Category: Obama Administration

Customized Online Ads using vast data sets

Steve Lohr of the New York Times reports in Bits that “Murthy Nukala, the chief executive of Adchemy, calls his company’s technology “statistical personalization.” It doesn’t really identify a person, he said. But by probing vast data sets, from click streams to marketing information from firms like Acxiom, Adchemy can identify the sorts of people -– by age, gender and interests -– that advertisers want to pinpoint.“We don’t hold any data. We just connect to 30 or 40 data sources,” Mr. Nukala said.”

Adchemy is a good example of the growing data collection apparatus that fine-tunes the pitch by using “customized marketing content” along with its real-time analysis.  Here’s an excerpt from its website:

Highly customized marketing based on visitor context. All prospects – even anonymous ones – can be described by multiple attributes, including publisher, placement, search query, ad displayed, ad element clicked, geography, demographics, time of day/week/month and other marketer-defined attributes. Adchemy calls the sum total of all these attributes “visitor context.” At every level of the Customer Acquisition Funnel, the Adchemy Digital Marketing Platform dynamically generates the most customized marketing content for the prospect based on the visitor context.

Continuously optimized, real-time content delivery. Based on the user’s visitor context, the best content is served to each visitor in real time without any manual, human involvement. The learning engines proactively synthesize advertising performance and respond automatically to each customer with appropriate content based on powerful patent-pending statistical techniques. Adchemy’s patent-pending statistical techniques speed up the traditionally slow process of gathering statistically significant marketing insights.

AAAA Letter to DoJ on Microsoft/Yahoo Deal: `Mad’ Merger Men & Women Missing Some Truth in Advertising

The 4A’S advertising trade and lobby organization sent a letter to the Department of Justice yesterday supporting the Microsoft/Yahoo search merger deal.  Among the five signatories from some of the biggest and most powerful ad companies was the head of the Publicis Groupe. But missing from the `approve this deal’ letter was any acknowledgment that Publicis is a partner of Microsoft–something we and other consumer groups have asked the DoJ to investigate as part of its review.

The recent deal between Microsoft and Publicis includes the sale of Razorfish, combined online ad activities and also data sharing.   In addition, Microsoft is expected to own 3% of Publicis after the deal closes, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The letter to the DoJ should have disclosed this and other conflicts of interest.

Neuromarketing Hollywood style [inc. Fox!]: “This allows our clients to see what their audience is seeing and feeling, not what they say they’re seeing and feeling”

The intrepid Variety columnist Brian Lowry took readers on a tour of a neuromarketing outfit that works for show-biz companies, among others.  Here’s a excerpt:

Innerscope Research was birthed just three years ago, but the company has already found various entertainment and advertising clients for its biometric research, which employs eye-tracking technology as well as EKG monitors to gauge subconscious response along four key criteria: heart rate, breathing, moisture levels (or sweat) and movement.

“It’s very hard for people to accurately reflect their internal world,” says Innerscope CEO Carl Marci, noting that 75% of brain processing “is below conscious awareness.”…they have notched a number of entertainment clients looking to augment traditional research, including Fox, NBC and Discovery, along with a growing number of advertisers…Biometrics thus provides a diagnostic tool, able to pinpoint physical reactions to specific moments that the viewer might not even realize…Innerscope’s findings have included the revelation that people exhibit emotional responses as they fast-forward through commercial pods, meaning that ads are still registering to those viewing via TiVo or another digital video recorder. The company can also pinpoint whether a movie trailer, say, is generating the sort of “emotional engagement” that marketers hope to achieve.

“This allows our clients to see what their audience is seeing and feeling, not what they say they’re seeing and feeling,” Marci explains [Innerscope CEO Carl Marci].

source:  The future of focus group testing/This test gets under your skin.  Brian Lowry.  Variety.  October 5-11, 2009,

Online Ad Networks Targeting Teens: Time for new privacy safeguards

Teens are a major focus of online advertising.  We have asked Congress and the FTC to develop safeguards to ensure adolescents have their privacy protected.  As part of the public debate, it’s useful to review how online ad networks target teen users.  Here are some examples:

Betawave (its 12-17 targeting service):  “If it feels like it’s impossible to capture the attention of today’s short-attention-span teenager, we’d beg to differ. On average, teenagers spent 15 mins per session on our publisher sites and 73.7 mins per month. More importantly, their mindstate is highly receptive to advertising with stats 118% higher than industry average and 158% more likely to agree that advertisements influence their purchase decisions…What’s our secret? Our selection of casual games, virtual worlds, and social play sites that are in touch with their Teen and Tween audiences. We know how to create content to hold the attention of the American Teenager, but to also keep them coming back for more…Our Teen and Tween audience consumes all types of different media, but is addicted to the Internet. The content of our sites appeal to the “Influencers” — the kids who assert their preferences with parents and peers and impact the behavior of others…“Virtual World Integration:  Imagine a marketing vehicle where users embrace sponsorship, where they constantly ask for more brands, and where advertising is seen as a validation of their community. Virtual worlds offer this experience to savvy marketers…Integrate your product into virtual worlds, and turn casual observers into brand champions.”

