Category: youth

Google & Microsoft Tout their Mobile Targeting Clout, inc. Behavioral, Location, Gender, etc.

My CDD and USPIRG asked the FTC in January 2009 to investigate mobile marketing and its threat to both privacy and consumer protection issues (Ringleader Digital, now the subject of lawsuits and stories in the WSJ and NYT, was included in the complaint, btw).  Online mobile marketers, including Microsoft and Google, illustrate how regulators in the U.S. and abroad should require safeguards to protect the public from unfair and deceptive practices–including those that involve their privacy.  In Ad Age, both Google and Microsoft loudly proclaim what their mobile marketing services can do for brands, ads and marketers.  Here are some choice excerpts:

Microsoft:  “Microsoft Advertising’s industry-leading mobile display and search advertising solutions engage more than 43 million on-the-go U.S. consumers each month—regardless of a user’s mobile phone or wireless carrier. Its innovative ad placements and ad formats include display, rich media, search, video and custom in-app ad units…

Advanced Targeting Options
  • Profile targeting: age, gender, household income, location, time of day
  • Behavioral targeting: more than 120 custom segments (e.g., “movie watchers” and “business travelers”)
  • Device: make and model
  • Wireless carriers: on-deck inventory
  • Keyword targeting: exact or broad match…Complete mobile ad solutions for automotive, CPG, entertainment, financial services, retail, technology, telecommunications, travel and other sectors…
  • More than 43 million, or 55 percent of active mobile web users in U.S.
  • More than 80 million active mobile users globally in 32 countries.”

Google: “Today’s consumers are on the move. More than ever before, audiences are searching and browsing the web on their mobile devices. How do advertisers connect with the on-the-go consumer…As customers go mobile, advertisers need smart mobile advertising strategies. With Google, they can easily target and tailor messages according to location and automatically show their customers relevant local business information or phone numbers to enable them to take immediate action. Once a campaign is up and running, marketers can measure their results via detailed reports. Additionally, integrated mobile reporting in Google Analytics allows them to track and optimize conversion, e-commerce and engagement metrics on mobile devices. They can take advantage of Google’s mobile-specific ad formats. Click-to-call text ads, animated mobile banner ads, click-to-download ads and other display ad formats are examples of how Google is innovating for the small screen.  Google closed its acquisition of AdMob, one of the world’s leading mobile advertising networks, in May. AdMob’s innovative rich media ad units—including full-screen expandable, animated banner and interactive video—create opportunities for advertisers to engage with a relevant audience on their mobile devices. Now the Google and AdMob teams are working to create new ways to deliver engaging and innovative advertising experiences that will help marketers drive their businesses forward…

CASE STUDY

CHALLENGE: Esurance, a direct-to-consumer personal car insurance company, wanted to ensure that customers could do business with it on their own terms and at their own convenience… To make the connection between mobile users and Esurance agents, Esurance used Google mobile ads with integrated click-to-call functionality. The CTC ads gave mobile users the option of clicking through to Esurance’s mobile-optimized landing page or initiating a phone call with a licensed insurance agent…Results…

  • Boosted conversion rates: Click-to-call mobile ads drove a 30 percent to 35 percent higher response.”

PS:  Attention Music Lovers.  In the same Ad Age piece, the online music service Pandora exclaims that it can provide:“Through powerful hypertargeting, reach the right person, at the right time, without waste. Target based on age, day, gender, location, mobile platform, time and type of music…Pandora offers a broad array of formats and rich media functions to create an immersive mobile experience, including:

  • Tap to video
  • Drag and drop
  • Tap to app
  • Tap to call
  • Tap to e-mail
  • Tap to expand
  • Tap to find a location
  • Tap to iTunes
  • Tap to mobile webpage
  • Standard banners”

Facebook’s Partnership with Target Stores: Is this leading to its work thwarting a Boycott effort?

As news reports emerge that Facebook is preventing a group boycotting Target Stores for its political positions able to use the social network’s functionality, it’s important to connect its business relationship with the chain store.   Facebook recently made a deal with Target as part of its marketing push for its virtual “Credits” currency.  The growing relationship of the biggest brands and Facebook, and what happens to our information and how these companies get preferred treatment, must be on the policy and advocates agenda. Politico reported that: “As the number of Facebook members signed up for the “Boycott Target Until They Cease Funding Anti-Gay Politics” page neared 78,000 in recent days, Facebook personnel locked down portions of the page — banning new discussion threads, preventing members from posting videos and standard Web links to other sites and barring the page’s administrator from sending updates to those who signed up for the boycott.”

