Category: Brandwashing

Microsoft and IM. Using “Cause Related Engagement” to Validate Interactive Advertising & Data Collection

A series of questions need to be broadly addressed about the proper dimensions for interactive digital marketing, including privacy, individual autonomy, economic fairness, and ecological balance. But some NGO’s (see list) are so so eager to partake of the interactive advertising spoils, they partner with (or permit) digital marketers to engage in practices which should be questioned–not condoned.

Take the “I’m Making a Difference” campaign from Microsoft. The company has tied-in its digital advertising campaigns with “cause” marketing efforts. As Microsoft marketer Mich Mathews explained this week at its Strategic Account Summit:
“…people are driven to get engaged in topics they feel very personally passionate about. So another path that we’ve been exploring is this thing called cause-related engagement. We’re using better technology in our communication services to help people speak up for social causes that they care about. What you’re seeing here, is a new initiative from Windows Live. We start a conversation using IM, Microsoft shares a portion of the program’s advertising revenue with some of the world’s most effective organizations that are dedicated to social causes.

With every instant message, customers help address the issues that they’re feeling most passionate about. It could be poverty, child protection, disease, environmental issues. All you have to do here is sign up and start an instant message conversation, then every ad you see in your message window contributes to the grand total that we’re going to send to the cause. This program is really inspiring people to get involved and make a difference.

Now, even though the campaign to date has largely been un-media, it’s already gone as great pass-along, which illustrates the power of mixing great content with a compelling cause. And in the first months we’ve had hundreds of thousands of new sign ups to Messenger and an increase in page views per user, which, of course, is great for our advertisers, and even greater news for those charities who are involved.”

But before charities and nonprofits agree to be involved with such efforts, they need to fully vet both the privacy issues and the overall impact digital marketing will have on society. If we are to have a global digital medium that fully supports a civil society, NGO’s must be leaders in shaping the new media environment. That means being conscious and responsible–and not just blithely accepting the money.

Microsoft’s Vision for the Internet’s Future: Not a Pretty Picture

“We can tell you who saw…we let you target that…we will let you serve that on dayparting…” Yusuf Mendi, Microsoft’s Senior VP and “Chief Advertising Strategist” delivered such words—and more— yesterday. We urge you to watch and listen to his presentation. One learns that Microsoft is willing to help its wealthiest customers to better “pop” their brands. This includes helping them `know’ “who the user is and target to the user.” Mendi told the group that he knows they don’t want to target only “raw tonnage.” So, for Microsoft, the “quality of the user” can be better defined by the “25 behavioral segments” that can be targeted to the “280 million people who use Hotmail” at least once a month. The 280 million Messenger users can be targeted with rich media marketing technologies that sense their mouse hovering and interacting with an ad. For Microsoft, the “end to end IP experience” is all about transforming the global digital platform into one powerful brandwashing system.

Mr. Mendi told the audience that Microsoft is “open for business” to help “redefine” the Internet’s future. Such a future—given to us by Microsoft, Google, Yahoo!, major ad agencies and marketers—raises a series of disturbing questions and should be a cause for alarm and debate. The foremost role for digital media should be to promote civil society (that’s not the “cause” marketing cases Microsoft and others have embraced as the “Trojan Horse” to convince everyone to endorse the idea about data collection and targeted interactive marketing). Shaping the most powerful platforms so it can better collect our data and then drive our behaviors—without our full awareness and informed consent—is not a responsible act. That’s why it’s time for a much more robust debate about where this is headed—before it’s too late.

We will be come back to Mr. Gates and the Summit.

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Microsoft’s Mobile Marketing Data Ploy

Mobile marketing is the emerging threat to our privacy, with a range of behavioral targeting and other data collection techniques. While there are privacy problems throughout the field, we think Microsoft’s recent purchase of European-based ScreenTonic is a good example of what to expect. Europe is a prime mobile marketing testing ground. Here’s an excerpt from an interview conducted by Advertising Age with Joe Doran, general manager of Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions:

“Ad Age: What kind of targeting data will Microsoft and ScreenTonic be able to offer marketers?

Mr. Doran: ScreenTonic does basic targeting based on handset by carrier and by the site [where the consumer is] actually at today. Based on information we can comb from the carrier and the operator, we could get enhanced data for advertiser, such as gender or geo-location. It’s probably not as robust as we would want it to be, but it’s as good as what everybody is doing in geo-based targeting on mobile advertising today….

