Category: Congress

“Behavioral Targeting provides realtime visibility into actions of indviduals” says marketer

Excerpt from EMC.com’s Fast Facts on behavioral targeting:

Unprecedented Opportunity

Behavioral targeting provides realtime visibility into actions of individuals…Firms that specialize in audience segmentation have refined the use of behavioral targeting…Ten years ago, it would have been impossible for a marketer to reach an individual who lived in Seattle, enjoyed tennis, and tended to surf on a high-speed connection at 10 A.M. on Tuesday’s.  Today, it is not only possible to identify the target, but it is also possible to reach the target with highly customized messaging.  Behavioral targeting variables, or targeted schemas, are limited by only two factors: a marketer’s imagination and the advertising network offering visibility into web-wide behavior.

Behavioral advertising networks…provide a piece of tracking code to be placed on one or more pages of the market’s website.  The code is used to identify a visitor to the site as a person eligible to receive a targeted message elsewhere on the web…some large portal websites such as Yahoo! do not need a “network” to define behavioral segments across their thousands of content categories.

Microsoft’s “Sweeping Vision” for Online Ads: “unlocking the Holy Grail of marketing” by “mining user intent”

The digital data collection arms race is unleashing powerful forces focused on data collection and consumer targeting across much of the online world.  As advertisers meet to discuss and celebrate their accomplishment and plans, as part of Advertising Week, Microsoft is playing a leading role.  As you read about their plans from this excerpt in Adweek, keep in mind that they hope to bundle their search marketing platform with Yahoo!

Microsoft is heading into Advertising Week looking to capture the ad industry’s attention by laying out a sweeping vision for the online advertising market and the integral part it plans to play in its the future…At the heart of that undertaking is the plan to build a product that can determine exactly what ads Web users want to see and when. “At the core, the most important thing to us is mining user intent,” Howe [Scott Howe, corporate vp, Microsoft’s advertiser and publisher solutions group], said. “What does a user really want to see in the way of advertising.”

That’s easy in search. But intent is not so clear on content sites or social networks. “If Bing is step one [for Microsoft Advertising], step two is extending that engine to power the ads that someone sees across all display ad formats and multiple devices,” Howe said.

…”When people talk about behavioral targeting, often they’re talking about flat display formats on a PC — and we’re talking about across all digital devices,” he said. “And so, by having this engine power all the different things holistically, we’re actually in some respects unlocking the Holy Grail of marketing.”

Neuromarketing firm, backed by Nielsen, brings in expert on “attention, language…reading development”

Neurofocus–the global neuromarketing firm backed by Nielsen–has added to its staff Dr. Steven Miller [“A neuropsychologist with expertise in the assessment and treatment of problems in attention, language, or reading development, Dr. Miller has extensive experience using a variety of behavioral and brain-imaging methodologies (e.g., EEG, MEG and fMRI).”]

Here’s how Nielsen explains what Neurofocus can do for clients, such as brands:

Understand consumers’ subconscious responses to messages with brainwave analysis and increase the effectiveness of marketing and branding content.

Influencing the unfiltered feelings locked in the subconscious and protected by thousands of years of evolutionary defenses has been the bane – and the bread and butter – of advertisers and market researchers since the beginning of the media age. The Nielsen Company and NeuroFocus, Inc. offer neuroscience-based products, services and metrics in retail, consumer packaged goods, television, film and emerging media. Using established electroencephalographic (EEG) techniques to measure degrees of attention, memory retention and emotional engagement, neurological testing provides precise, projectable insights into consumer behavior along with recommendations for increasing message effectiveness.

With NeuroFocus, Nielsen supports an array of marketing challenges:

Understanding Your Audience By addressing consumer responses in the subconscious, where purchase intent is formed, determine precisely how consumers react to a message.

Microsoft Extends Behavioral Targeting to Mobile [Bing Will be Ringing & Tracking & Profiling]

Read this excerpt from the Microsoft Advertising announcement released today.  And ask if your privacy is really protected when they use your search data to target you over mobile devices for “financial services,” “lifestyles,” and other “behavioral segments.”

Today we launched our Mobile Behavioral Targeting Solution, which means all of the powerful behavioral targeting options, segments and categories previously only available on our online properties are now available to buyers of our mobile display inventory as well.

Mobile behavioral targeting enables advertisers to reduce advertising waste and maximize the impact and ROI of their mobile campaigns by targeting consumers who have already demonstrated an interest in specific product categories. Over one hundred behavioral segments across popular advertiser categories such as Automotive, Financial Services, Health, Lifestyle, Life Stages, News and Entertainment, Retail, Technology and Travel are available for purchase.

How does Microsoft measure behavior?

Microsoft Behavioral Targeting works by anonymously tracking behaviors of users and classifying these users into unique segments using information from the following data sources:

. PC Web keyword search behavior from Bing Search

. PC Web Site visits to various sites across the Microsoft network

. Microsoft network data (i.e. Hotmail newsletters, Xbox subscription data)

. Profile data from Windows Live

With Microsoft Mobile Behavioral Targeting, data from these sources and others is factored together along with its relevancy to create hundreds of unique, specific segments. Within these niches are the consumers who are most likely to be receptive to your message. Your mobile ads are served only to users in your desired segments, enabling you to refine your reach and increase your campaign’s performance. Simple yet powerful, Behavioral Targeting is one of the most effective and efficient forms of mobile advertising available today.

