Category: interactive advertising

Online Ad Lobby and Chamber Celebrate Victory over Consumer Protection & FTC

Yesterday, the online ad lobby [IAB, ANA, DMA]–working with Chamber of Commerce–scored a major political victory by forcing the Financial reform bill conference committee to drop proposed provisions that would have strengthened the FTC.  Under the House bill, the FTC would have been given the same kind of regulatory authority most federal agencies have [APA rulemaking].  Marketers and advertisers are celebrating their win, because it keeps the FTC on a weakened and short political leash.  While consumer protection is significantly expanded because of the CFPB and new financial rules, the FTC is to remain largely hamstrung.  The online marketing and advertising lobby [including ANA, DMA–see below] were afraid that the newly invigorated FTC under Pres. Obama would require the industry to protect privacy online and also become more accountable to consumers engaged in e-commerce.   I heard IAB and Chamber are dancing in the streets! Congressmen Barney Frank, Henry Waxman and Sen. Rockefeller deserve praise for working hard to protect consumers, including their proposal on the FTC.

Here’s what two of the ad groups placed on their sites about the FTC issue:

Progress on FTC Enforcement Provisions in Wall Street Reform Conference

June 23, 2010

The marketing and media community has made substantial progress on defeating the broad expansion of FTC powers that is included in the House version of the Wall Street reform bill.  But we still need your assistance to keep these provisions out of the final bill.

Yesterday the Senate conferees presented an offer on the bill that rejected the new FTC powers that are in the House version.  Chairman Dodd indicated that while he may support changes in the Magnuson Moss rulemaking process, there is no Senate provision and these issues are too complex and important to be resolved in the context of the Wall Street reform bill.  Conferees hope to finish the conference this week so the final bill can be cleared for the President’s signature next month.

The House conferees may still continue to push for these provisions, so it is very important that marketers contact the Senate conferees to express our appreciation for their support and to urge them to remain strongly opposed to these new powers for the FTC in this bill.  Contact information for the Senate conferees is located here and our letter to Senate conferees is available here.  Please let the Senators know if you have plants or operations in their states.

ANA took part in a very important meeting yesterday with Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller on these issues.  We argued that these issues are very important to the entire marketing community and deserve careful consideration outside of the context of the Wall Street reform bill.  The Chairman strongly indicated that he will continue to push for changes in the Magnuson Moss rulemaking procedures this year.

If you have any questions about this matter, please contact Dan Jaffe (djaffe@ana.net) or Keith Scarborough (kscarborough@ana.net) in ANA’s Washington, DC office at (202) 296-1883.

http://www.ana.net/advocacy/content/2418

DMA Asks Financial Reform Conferees to Keep FTC Expansion Out of ‘Restoring American Financial Stability Act’

June 10, 2010 — The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) today was joined by 47 other trade associations and business coalitions in sending a letter to each of the conferees on H.R. 4173, the “Restoring American Financial Stability Act” (RAFSA), urging them to keep language that would dramatically expand the powers of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) out of the final bill.

As the House and Senate conferees work to reconcile their versions of the financial regulatory legislation, the associations — which represent hundreds of thousands of US companies from a wide array of industry segments — expressed strong opposition to provisions in the House version of the bill that would expand the FTC’s rulemaking and enforcement authority over virtually every sector of the American economy.

“The balance struck in the Senate bill is the right one,” said Linda Woolley, DMA’s executive vice president, government affairs.  “That bill makes the most sense in the context of financial reform legislation, maintaining the FTC’s existing jurisdiction without expanding its rulemaking and enforcement authority over industries and sectors that had nothing to do with the financial crisis.  Issues of FTC expansion deserve their own due consideration and debate in the more appropriate context of an FTC reauthorization, as has been done in the past.”

DMA and the other associations strongly believe that granting the FTC broad new authority is not a necessary or relevant response to the causes of the recent recession and, therefore, asked the conferees to oppose the inclusion of any provisions that would expand FTC authority, rather than making changes to the Commission that would have a fundamental impact on the entire business community and the broader American economy.