Ad Age: How will mobile be sold and measured?
Mr. Doran: For display advertising — which is where ScreenTonic really fits — that will primarily be placed and sold on CPM [cost per thousand viewer] basis. There will be performance-based media just as there is all over digital marketing today…High content, highly contextually targeted, high value placements will drive high value CPMs.”

From: Microsoft Explains Mobile Ad Network Purchase.” Alice Z. Cuneo and Abbey Klaassen. Ad Age. May 4, 2007 (sub. required).

We think poor Paddy Chayefsky is continually rolling in his grave, as his prophetic vision of television—Network—increasingly appears as a tame apparition. Sybil the Soothsayer must have a serious headache after she learns that TV producer Mark Burnett (Survivor) has created a new “reality” program pegged to the upcoming Presidential election.

With Murdoch’s MySpace.com as a partner, the show called Independent will feature $1 million in prize money (which can go to “legitimate” candidates or other causes). According to USA Today, “Potential candidates will audition for the show by submitting a video. Once the contestants are chosen, they will set up MySpace profiles to serve as their campaign headquarters.” Burnett and Murdoch hope that the show “will engage younger voters in the political process.”

But what will MySpace and Fox do with all the user data it receives from viewers and users of its Independent site. Isn’t the show just another attempt at getting young people to stick their interests, bookmarks, and other personal information into the MySpace data mining operation? We think so. Besides, the campaign for president should be serious business. Murdoch, Burnett, and Fox should be spending their considerable wealth encouraging people to understand the myriad of issues besetting the nation. But, since our politics is fashioned so much like show business, the new Independent show (which doesn’t have a TV partner yet) is likely to be the first of many spin-offs. Hey, Bud.TV. Perhaps our current President can be on your Replaced by a Chimp show?

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Leading Ad Exec on Googleclick: Deal Should Raise “Privacy Concerns”

Omnicom Group is a global advertising/marketing powerhouse, controlling such well known “brands” as BBDO, DDB and TBWA. They represent PepsiCo, P&G, Apple, Fedex, McDonald’s, etc. etc. They know the business. Here’s what Omnicom’s president John D. Wren said yesterday about Google’s Doubleclick deal, in a story written by Reuters (my bold and italics):
“What it’s going to raise – and this will be a very good conversation in the marketplace – are privacy concerns. The technology that exists far exceeds the laws and thinking of the people that are going to be impacted by it,” he told investors on a conference call. Wren welcomed what he said would be a healthy debate that will ultimately clarify privacy laws when it comes to consumer information on the Internet.

“I’m encouraged by the deal, because I’m most encouraged by the discussion that the deal is going to cause the marketplace to have. Any definition will be positive for us.”

In other words, even the ad industry recognizes that the powerful and intrusive tools they have developed require safeguards, rules, policies, limits. For both privacy and the interactive ad market.

Red Herring: “DoubleClick’s cookie cache is a treasure trove for Google”

excerpt: “Without a doubt, DoubleClick’s historical data is very valuable,” says Jupiter Research analyst Emily Riley. “Every time you’re online, every page visit, and every ad you see comes with the possibility that a cookie is placed on your machine. DoubleClick has all the data.”

How much data? Ms. Riley’s back-of-the-envelope calculation puts it into the fifteen figures: with more than 100 million web users viewing a quarter million pages a year, it hits the 2.6 quadrillion mark—and that’s just U.S. users. If DoubleClick’s ad network touched even half of those interactions, it amounts to the kind of database advertisers would drool over. “What it does is complete the picture for Google about what’s happening on publishers’ web sites,” Ms. Riley says.

From: “Crunching the Cookie.” Sean Wolfe. Red Herring. April 19, 2007

Doubleclick’s Data “Boomerang”–Behavioral Targeting Power

excerpt from “Boomerang for Advertisers and Agencies”–“You are in a continual search for that desirable, yet elusive audience: the interested consumer. Boomerang, DoubleClick’s one-to-one targeting solution, empowers you to identify and re-target across your media buy customized segments of prospects and customers based on actions they’ve taken on your site and other marketing messages they’ve received. The result is a dramatic increase in customer acquisition, conversion, and retention metrics.

