Category: interactive marketing

Those who gain access to our consumer data: “will be the new kingmakers”

As we have explained all along, the ability to collect and analyze data about us and our social networks is the “DNA” of contemporary advertising and marketing.  There is a very thoughtful piece in “Metrics Insider,“ and I hope you will look at this excerpt:

“The future of advertising is not about social, not about viral videos, not about mobile, not about any new medium or any new ad unit — but about data. Those who know what to do with this will be the new kingmakers, the new rulers of Madison Avenue — or the creators of a new Avenue of media…The critical component that makes this new world work is data — not simply general research data, but data about you. This goes far beyond just behavioral targeting, to your preferences, your interests, your actions — all of the signals you send as you move through the grand stage of life. The revelation is that this new world is no longer the far-off land on the horizon — we’ve hit the beach.”

 from:  Death Of The Impression/Rise Of The Data Economy.  Michael D. Andrews.  Mediapost.  February 18, 2010.

Buzz and all that Social Media Data `Jazz’

As we explained to reporters, the larger issue to be addressed when discussing Google’s Buzz is the  role of social media marketing and our privacy.  There’s a race to “monetize” our relationships and connections–the so-called social graph.  It wasn’t a coincidence that at the same time Google launched books it acquired social media marketing company Aardvark.    Here is an insightful excerpt from this week’s Search Insider:

” …by building its own social tools into the growing user base for Gmail, Apps and iGoogle, Google’s algorithms will be able to see what sorts of conversations, questions or responses you offer not only through email correspondence or in a collaborative exchange on Wave, but also via Aardvark and, by extension, Facebook and Twitter.  Which represents an opportunity to serve highly targeted, extremely relevant ads in ways that go well beyond the keyword search.”

AOL: “we live and breathe data,” inc. Behavioral Targeting & Retargeting

Here’s what AOL says it can do for marketers who want to target users [excerpt]:
You wouldn’t order pizza from a bank. So why would you try to sell a luxury travel package to a high school student?…

Behavioral targeting
Target consumers based on what they read – and where they click.

Audience behaviors: Hit your audience sweet spot. AOL Advertising observes consumer behavior (anonymously) across thousands of websites, then organizes people into groups based on their interests. Choose from over 350 pre-packaged audiences…With our LeadBack suite, you can retarget consumers who have… – Visited your website (Advertiser LeadBack)
– Seen or clicked on your ad creative (Creative LeadBack)
– Visited a webpage that you’re sponsoring (Sponsorship LeadBack)
– NOT visited your website – a great way to reach more unique visitors (Reverse LeadBack)…Demographic/Household: Target individuals, households or sites based on user registration data.
– Survey-Based: Target users based on their responses to consumer survey questions (e.g., MRI).
– Purchase-Based: Target users based on products they’ve purchased…Look-Alike Modeling: Target users who exhibit similar characteristics to your customers (or other valuable audiences).

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and AOL Advertising also says that “we live and breathe data…AOL’s new content management system, Seed, uses advanced algorithms to measure consumer demand and determine the next hot topics.”

Microsoft to Advertisers: “Behavioural targeting is transforming the capabilities of online advertising”

In a recent post, Microsoft extolled the virtues of using its behavioral targeting service profiling mobile phone users.  It explained that “campaigns can target individuals based on their online behaviour, including the sites that they visit, the actions they take and the terms they enter into search engines. In the US behavioural targeting on mobiles has already delivered increases in click-through rate of 215% for the fashion and beauty sector, 97% for airlines and 76% for auto advertisers.”

Facebook Expands Big Brand Marketing Clout: Helping Starbucks to “get people to buy a muffin on a certain day”

The top execs at Facebook claim that the social network giant ad targeting apparatus is well understood by its users, and that they have secured their consent.  But I suggest few users understand the complexities of Facebook’s viral marketing and tracking system, let alone the new Facebook/Nielsen “Brandlift” initiative designed to demonstrate Facebook can deliver big for the biggest brands.  According to New Media Age:
More than 70 studies have been done in the US in the FMCG, retail, media and entertainment, telecoms, financial and automotive sectors. Nielsen and Facebook said 97% of these found a significant lift in at least one brand metric, while 85% reported an increase in at least two.  “Starbucks is a heavy advertiser on Facebook,” said [Trevor Johnson, head of strategy and planning EMEA at Facebook] Johnson. “We ran a campaign to get people to buy a muffin on a certain day and measured a 94% uplift in purchase intent.”…Facebook will apply the demographic data it already collects from its users to deliver results tailored to brands’ needs.