Facebook and Target stores are new partners, something which may explain its censorious efforts.  Inside Facebook also recently reported:“Following recent efforts by Zynga, Playdom and other social gaming companies to launch pre-paid cards for virtual goods in stores, Facebook is going direct — starting this Sunday, it will allow users to buy pre-paid cards for its virtual currency, Credits, within 1,743 Target retail locations across the US and on Target.com.

Cards can be purchased in $15, $25 and $50 increments, similar pricing to what you’ll see for a wide variety of other pre-paid game cards already available in Targets and other stores around the country.

Facebook itself is also helping to push the new integration, by including a Target store finder on its official Credits splash page. When users click on the “Redeem Gift Card” in the Facebook Credits gift cards section of the Credits page, they’ll see a popup window asking them to enter the scratch-off number on the back of the Credits card. Clicking “Redeem Now” will add the amount of Credits purchased to their Facebook account.”



Yahoo’s Targets Millions of Users for its Largest Advertisers, via a “Magic Formula” Powering its Ad Auction System

Preston McAfee Magic FormulaThat’s the formula Yahoo is using to please its largest advertisers, explains an article in The Register.  The report explains that Yahoo’s economist Preston McAfee has created a “magical formula” for its ad targeting service:  “a formula designed to keep Yahoo!’s largest advertisers as happy as possible. It lets each of those guaranteed-contract advertisers pick and choose — in remarkably precise fashion — how their ads are targeted, even though there are more than three trillion possible targets…Yes, Yahoo! has advertisers who only want to reach women between the ages of twenty and thirty. But it also has advertisers who only want to advertise in cities where the sun is shining. There are brokerage houses who only want to advertise when the stock market is up…What is really ‘magic’ about this is that it gave us a backdoor way to price three trillion different pieces of advertiser demand,” McAfee says…The setup also gives Yahoo! fine-grain control over each advertiser’s campaign. “It gives us a dial to favor an advertiser,” he continues. “If one of our advertisers is not getting enough impressions, we turn the dial and increase their bids, to make sure we fulfill the contract.”

But what’s needed is a policy formula–that creates privacy and other consumer protection safeguards.  Online marketing’s use of advanced computing systems and real-time ad auctions of data on individual users underscores the problem–the industry is running amok.   Consumers shouldn’t be subject to powerful invisible technologies that track, profile, target and sell them to the highest bidder.

Digital Junk Food Marketing Watch: Cox’s Adify Bringing Behavioral Targeting to Food Marketing to Youth and Others?

Adify–owned by Cox Enterprises–provides online marketing and network tools–including behavioral targeting. It offers advertisers the ability to track you site to site (retargeting), can “deploy tracking beacons,” and uses “sophisticated logic to define targetable behavioral segments.”  Adify’s “platform powers more than 160 of the world’s best vertical ad networks, and connects premium brand advertisers to the deeply engaged audiences of thousands of quality mid- and long-tail sites.” Its network provides services for a number of sites, including those targeting African Americans, Gays and Lesbians and others.  It now is moving into what is called the “food vertical” business–which means helping quick service restaurants and other food and beverage companies target youth and others.

The FTC is now looking into the digital marketing of food and beverages to youth–prodded by my CDD.  No food marketer should use behavioral targeting or any related data collection and profiling technique when targeting children and adolescents.  Questions must also be raised about vulnerable populations as well.   Cox should ensure that its Adify doesn’t multiple the country’s obesity epidemic.

Microsoft Fuels Youth Obesity Epidemic via Xbox tie-ins: Digital Product Placement and Beyond

Microsoft is one of the most aggressive online marketing companies targeting teens online.  Across the globe, Microsoft Advertising touts its ability to deliver interactive food and beverage ads on PCs, mobile phones, gaming devices and via IM, Bing, etc.  Teens and young adults are the key target–but so are young children.  In its desperation to catch up with online ad leader Google, Microsoft has strained to be the “yes we will” digital agency.  For several years, Microsoft has had a close tie with Pepsi’s Doritos and Mountain Dew, offering various special games that feature the chip.  Now Microsoft is continuing that alliance, as the new Halo:Reach edition comes to market.  As explained by Variety, “helping build Microsoft’s brand is Madison Avenue, which has fully embraced the franchise’s main character, Master Chief, and turned him into a pitch soldier, with PepsiCo plastering him on 300 million Mountain Dew cans and 30 million bags of Doritos for the launch of the latest game.”