Here at Microsoft we understand that preserving consumer trust is essential to the success of our business. Microsoft maintains a strong focus on protecting customers’ privacy and adheres to high privacy standards. Our Mobile Behavioral Targeting Solutions do not utilize personally identifiable information (like name, address or phone number).

Online Ad Lobby: A Failure of Vision and Ethical Responsibility

Online ad and other marketing industry lobbyists, in responding to the recent call for Congress to enact privacy safeguards, have failed to seriously address the central public interest issues.  One lobbyist even went so far as to suggest that people want to be tracked, profiled and targeted through their ethnic/racial and political online behaviors.  Others have claimed that providing the public control over what information about them is collected and how it’s used would somehow lead to the erosion of online publishing.  Beyond the absurdity and short-sightedness of such claims, what these online ad leaders fail to address are the civil liberties and consumer protection concerns at the core of the debate.

A democratic society in the digital era–given the current and prospective power of the global online data collection and targeting system–requires serious limits on both commercial and governmental surveillance.  The development of digital dossiers on citizens and others is the realm of dictatorships and autocrats–not a democracy.  That’s why it’s in the interest of responsible advertisers as our fellow citizens to help ensure there are limits on data collection, analysis, use.  By providing individuals greater control and autonomy over the digital marketing process–through federal rules requiring transparency, accountability, and meaningful limits to data collection–we can help protect our civil liberties and provide needed consumer protections.  Everyone recognizes that we are using online to engage in very personal transactions, including health, finance, and politics.  We will be, needless to say, writing more on all this.

Our new Journal of Adolescent Health article on the Youth Obesity Epidemic and Digital Marketing

Prof. Kathryn Montgomery and I just published an article in the Journal of Adolescent Health [JAH] on the the role interactive marketing plays in the current youth obesity epidemic.  It is part of a special JAH issue focused on the obesity issue.  It’s a very good introduction to the current digital marketing landscape, and is one of a series of reports we have done on the issue.

Microsoft Pushes a “Behavioral Targeting Product Roadmap” and it is “Betting” on Increased Consumer Targeting, inc. “Retargeting.” Company Wants to “Live the Data”

The potential combination of the behavioral targeting technologies of both Microsoft and Yahoo! should be one of the key areas investigated by antitrust authorities.  Privacy issues are also important for regulators to address with the proposed deal.  So these current behavioral targeting job openings at Microsoft provide a glimpse into these issues.

Microsoft is now seeking a “Product Marketing Manager of Behavioral Targeting on the Audience Select team…The Product Marketing Manager will establish the requirements and go to market strategy for Microsoft’s Behavioral Targeting product. S/he will partner with a team of world-class engineers, client service, business operations, legal, privacy and other product marketers to envision and design the industry’s best targeting technology to connect advertisers with their audience. The candidate chosen for this position will be responsible for creating the product GTM roadmap, developing and prioritizing segment requirements and designing GTM models to support the sale and delivery of behaviorally targeted advertising. S/he will be Microsoft’s resident expert on Behavioral Targeting and will be the first person to explain and communicate business metrics – particularly sell-thru – to field, business, and engineering…Articulate the behavioral targeting product roadmap to key customers and partners, and aggregate industry feedback in a form that is actionable for development…Influence long-range, multi-release planning for behavioral targeting…Someone with a deep passion for advertising technology and a deep knowledge of the targeted industry…”

Then look at this position for a “Taxonomist/Audience Intelligence.”  Note that they include the fiction that Microsoft will compete with Yahoo!!!

Online advertising is the biggest growth opportunity for Microsoft. This business currently generates about $2B in revenue for Microsoft with tremendous opportunity ahead, given how the industry wide advertising is shifting to digital media. Join and help take our digital advertising to the next level to compete against Google and Yahoo with our initiatives in Audience Intelligence. Our group is chartered to develop an industry leading targeting system for all our ad products and services. Effective targeting helps an advertiser reach their core audience and will drive high value propositions to the end customers. We as a company is betting on this initiative to differentiate our advertising offerings to our customers and to further grow our advertising revenue.

We are seeking an experienced taxonomist to provide thought leadership in taxonomy, classification, and metadata management. Audience Intelligence enables the discovery and inference of user profiles, intent and interaction while respecting privacy and trust, with the ultimate goal of maximizing benefits for users, advertisers and publishers. Our focus spans all types of digital advertising such as search, display and emerging media including mobile, gaming, video on demand, and IPTV.

And they also want someone to help its behavioral retargeting initiatives (which it calls remessaging!)