What the new online ad industry-sponsored plan to identify Behavioral-Targeted Ads and Data Collection with the letter “i” really stands for: ineffective [And should be relabeled “ID”—Ineffective and Disingenuous]

Statement of Jeff Chester, executive director, Center for Digital Democracy, Washington, D.C. www.democraticmedia.org

A new self-regulatory scheme designed to head-off meaningful consumer privacy rules by Congress and the Federal Trade Commission is to be released today, according to several reports.  In addition, the Council of Better Business Bureaus has issued a RFP asking for technology solutions to bolster its online advertising self-regulatory approach.

These efforts are trying to place a flimsy band-aid over a gushing consumer data privacy wound.  Disclosure and more opportunities to opt-out is an online ad industry copout. Interactive marketers have created a data collection monster.  What’s needed are Fair Information Principles for the digital age, enforced by regulators, which dramatically minimize how much data is collected, stored, sold and resold–and limit how it can be used.   Instead we get fancy package relabeling fashioned by Madison Avenue.

Consumers face a bewildering, far-reaching, and complex system created by the online ad business that collects and harvests their information—including financial, health, and other personal details—that is non-transparent and unaccountable.  These new self-regulatory initiatives are disingenuous, because they don’t address the real problem:  that through a range of largely stealth online marketing techniques, digital media has been designed to ensure that consumers provide reams of their personal data.

As the FTC holds its second privacy hearing this Thursday, and as the House Commerce Committee finalizes its proposed legislation, policymakers must ask themselves:  how can we do a better job protecting consumers–instead of enabling the same kind of self-regulatory approach that helped bring our economy to the brink of disaster.  Consumers and lawmakers should especially be concerned that the approach backed by Truste and Future of Privacy Forum will permit monopolistic broadband Internet Service Providers, such as Comcast and AT&T,  to gather even more personal information on their subscribers.

Where Does Google and Microsoft Really Stand–with the IAB and ad lobby or for Consumer Protection?

Both Google and Microsoft serve on the executive committee of the Interactive Ad Bureau, a trade association fighting against consumer privacy proposals in Congress and the FTC.  The IAB just sent a letter signed by other ad and marketing industry lobbyists opposing Obama and congressional proposals to expand the ability of the FTC to better protect consumers.  My CDD just sent emails to officials at both Google and Microsoft asking them to clarify where they stand on the IAB’s letter [see below].  Do our two leading online marketing leaders support financial and regulatory reform, including protecting privacy?  Or does the IAB letter–and Google and Microsoft’s own role helping govern that trade lobby group–really reflect their own position against better consumer protection? Not coincidently, the IAB’s PAC has expanded its PAC contribution giving to congress.

Why does the IAB and other ad groups want to scuttle a more capable FTC?  Think online financial products, including mortgages, pharmaceutical operated social networks, digital ads targeting teens fueling the youth obesity crisis, ads created by brain research to influence our subconscious minds, a mobile marketing system that targets us because it knows our location, interests and behavior.  The IAB is terrified that a responsible consumer protection agency will not only peek under the ‘digital hood,’ as the Obama FTC is currently doing.  But actually propose policies and bring cases that rein in irresponsible and harmful business practices.  So Microsoft and Google:  who are with?  Consumers or the special interest advertising lobby?
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letter to Google:  22 January 2010

Dear Pablo, Jane, Peter and Alan:

As you may know, the Interactive Advertising Bureau recently sent a letter  to Congress, along with other ad related groups, opposing the expansion of FTC regulatory authority as proposed in the Consumer Financial Protection Agency bill and related reauthorization [http://www.clickz.com/3636212].

Google serves on the executive committee of the IAB’s board.  For the record, does Google support IAB’s stance that, as news reports say, if the FTC is given additional enforcement and penalty-making authority, “the FTC could essentially act as an unelected legislature governing industries and sectors across the economy.”

If Google disagrees with the IAB’s letter, I ask that it make its position public as soon as possible.  I also respectfully request Google state its position regarding the Consumer Financial Protection Agency proposal, as well as its position on expanding FTC authority.

Regards,

Jeff Chester
Center for Digital Democracy
www.democraticmedia.org

letter to Microsoft:  22 Jan. 2010:

Dear Mike and Frank:

As you may know, the Interactive Advertising Bureau recently sent a letter to Congress, along with other ad related groups, opposing the expansion of FTC regulatory authority as proposed in the Consumer Financial Protection Agency bill and related reauthorization [http://www.clickz.com/3636212].