Microsoft officials–and those who play a influential role in the company–should not endorse digital marketing schemes that target youth–and especially contribute to such major public health problems as youth obesity.  For shame, Microsoft.

Kmart targets teens online, via Alloy Media Digital Marketing: Time for FTC & Congress to Protect Adolescent Consumers, inc. Privacy

Teens are ground zero for the digital marketing industry, worldwide, since they are seen as the “always-on” online generation.  Companies such as Microsoft, AOL, Sulake, MTV/Nick and many others closely research the digital behaviors of youth–all so they can be better targeted online.  This week, Kmart became the lead sponsor for a new online series featuring “product integration” and produced by tween/teen targeting company Alloy Media [now owned by Zelnick Media].  Here’s what Ad Age reported [excerpt]:This week, Alloy debuts “First Day,” its first wholly original series for the web and a branded-entertainment vehicle for Kmart, which will use the program to promote three of its back-to-school product lines: Bongo, Rebecca Bon Bon and Dream Out Loud…Josh Bank, Alloy Entertainment’s East Coast president, saw “First Day” as a creative challenge to build a series’ concept around Kmart’s brand brief. The eight-episode series follows main character Cassie…as she’s forced to relive her first day of high school over again, “Groundhog Day” style…Although Kmart and its products are never addressed by name in “First Day,” each episode will be supported by display and video pre-roll video ads highlighting the participating retail lines, with links to Kmart’s own micro-sites to purchase the products seen in the series. “First Day” will also receive heavy promotion via click-to-expand video ad units from Alloy properties such as Gurl.com, Alloy.com and Teen.com, and exclusive web partnerships with Meez.com, Candystand and Fanpop among others. Kmart’s media agency, MPG, and digital agency, Digitas, helped broker the deal and create the media plan with Alloy.”

Here’s how Alloy Digital explains what it delivers for marketers:  “Nobody knows the youth market better. As a pioneer in the digital space, Alloy connects with millions of young consumers online through highly trafficked websites and premium original web programming. What does that mean for you? Access to the highest concentration of teens, tweens and young adults available online. And comScore agrees – the Alloy Digital Network has ranked #1 in its category for the past year…At Alloy, our sole mission is to identify and develop innovative spaces and tactics to ensure your brand message reaches an engaged audience.”  They explain to advertisers that they know their youth target well: “We know who they are. Socialites, gamers, skaters, fashionistas – we’re all about what they’re into, where they hang out, who they are “socializing” with and … we know where to reach them. Our networks are unparalleled. No other company can deliver this level of specificity, on this large a scale and with this degree of focus. We are where they are, and so is your message.”

And it’s time to wake up FTC and state a-g’s–let alone parents.  Look at how Alloy tries to capture its youthful target via these interactive marketing tactics:
Display: Standard IAB units, interstitials

  • Full rich media capabilities
  • Targeting by geographic and demographic

Video pre/mid/post-roll

  • Targeting by geographic and demographic

Custom Integrated Programs:

  • Homepage Domination
  • Custom Video Programs
  • Sweepstakes & Contests
  • Advertorials, Quizzes, Editorial Sponsorships, Polls
  • Custom Games
  • Virtual World brand immersion programs
  • Social Media integration within Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube

and in searching for partners to help them target youth, Alloy explains:
“As a select member of the Alloy Digital Network, you can increase your ad revenue, raise your site visibility, traffic and buzz among users…

Become a Partner Member – Does your site have what it takes to be a part of the network? Established audience? Ad-friendly? The requirements are:

  • Minimum 100k monthly unique visitors
  • Content targeting 12-34 demo…”

Teens should not be the focus of non-transparent and unfair online marketing tactics, including data collection.  This is part of the current federal privacy and fair rules for online marketing, especially for youth, debate.  Stay Tuned!