Kiwibox teen network [Burst Network]:  “Kiwibox Teen Network, brought to you by Burst Network, is the premier online vehicle for advertisers looking to target the teenage audience of girls and guys that are currently in high school or college. The anchor site for the network, Kiwibox.com, is a popular social networking destination and online magazine for teens…

As a member of Kiwibox Teen Network, your site will get the attention of popular brand marketers and attract high CPM campaigns. Advertisers on Kiwibox Teen Network will include the best brand names in consumer electronics, telecom, entertainment, apparel/footwear, snacks and beverages, retail, beauty products, and fast food…Kiwibox Teen Network supports several types of Rich Media layer ad units, including Interstitials, Superstitials, Floating, Synchronized and In-Person Rovion ads. We have partnerships with the top Rich Media vendors like PointRoll, Eyewonder, EyeBlaster, Unicast, Interpoll, and Atlas… “

The “Hidden Persuaders” returns with the growing role of Neuromarketing: “Your message or materials will be absorbed directly into the consumer’s subsconscious” [Annals of Mass Micro-Persuasion]

As we have explained to policymakers in the US and EU, the growing use of neuroscience techniques requires government scrutiny and regulatory safeguards. Even political campaigns appear to be using such methods.  No one should be permitted, in my opinion, to devise any public effort that is designed to deliberately influence the unconscious part of our brain.

Here’s an except from a research paper by a Nielsen backed neuromarketing firm called Neurofocus.   The paper is “Absorption:  How Messages Morph into Meaning And Value in The Mind,” and was written by Dr. A. K. Pradeep.  [published September 2008]

Engagement brings you to the threshold. Absorption carries you beyond, to the state where your message or other material has been fully taken in by the consumer’s brain... Full absorption is also when your message or materials or retail environment, etc. return the highest rate of impact and value for your investment. But neuroscientific research demonstrates that you cannot, and will not, reach that goal consistently and most effectively unless and until you understand how the brain actually functions, and you shape your messages/material /environment accordingly.

For example, as I cited above, we have identified 67 specific ‘best practices’ that should be implemented when words and images are presented on a screen (any screen, from a TV or PC to a mobile phone or movie theater). They are the result of advanced neurological research into various brain functions, and especially research that has delved into the mysteries of diseases like Alzheimer’s, and brain conditions like ADD/ADHD, obsessive/compulsive behavior, and bipolar disorder.

Follow these best practices, give the brain what it wants and likes most, and you stand the best chance of success for your brand and your investment. Your message or materials will be absorbed directly into the consumer’s subconscious, where we can measure them for their effectiveness at the level devoid of any ‘outside’ contaminating influences like education, language, cultural ethnicity or other factors.





Study: “…our findings suggest that if Americans could vote on behavioral targeting today, they would shut it down.”

That’s from the overview section of an important new research report: Americans Reject Tailored Advertising and Three Activities That Enable It. Conducted by a team of academics in two leading universities–the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania and UC Berkeley’s Center for Law & Technology–it’s an essential text for those concerned about privacy, consumer welfare and civil liberties.  The study is a concise overview of the issue, and includes a very important analysis and discussion.

Microsoft’s Mobile Behavioral Targeting includes deal with ad giant Publicis

The growing integration of data collection and targeting across key platforms by key online marketing conglomerates, such as Microsoft, with advertising agencies is one issue that policymakers must address.  Here’s an excerpt from a Sept. 21, 2009 announcement on Microsoft’s mobile marketing plans:

Publicis Groupe’s Phonevalley, the world’s leading mobile marketing agency and part of the VivaKi Nerve Center, announced today a strategic agreement to create customized mobile advertising solutions, technology and metrics that will run across Microsoft’s mobile web properties, including the Microsoft Media Network, Bing and MSN. The packaged solutions will be available in 14 markets worldwide, including the U.S., the UK, France, Italy, Spain and Germany.

This alliance strenghtens the relationship between Microsoft Advertising and VivaKi. It furthermore reinforces the VivaKi strategy to build a market leader in digital communications, in an increasingly mobile world.

Phonevalley and Microsoft Mobile Advertising will work together to design innovative packaged mobile advertising solutions for six industry verticals: luxury, retail, entertainment, automotive, travel and financial services… To efficiently drive the most qualified audience, the package would take advantage of the innovative ad formats and new targeted mobile media features such as behavioural targeting developed by Microsoft Advertising.

Additionally, by utilizing data from dedicated vertical research and post test results, advertisers can further improve the efficiency and efficacy of their campaigns to better engage with their target mobile audiences.

Microsoft’s Behavioral Targeting includes Web, Mobile and Xbox

As the debate in Congress, the FTC, the European Commission heats up about behavioral targeting and online privacy–and as regulators examine the Microsoft/Yahoo data deal–here is how Microsoft plans to extend it’s use of behavioral targeting [from MediaPost, excerpt]:

 Microsoft last week began offering behavioral targeting for ads running on its mobile network. But while the service offers a range of online targeted categories — about 100 –to advertisers buying mobile display inventory, the launch really means so much more.

Jamie Wells, Microsoft’s global director of trade marketing, mobile advertising solutions, says the targeting cuts across the Web, mobile and Xbox platforms when consumers sign into their Windows Live account. It allows media buyers to purchase consumer profiles demonstrating interest in specific categories, as well as specific times in a purchase funnel.

The technology doesn’t rely on cookies, but rather the user’s Windows Live ID. Cookies present a challenge on the Web, but even more so on mobile. Sometimes telecommunication carriers either strip out cookies or don’t accept them from third-party companies. So, rather than use cookies, Microsoft relies on behavioral profiles associated with Hotmail email and Xbox accounts through Windows Live ID. When a person on a mobile phone uses that same ID, Microsoft can link the behavior on the Web with behavior on their mobile phone and Xbox.

Although tight-lipped on Microsoft’s strategy, Wells admits “this is just the beginning.” Microsoft plans to expand its approach to tie together the Web, mobile and Xbox, drawing on the power of the entire Microsoft network. The strategy will integrate the audience, he says.

“The mobile application addresses one of the biggest challenges, which is targeting,” Wells says. “This is a way to circumvent the cookie problem and use online profiles. Also, some folks would argue that there’s a much higher bar for ad relevancy on mobile, and BT speaks right to that.”

“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.”