auction: “Advertisers using Dapper DisplayDR can buy media at the impression level in real-time and algorithmically through the ad exchanges. Dapper DisplayDR features the first real-time bidding engine optimized for dynamic advertising, bidding the right price for every impression based on the probability and value of conversion – at scale – as determined by individual purchase intent, product preference, price, time to purchase, geolocation, and more. As advertisements run, Dapper DisplayDR integrates business rules and performance cues to price each bid efficiently. Dapper also leverages performance lifts to bid higher for the most profitable audiences…”

Google tells investors via SEC: New privacy laws could be “inconsistent with our data practices” And the “hundreds” of engineers they have working on display ad technology

Google’s 10Q second quarter report just filed at the SEC has an interesting reflection on how the online ad giant views the privacy issue.  It wrote that:

Regulatory authorities around the world are considering a number of legislative proposals concerning data protection. In addition, the interpretation and application of data protection laws in Europe and elsewhere are still uncertain and in flux. It is possible that these laws may be interpreted and applied in a manner that is inconsistent with our data practices. If so, in addition to the possibility of fines, this could result in an order requiring that we change our data practices, which could have an adverse effect on our business. Complying with these various laws could cause us to incur substantial costs or require us to change our business practices in a manner adverse to our business.

And a somewhat related angle–Google’s focus on generating more ad dollars online.   Brandweek reports, in an article on all the venture investment going into expanding online targeting that:

Neal Mohan, the vp of product management at Google who leads its display ad efforts, believes the display ad market could be five times the size it is today, if the system for buying ads was more efficient and the performance measurement was better.

“It can be done, frankly, a lot better than it is today,” Mohan said, noting Google now has “hundreds” of engineers working on display advertising technology.

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