The Search & Media Network Group within Microsoft Advertising is looking for a rock star product manager to deliver against revenue goals for Microsoft Advertising’s Re-Messaging product, by driving global business planning and execution, product marketing and competitive strategy…We work to seamlessly combine a range of individual online advertising products that span search, display and audience targeting, into solutions that address advertisers’ core campaign objectives.
Your core mission will be driving business revenue and field sales engagement with the Re-Messaging ad product (also known in the industry as Re-Targeting)… Live the data, by building a deep understanding of the key metrics associated with the Re-Messaging business, and driving analysis into trends and emerging opportunities…Specific partners will include product planning, trade / field marketing, sales, yield/monetization and more…

Billy Tauzin, Wheeler dealer for PhRMA lobby and the Two-House MegaDeal Even Hollywood Wouldn’t Make

If you followed the career of Billy Tauzin while he was a power on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, you know that he supported further media & telecommunications deregulation, more media consolidation, and led an effort that would have undermined Internet network neutrality.  Tauzin, now head of the drug industry’s lobbying group PhRMA, recently brokered a sweet deal with the Obama White House on health care reform.  In order to secure support for a national heath care plan from a major industry lobbying group,  the Obama Administration agreed to a plan where drug manufactuers would provide some $80 billion in discounts and subsidies over the next ten years.  But the agreement, in my opinion, leaves the drug industry off the hook.

But here’s the Hollywood connection and why Tauzin’s wheeler-dealer skills have ended up working on behalf of PhRMA.  As Tauzin prepared to retire from Congress,  he sought much greener ($$$$) pastures, including taking over Jack Valenti’s role as head of the Motion Picture Association of America, MPAA.  According to Variety [Jan. 23, 2004], “negotiations between the MPAA and Tauzin had broken down because Tauzin wanted too much compensation. Valenti is one of the highest-paid lobbyists in Washington, pulling in more than $1 million a year, but Tauzin asked for hundreds of thousands of dollars more as well as a residence in both L.A. and New York.  “He was just over-reaching,” one source said.  Tauzin accepted “a more generous offer to become the pharmaceutical industry trade association’s top lobbyist…The offer from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America is said to be unprecedented for a Washington trade association. Tauzin currently chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees legislation affecting the telecom and media industries, as well as the pharmaceutical industry.”

In negotiating the deal with the Obama White House to protect the pharmaceutical industry from having to make meaningful contributions to national health care, Tauzin has clearly earned PhARMA’s “more generous offer” that trumped the MPAA.

Microsoft/Yahoo: Regulators in U.S. and EU Must Ask–How will the Deal Really Protect Privacy, Serve Consumers & Promote Competition

The Center for Digital Democracy will ask regulators (in both the U.S. and EU) to closely– and skeptically– examine the Microsoft/Yahoo deal, including a thorough analysis of the proposed data collection, privacy and online ad-related business practices.  This agreement basically merges the Microsoft and Yahoo search platforms.  Instead of competing ad sales teams for “premium” search, Yahoo becomes the “exclusive” agent; the Bing search platform serves both MSN and Yahoo.  There are questions that must be answered regarding the collection and sharing of consumer data by the two companies.  We are concerned that this agreement is merely an initial step in what will eventually be the complete integration of Microsoft and Yahoo (including mobile, display, ad exchanges, research and development, etc.).  Both Microsoft and Yahoo understand that to compete in today’s online advertising marketplace, search and display marketing (including data collection, analysis, and targeting) must be closely linked.

What we are now witnessing is the emergence of a global digital advertising duopoly:  Google and Microsoft/Yahoo. While the rationale for the deal is to provide some much needed competition to Google (and income for Yahoo), the further consolidation of the global digital advertising system should be a concern to Internet users, privacy advocates, online marketers, and competition regulators.  [Regulators in both the U.S. and the EU helped set the stage for this Microsoft/Yahoo deal when they approved without conditions Google’s takeover of DoubleClick –which CDD and others opposed].

Regulators will have to demonstrate to both consumers and search advertisers that they will actually benefit from this proposed deal:  will it really reduce the cost of search ads, bring tangible financial gains to consumers, and truly protect our privacy?

Disney’s Bob Iger, Kids and Behavioral Tracking/Targeting: He Claims “Kids don’t care” about their Privacy

My friend the children’s TV activist Peggy Charren, back during the 1970’s and 1980’s, had a favorite expression when it came to dealing with self-serving media moguls who trampled on concerns about kids:  “I’d like to wash your mouth out with soap,” she would exclaim (given her tenacity, they knew she meant business).  Robert Iger, the head of Disney, is quoted in Reuters saying that: “If we could sell your behavior to an advertiser — I am actually pretty bullish about what technology is going to allow in terms of behavioral tracking. I think we are going to have information to sell to marketers.”

Unbelievably, Mr. Iger, when citing concerns over privacy, says that: “Kids don’t care,”…adding that when he talked to his adult children about their online privacy concerns “they can’t figure out what I’m talking about.”

Mr. Iger has just dramatically tarnished the Disney brand, by suggesting that it’s okay to engage in digital marketing and data collection to children and adolescents.  Not only is he thumbing his nose at the bipartisan Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, but the growing concern health, parenting and children’s groups have regarding youth privacy and consumer protection.  Instead of Disney being a youth industry leader when it comes to digital marketing, it appears the company is shirking what its role should be.  Peggy–I hope you still have one of those bars of soap!