Facebook Places & Data: “Every single action people take…becomes an object in Facebook’s database.” $1.7 billion in ad revenues in 2011

From eMarketer on The Advertising Opportunity in Facebook Places [excerpt]: Facebook’s value as a business comes from all the bits of information it gleans about its users from their daily activities. Every single action people take—whether it’s writing a status update, posting a photo, commenting on a friend’s post, liking a marketer’s message or playing a game—becomes an object in Facebook’s database. Location is a type of data that is very compelling because it provides additional context for the actions people take on Facebook…If ads can be pushed to people in the moment they are engaged with something, rather than waiting until they take action and start a search, the ads become very very powerful.  Location will give Facebook a new way to target and sell advertising… By offering ways for marketers to target Facebook users not only on the online service but also when they are on the go and using Facebook on their mobile phones, it opens up all-new avenues for interaction.

Teens and Online Privacy: Empowering Adolescents to Control How Online Marketers Can Stealithily Target Them and Collect Data

Some commentators–and groups funded by online marketers that target teens–are worried that proposals to the FTC and Congress that adolescent privacy be protected will somehow create a system that requires forms of age verification online.  The coalition of leading consumer, child advocacy, health and privacy organizations filing comments at the FTC last week aren’t calling for the parental permission paradigm used by the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act [COPPA] be extended to teens.  But there are many online commercial services specifically targeting adolescents–that’s their target market.  It’s those sites and services specifically focused on adolescents that we want to have better privacy safeguards.   We want those sites to be governed by an opt-in regime that gives teen users meaningful control of how their information is collected and utilized.  Those sites should be required to engage in the Fair Information Principles known as  “data use minimization.”  Commercial sites targeting adolescents should make its data collection practices fully transparent and under the control by the teen (including a truly accessible privacy policy).  In another words, a privacy safeguard regime that really should be available for everyone.  Teens are ‘ground zero’ for much of digital marketing–for examples see our site: www.digitalads.org [especially the update section].  If you look at the reports on that site, you will see that the most recent scholarly thinking is that brain development in adolescents occurs much later than what was once thought.  They don’t have the ability to effectively understand the intent of highly sophisticated interactive marketing and the corresponding data collection which underlies contemporary digital advertising. That’s why empowering them so they can protect their privacy strengthens their rights.

Protecting Children’s Privacy Online at the FTC: Statement of Kathryn Montgomery, PhD

CDD will soon file at the FTC on how to ensure the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act [COPPA] can better protect the online privacy of children under 13.  It’s a 1998 law that we led the campaign to have enacted.  Here’s a brief excerpt from what our colleague Prof. Kathryn Montgomery told the FTC today:

Statement of Kathryn C. Montgomery, PhD

Professor, School of Communication

American University

Protecting Kids’ Privacy Online: Reviewing the COPPA Rule

Federal Trade Commission

June 2, 2010

For the past decade, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) has served as an effective safeguard for young consumers in the online marketing environment. Because the legislation was passed during the early stages of Internet e-commerce, COPPA established a clear set of “rules of the road” to help guide the development of the children’s digital marketplace. The law created a level playing field, ensuring that every commercial player—from the largest children’s media companies to the smallest start-ups – would treat young people fairly.

Congress intended COPPA’s basic framework to be flexible, anticipating changes in both technology and business practices, and requiring periodic reviews by the Federal Trade Commission to ensure its continued effectiveness. Today’s children are growing up in a ubiquitous digital media environment, where mobile devices, instant messaging, social networks, virtual reality, avatars, interactive games, and online video have become ingrained in their personal and social experiences. The online marketing practices of the 1990s have been eclipsed by a new generation of tracking and targeting techniques.

In its current review, the Federal Trade Commission must ensure that its COPPA rules include the full range of Internet-enabled or -connected services, including the increasingly ever-present cell phones children use, along with Web-connected gaming devices and online, interactive video.  Moreover, COPPA’s definition of personal information must be revised to include the latest methods of identifying and targeting online consumers, covering the so-called “cookies” that are used for interactive marketing data collection, as well as “mobile geo-location information.” With these and other necessary updates, the law will continue to ensure that children reap the benefits of the digital age without compromising their privacy, safety, and wellbeing.

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.