“Leverage the Power of Behavioral Targeting
Behavioral targeting is the most effective form of targeting available. It allows you to re-target to the most desirable audience of all: browsers who have already shown an interest in your product or service. With Boomerang, you can now engage that audience in a dialogue, providing timely and relevant messages triggered by their online actions. Boomerang delivers true behavior-driven advertising, so you can reach pre-qualified prospects and customers quickly and easily…

Use Boomerang to Get Better Results
Smart marketers have used Boomerang to:
• Re-target customers who have already browsed their site to bring them back
• Re-target site visitors that have “dropped off” of the purchase process with a related message to drive them back to the site
• Upsell and cross-sell customers that have already purchased core products
• Reach customers who have not visited or purchased recently to reactivate them
• Show specific advertising messages based on expressed interests, such as delivering an ad for a new car model to a browser that downloaded a brochure on last year’s model
• Test different offers and price points to determine the most effective for converting browsers into buyers”

product overview available via here:[pdf to download]

excerpts from product overview of Doubleclick’s Dart Motif:


“audience interaction metrics: Motif’s exclusive Audience Interaction Metrics Package lets you gather data on more than 100 unique interactions in every creative unit including multiple exit links, counters, timers and video metrics. You’ll automatically get metrics on how long each ad was displayed or how the viewer interacted with the ad. Plus, you can customize additional events to track based on your creative concept….
* Ad Interaction Time: Tracks the average amount of time a user interacts with your ad, so you know what works best.
* Interactive Impressions: Shows how many Motif ad impressions generated user interaction for better understanding of audience response.
* Ad Display Time: Tracks the average amount of time each Motif ad is displayed to help measure brand exposure and optimize site placements.

track more than 100 metrics

* Exit Links: Let you track multiple click-throughs within a single rich media ad. Essential for when you’re promoting more than one offer in an ad. Motif makes tracking multiple exit links easy and eliminates click commands.
* Event Counters: See exactly what your audience is interacting with by tracking customizable events like rollovers, mouse-overs and drags.
* Timer Events: See how much time a user spent viewing or interacting with specific elements in your ad, like an interactive game or video.
* Motif Streaming Video Metrics: Motif provides the same in-depth reports for your video ads as it does for other rich media features. You can track audience video plays, completions, pauses, stops, restarts, mutes, average view time, and custom video interaction metrics.”

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U.S. Search Market is Consolidated. Google to Have 75% Share

eMarketer’s release on its new report that: “There are two giants in the space, and they are getting bigger! Saying that search engine marketing is a highly concentrated industry is an understatement… [my bold]


“Google and Yahoo!’s share of U.S. Paid Search Advertising Spending”
2007 (estimates)
Google: 75.6%
Yahoo!: 16.3%
Total Market Share of the two: 91.9%


“… according to comScore, US Internet users performed 75.8% of their January 2007 searches on Google or Yahoo!, and Nielsen//NetRatings put the combined total at 76.4%… “In fact, over 90% of US paid search ad spending will go to the two search giants in 2007…”
“US spending on search advertising will rise by more than $3.2 billion from 2006 to 2008 alone… Paid search is currently the key driver of US online advertising, and spending on paid search in 2008 will exceed the $9.6 billion that was spent on all online advertising in 2004.”

from: “The Unstoppable Surge of Search Advertising.” April 20, 2007

FTC Filing today on GoogleClick First in a Series of Steps

Today, the Center for Digital Democracy joins with the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) in a complaint to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission about new threats to privacy arising from the proposed takeover of Doubleclick by Google. A copy of the filing can be be found here.

It is critical that both U.S. and E.U. antitrust authorities investigate the impact of this deal on the growing consolidated online advertising marketplace. My group and allies are working on the competition and market structure issues, in addition to concerns about privacy (in the case of the online advertising market, of course, issues related to personal privacy are almost totally intertwined).

The merger between Google and Doubleclick, along with other interactive ad industry consolidation, has greater implications beyond concerns over advertising competition and privacy. Whomever controls the online ad market will determine the range and diversity of content creation and distribution online (through their ability to invest in content sources and services). Antitrust regulators must intervene to protect civil society, including ensuring the funding and availability of news and civic discourse for the digital realm.