For more information please visit www.dmaaction.org.
http://www.the-dma.org/cgi/dispannouncements?article=1449

Location Privacy for Mobile Marketing: Time for Congress/FTC/States to Protect Consumers

Last year, CDD and USPIRG filed a complaint on mobile marketing, privacy and deceptive practices at the FTC.  We know that it woke up the commission to the issue–but they are acting too slow.  The recent decision by Apple to expand its data gathering for location ad targeting on the iPhone (and do a about-face on the privacy issue, really) is just one example of why safeguards are required immediately.  As Mobile Marketer explained in an article about what Apple is doing:

“Location is an important element that illustrates the promise of mobile and social,” he said. “Look at the way that the mobile environment is developing—proximity marketing is really the direction that we’re headed [Noah Elkin, senior analyst at eMarketer].

“Being able to marry data about a user’s location and data about a user’s likes and dislikes—being able to present a relevant offer—raises the bar in terms of the relevancy of the advertising messages.”…Apple acquired Placebase and Quattro recently, which gives it a mapping platform and an ad network.

“Collecting user positioning data is the next necessary ingredient for ‘location intelligence,’ which will bridge the gap between these two acquisitions and enable them to deliver a really relevant experience based on place and time,” Mr. Goodman said [Alistair Goodman, CEO of 1020 Placecast].

Meanwhile, companies like Loopt that merge social and mobile marketing techniques are extending how they target consumers, inc. data collection.  Loopt explains in its new “mobile rewards” service for marketers that:

Loopt Star offers retailers a virtual loyalty card, allowing them to connect directly with their customers when they’re out and about, driving foot traffic and encouraging repeat visits. It offers retailers and businesses a unique “cost per visit” business model.

“Hyper-local advertising should be about much more than simply clicking on a banner ad—it should be about connecting with brands and getting rewarded for loyalty. Brands want to turn their existing customers into better ones,” said Sam Altman, co-founder and CEO of Loopt. “Loopt Star enables brands to create customized campaigns that reach their customers in a completely targeted, interactive way that rewards the behaviors they want.”

In addition to brand-specific customized rewards, Loopt Star will also allow the person with the most check-ins at a specific place to become the “Boss” of that location. Leaderboards allow users to compete with their Facebook friends to for the most check in points. Dozens of hidden Achievements will also be available to Loopt Star game players at launch — to be won when certain check-in actions are performed.

Loopt Star adds a key social component by being the first mobile location App based purely on Facebook Connect. Users can share their current location in real-time with all of their friends on Facebook, and alert friends via their Facebook News Feed about special offers they see on Loopt Star that are available to anyone. With its close integration into Facebook, Loopt Star allows Facebook friends stay up to date on where friends are and what they’re doing…

Brands can use Loopt Star to create fun, engaging campaigns that deliver foot traffic, connect with customers, build a strong community and increase their Facebook fan base. Customized brand campaigns can specify:

  • The qualifying retail locations
  • The qualifying time of day, day of week, or time span
  • The qualifying number of check in times
  • Whether they need to check in with friends, and the number of friends
  • Which rewards are available to friends through the Facebook newsfeed (for example, “the next person to check into Joe’s Restaurant today gets free dessert” can appear on the newsfeed to all Facebook friends.)
  • Specific and virtual rewards, such as Achievements, special titles, discount coupons, etc. Special titles allow retailers to offer a custom “Boss” title and graphic to the person who checks in the most at an individual location

Loopt is working directly with top brands to customize all aspects of Loopt Star, from the activity needed to earn the reward, to the type of virtual or real-world reward earned.

For example, Loopt Star users can check into any bar in the United States with two Facebook friends, and everyone instantly earns five free songs from leading popular music recording artists. (To see the songs available to win, go to http://www.amplified.com/loopt.)

 

Google says it’s “at the forefront of a revolution in Marketing”– that includes for the health industry.

One of the areas requiring online privacy and consumer safeguards is the health and medical area.  As CDD told the FDA, the use of behavioral data profiling & targeting, immersive multi-media techniques, social marketing [via stealth-like influencer and word-of-mouth tactics, and brand channels, such as on YouTube, raise a host of concerns.  I don’t believe one’s largely private concerns about a health condition or remedy should automatically be fodder for digital marketing.  To see how important the health online marketing is to Google (and others), here’s an excerpt from a “Consumer Packaged Goods or Healthcare Industry Marketing Manager job opening:

Google is at the forefront of a revolution in Marketing – a shift from traditional Marketing tactics to new online, mobile and social strategies. Google’s advertising platforms provide savvy advertisers with multichannel marketing opportunities, linking online marketing to brand impact and offline sales.