Microsoft serves on the executive committee of the IAB’s board.  For the record, does Microsoft support IAB’s stance that, as news reports say, if the FTC is given additional enforcement and penalty-making authority, “the FTC could essentially act as an unelected legislature governing industries and sectors across the economy.”

If Microsoft disagrees with the IAB’s letter, I ask that it make its position public as soon as possible.  I also respectfully request Microsoft state its position regarding the Consumer Financial Protection Agency proposal, as well as its position on expanding FTC authority.

Regards,

Jeff Chester
Center for Digital Democracy
www.democraticmedia.org

Facebook’s Ad “Targeting Specs”–including your “Political Views,” whether you are “13” years old, or “Engaged”

We continue to tell both the FTC and EU regulators that the data collected and used by Facebook for its ad targeting system must be under the control of its users.  Facebook is in the process of making its advertising API available to additional marketers (it’s been working with several large global ad agencies in a trial).  Here’s what Facebook says advertisers can target:  countries, cities, regions, genders, college networks, work networks, age minium [“Specify a minimum age to target. If used, this must be 13 or higher.”], age maximum, education status, college years, college majors, political views [“Use 1 for LIBERAL, 2 for MODERATE and 3 for CONSERVATIVE”], relationship status [“Use 1 for SINGLE, 2 for IN_RELATIONSHIP, 3 for MARRIED and 4 for ENGAGED.”], keywords [“Keywords are matched to user profile data to better target ads for example “movies” or “cars” can be used’], interested in, radius, connections [“Connections targeting allows you to target your ads to users who have become a fan of your Page, a member of your Group, RSVP’d to your Event or authorized your Application.”], excluded connections [“Excluded connections targeting allows you to target your ads to users who have not become fans of your Page, members of your Group, RSVP’d to your Event or authorized your Application.”], friends of connections [“An array of Facebook IDs. “Friends of connections” targeting allows you to target friends of your connections. Connections are fans of your Page, users who have RSVP’d Yes or Maybe to your Event, members of your Group, and users who have interacted with your Application.”], user event.

Google, Microsoft, China, Digital Advertising and Human Rights.

It took the equivalent of a Chinese digital Watergate break-in before Google reconsidered its position on China and their anti-democratic and censorious policies.  Google should never agreed to a censored version of itself in the first place.  But China represents what will be the world’s number one online marketing gold mine, irresistible for those in the interactive advertising business.  l hope that Google will actually withdraw from China, until democracy is assured.  But meanwhile, it’s interesting to briefly explore what Google and other online marketing companies are doing in the China market, including Hong Kong.

Google’s research division in China has been investigating “”Large-scale data mining and its applications for information retrieval.”  Google is still, as of today, listing job openings for its China operation. Google’s DoubleClick features its Hong Kong work (as part of its Asia Pacific focus).  [It’s also important to see what kind of data collection might be done by Google’s DoubleClick Ad Exchange in that market].

But policymakers and the public should also focus on Microsoft.  Microsoft has a key research lab on interactive ads based in Beijing; Microsoft Advertising has a major focus on China and online ads. Microsoft and many others research the online behaviors of Asians, including young users.  Yahoo operates in China as well. Finally, U.S. online ad companies focused on data mining are opening up branches in Hong Kong, in order to better position themselves with the Asia-Pacific market.

Google’s withdrawal from China would be a model for other companies–we hope it does it.  But the focus should be on how the online marketing industry at large, including ad giants such as WPP, are facilitating a system that deprives its citizens of their rights.

Facebook Boosts of its Brand Building Power, with Nielsen [“Brand Lift”] Research on the way to help

In a December 2009 interview in New Media Age, Facebook’s director for commercial marketing in the EMEA and UK market explained that [excerpt]:  CPMs on our home page are three or four times those of Yahoo’s. On click-through, the engagement levels we’re getting are 10-15 times that. Not 10% more, 10-15 times Yahoo’s click-through rates. This is where we’re selling to P&G and those big brands.  The other side of our business is performance: those little square boxes, ASUs [Ad Space Units], that appear everywhere except the home page. 80% of our inventory is driven through a self-service auction model. We’re on 50bn of them a month in the UK. That’s scale. And big brands are saying they’re getting more volume and lower cost than Google on Facebook right now…The big thing we’re bringing to the market in early Q1 is Nielsen-branded research, which will reveal what people are doing, using awareness consideration and favourability metrics that are important to branded advertising. We’ll be able to quantify this via Nielsen.“