Consumer Packaged Goods or Healthcare Industry Marketing Manager position shapes Google’s point of view on the changing advertising landscape. This leader will uncover, understand and explain the impact of evolving online media to industries that have traditionally relied more on offline media, such as healthcare, CPG, restaurants, education and more. This is a unique opportunity to set Google marketing strategy within our Emerging Industries practice and advise Fortune 1000 advertisers on cutting edge marketing strategies. You will arm the Google salesforce with marketing programs that establish fresh thinking in the industry and deepen engagement with clients…

Responsibilities:

  • Ideate, develop, and execute marketing campaigns that drive Google’s advertising business.
  • Develop thought-leadership materials, client/executive presentations, case studies and other content designed to accelerate our business momentum and better engage Google’s customers.
  • Develop compelling positioning and messaging for Google’s advertising solutions targeted to companies in industries relatively new to online marketing, such as healthcare and CPG
  • Partner with Google’s market research team to identify, execute and package compelling market research that supports Google’s value proposition to large advertisers in these industries.
  • Evangelize Google’s value proposition, best practices and perspectives to our customers and our industry peers via events, webinars, and other direct client communications channels.

Yahoo uses neuromarketing for online ads: helping “maximize emotional connection and drive higher purchase intent” for Pepsi and others

The FTC and EU will need to develop safeguards on the use and role of neuromarketing techniques in advertising, especially when deployed for online campaigns.  Here’s an excerpt from a Yahoo post on the power of neuromarketing:

“…how do you measure the emotional connection in your advertising? Are some advertising mediums better than others in making that emotional connection? To answer these questions, Yahoo! partnered with NeuroFocus, a market leader in neurological market research. Yahoo! measured the brain waves of 74 people in real-time as they viewed online, print, and television executions of three ad campaigns from Pepsi, Infiniti, and Yahoo!…The simple answer is, consumers can’t hide their brain waves. By measuring the direct response of advertising at the brain level, we are able to observe and quantify pre-cognitive reactions
before reporting biases set in.

In this study, we specifically measured emotional engagement, purchase intent, and overall effectiveness. Ad responses were measured on a 10 point scale, with the median ad performance around 5.0.

GeographicTargeting_web

We found that the ads from all three brands performed above average across all platforms. However, when ads are optimized for the Internet, they maximize emotional connection and drive higher purchase intent. In fact, by designing ads that fully leverage the interactive strengths of the online platform, advertisers can even outperform TV in emotional engagement…When ads are optimized for the Internet, they maximize emotional connection and drive higher purchase intent
By taking full advantage of the unique capabilities of the Internet platform, the Infiniti ad scored higher on emotional engagement, purchase intent, and overall effectiveness than both the television and print version of this ad.”

from:  Making the Emotional Connection:  Advanced neurological research reveals deeper insights into ad effectiveness by medium.  Yahoo.  May 17, 2010.

Facebook: Ads, Data, and Dollars–its revenue comes from targeting “on users’ real life data”

Facebook execs frequently claim they don’t share their users personal information with advertisers.  They also always add that Facebook isn’t really that interested in advertising revenues.  But that’s not correct, as the Facebook Quarterly Business Review: Q1 2010 reflects.  Facebook, now cash positive, was said to earn somewhere between $600-700 million in revenues last year–up dramatically from the $150 million generated in 2007. The Quarterly estimates that Facebook should earn over $1 billion in 2010.  How?  “By growing multiple revenue sources, mostly around advertising,” it explains. Facebook is expected to earn some $350 million alone in 2010 from selling its ad services to big brands, with more growth expected.  In the last year, Facebook has “invested heavily in expanding its brand advertising efforts by opening up offices in Paris, Madrid, Milan, Hamburg, Sydney, Stockholm, Toronto and Los Angeles.”  The report says that Facebook will eventually earn some $20 billion a year, with a huge increase coming from big brand advertisers.

So-called performance advertising on Facebook [from social games, for example] is expected to bring in between $500-600 million this year.  There will also be additional revenues from Facebook’s virtual currency [and soon from mobile and location based marketing as well].

Facebook’s users aren’t informed about the datamining that occurs on what they post and communicate, including to their social networks.  We believe these systems require transparency and mechanisms of user control. And FTC and Congressional action.

Facebook teams with McDonald’s–location targeting for fast food giant part of a “bigger media buy”

Facebook is becoming a leading marketer for fast-food companies.  When one thinks about Facebook working to weaken privacy, keep in mind they want to better harvest user data to help sell ads and other marketing services to McDonald’s and others.  According to Ad Age [excerpt, sub. may be required]:

Facebook is preparing to launch location-based status updates for its users. But the social network is also planning to offer it to marketers, including McDonald’s. As early as this month, the social-networking site will give users the ability to post their location within a status update. McDonald’s, through digital agency Tribal DDB, Chicago, is building an app with Facebook would allow users to check in at one of its restaurants and have a featured product appear in the post, such as an Angus Quarter Pounder, say executives close to the deal.  Facebook is not directly charging McDonald’s to build the app; Facebook generally does not charge developers to build on its platform. But executives with knowledge say it was negotiated as part of a bigger media buy on Facebook, and McDonald’s will be the first marketer to take advantage of the service.

The fast feeder won’t be alone for long. While McDonald’s is expected to be involved in the rollout in the next few weeks, execs at other digital shops have begun to spec out location-based campaigns in anticipation of Facebook’s impending functionality, which will allow users to include their location in a status update.

…Kevin Colleran, director-national sales at Facebook…noted that Facebook has the world’s largest mobile application, with more than 100 million users each day.
source:  McDonald’s to Use Facebook’s Upcoming Location Feature:  Brands Eager to Build Apps Once Massive Social Network Launches Its Own Foursquare Competitor.  Emily Bryson York. Ad Age.  May 06, 2010

Facebook Tells Big Advertisers: We’re not “a pure social media site”

That’s what Facebook’s “Chief Revenue Officer” Mike Murphy told big brands like Coca Cola and Pepsi  at an invitation only event focused on better targeting teens and young adults.  The “PTTOW! Youth Media Summit is an annual, invite-only conference focused on the trillion dollar young adult market.  Bringing together the top marketers from the world’s most innovative companies, the event serves as a high-level forum for discussing youth media, marketing and culture across every major industry category.”

Facebook was there pitching its wares, helping big brands better target its users.  Mr. Murphy is quoted as saying that its Fan pages have become “a sustainable asset even after the campaign ends.” We all know that Facebook needs ads to thrive.  But it has to become honest with its users–and privacy and consumer protection policymakers–about the data it collects and how it’s used.  It’s also useful to know that Facebook doesn’t see itself only as a social media site–because it’s really part of online marketing [including increasingly for food and beverages linked to the global youth obesity crisis].

Ad Exchanges, Real-Time Auctioning of Users and Privacy: “our ability to target across many dimensions”

Last week, CDD, USPIRG and World Privacy Forum filed a complaint with the FTC asking it to protect the privacy of U.S. consumers.   Over the last two years, the growth of the data collection, tracking, analysis and targeting industry online–including the real-time auctioning off a consumer based on sets of their data–raises many concerns.  This blog will be covering the field, as CDD works to encourage the FTC and the EU to address the issue.  For now, it’s always useful to see what people from the online ad business say about these practices. In OMMA magazine, here are some excerpts from an article on the topic.

“We are definitely seeing the most exciting things for us in display in our ability to target across many dimensions,” says David Cohen, U.S. director of digital communications at Universal McCann. “Whether that is behavioral targeting or third-party data or our own platform – that is where we are seeing the most excitement – in targetability.” …“If you are an owner of display advertising, this is a great time to be in the marketplace,” says Dave Zinman, vice president and general manager of display advertising at Yahoo, which delivered 521 billion ad impressions in 2009… A new alphabet soup of suppliers and technologies emerged last year that promised at long last to apply better science to the art of display. Data providers like BlueKai or Media6Degrees helped marketers find the right audiences amidst the endless inventory of the Web. Much hope is circulating around real-time bidding (RTB) at ad-exchange engines like PubMatic, Yahoo’s RightMedia and The Rubicon Project. In these models, user data combines with real-time analysis of available inventory so an advertiser can buy individual impressions across a wide array of sites. Your ad appears only when just the right person hits a page… agencies have jumped on board with their own demand-side platforms (dsps) that buy inventory on the exchanges and networks along with third-party data in order to create their own audiences for clients…At the No. 2 seller of display, Fox, Mark Papia, senior vice president of the Fox Audience Network, is as enthused as anyone about the prospects for laser-targeting through the technologies and data layers that have been assembled over the last year. With 158 million uniques combined with data from Fox and 800 other publishing partners, he believes FAN has the scale and data to profit from next-gen display.

source:  Can Science Save the Banner?  Steve Smith.  OMMA.  April 2010.

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.  

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.”