See if you believe this Behavioral Targeter is really accessing “anonymous” info on you and your friends!

excerpt: “A behavioral targeting firm called Media6degrees said it’s engineered a workaround to the dual problems of data and relationship glut. Rather than look at a person’s friend list, the company uses a combination of cookies and ad server logs to pinpoint a person’s interests and generate anonymous profiles of her real friends… Media6degrees found an Internet analogy in referral information stored in ad server logs. Those logs can be made to cough up specific social networking profile pages an individual has visited recently by analyzing referring URL structures, which is potentially actionable information when juxtaposed with an action taken by the ad-clicker… Affinity groups of presumably anonymous individuals are created by grouping individuals who have visited the same set of profiles.”

But how does the firm get access to those server logs?… it partners with a network of advertisers that each volunteer to place a cookie on the browsers of Web users visiting its sites. Participating advertisers and site owners receive a small CPM to distribute its pixel.

“If you put up a media pixel on your site, we can not only help you retarget an individual who came to that site, but we can help you identify micro-affinity groups…”

source: New Firm Combines Social and Behavioral Ad Targeting. Zachary Rogers. ClickZ.com May 6, 2008

Do Androids Dream of Mobile Digital Ads? I’m Speaking at FTC next Tuesday on Mobile Marketing and Consumer Protection

The mobile marketing ecosystem, as its called by the industry, poses significant consumer protection and privacy concerns. Next week, the FTC is holding a two-day town hall meeting on mobile marketing. The commission has invited me to participate on the mobile advertising and marketing panel. The public and many policymakers are entirely unaware of what’s soon coming. The FTC and policymakers must do a better job both educating the public and asking them to speak out about how the marketing system should be structured. Safeguards will be required, including for youth. I will try and deliver a “click to call to action” overview.

IAB’s Response to Calls for Consumer Privacy Rules: Hire More Lobbyists to Protect the “Wild West” of Data Collection & Ad Targeting

Granted, the IAB’s Washington, D.C. lobbying shop, opened last year, is a small operation. Now the IAB is in the process of hiring a second person for the office. No doubt IAB wants to protect the data collection and micro-targeting digital turf of its members. Former Tacoda and Time Warner exec. Dave Morgan perhaps revealed why the political stakes are so high for IAB members such as Google, AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner, Disney, CBS, NY Times, Washington Post, etc. in Media Post. As Morgan explained, “.. Everybody now knows that data is the fuel for growth. Everyone is starting to mine it and make it available to third parties…The big four (Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL’s Platform A) are all opening up their networks and systems to leverage third-party data; so are the ad servers like WPP’s 24/7 Real Media; and so are the ad networks…We’re moving into a wild, wild west in monetizing real-time marketing data, and we’re going to need many more people that know how to do this…As we see this data take on more value and play a bigger role in our industry, the public policy implications are going to become much more pronounced.”

Time Warner’s Plans for Bebo: Better Targeting, Engagement & Monetization of 13-24 year olds, esp. in EU

Time Warner’s AOL, which now owns Bebo, will be focusing the site to better target the 13-24 year old demographic. Now part of the Platform A online ad system, Bebo will help support AOL’s European plans, enhancing its ability to “engage” youthful users. As reported by paidcontent.org, “Bebo’s engagement marketing will be melded with AOL’s Platform A.” Bebo’s Joanna Shields explained that “[I]n the UK, the 13-24 year olds are watching less and less television… if you’re trying to reach the young demographic, you have to reach them in the language in which they’re interacting with these sites.” Paidcontent noted that Ms. Shields “touted the redesign of AOL to make the various sites more appealing to youth, which has caused an increase in engagement.”

Bebo is at the core of AOL/Platform A’s international expansion plans. By combining Platform A’s data collection and targeting apparatus with Bebo’s appealing content for youth, paidcontent suggested that Time Warner hoped that “…the opportunity to monetize the site may be superior than what it’s been at other social nets.”

The New York Times Tracks its Online Audience: Boolean Boola

We have long believed that the New York Times needs to explain to readers and users the range of digital marketing technologies and strategies it deploys. The Times (and its Times Digital) uses behavioral targeting and is currently working with Revenue Science. Revenue Science proudly proclaims that the “behaviors of more than 120 million individuals are tracked and aggregated from across the Internet.” Claiming it relies on “powerful Boolean logic” to propel its tracking and targeting effort, Revenue Science explains that it places users into discrete targeting segments “… based on multiple criteria that demonstrate interest or intent to buy. For example, to qualify for our automotive audience, users might read multiple articles and take specific actions such as filling out a loan calculator. Revenue Science uses Boolean logic to find and segment multilayered behaviors to reach the right audience…Revenue Science Targeting Marketplace connects people to engaging advertising with the most advanced behavioral and targeting capabilities available, and the marketers that choose Revenue Science benefit from advanced data intelligence to reach the right people, at the right time, every time.”

The Times Co. has been a leader in the online marketing arena for almost two decades now (as we explain in our book). Online is an important revenue segment for the Times Co. (as it must and should be for all newspapers). The Times “web analytics group” is looking for a “senior web analytics manager.” We think what such a person and the group does raises privacy and related issues. Here is an excerpt from the job announcement: “The New York Times web analytics group is responsible for measuring and understanding the largest and most influential online newspaper audience in the world… As a senior web analytics manager, you will be expected to:

• Deeply understand the NYTimes.com audience and their behavior
• Support the analytic needs of the company by using WebTrends and other analytical tools to understand trends in web traffic…
Work with the NYT customer insight group to coordinate and focus quantitative and qualitative analysis related to audience behavior…”

Ultimately, web analytics, tracking and targeting techniques will have an impact on journalism-some good, others not-so-good.  When an online publication understands exactly what the most desirable demographic–or even individual–wants in terms of news, it will have an impact on news budgets, we believe. So think more entertainment and less serious journalism down the road. Not at places like the Times, we hope, but certainly at many other publications.  But for newspapers to remain a credible source of information during this crucial transition phase for journalism, they must address the privacy and online marketing “ecosystem” they have embraced.

Eric Barnouw’s reminder that the commercial market has outrun public interest policy

We know that many in the media reform community believe that they will be able to convince policymakers to create a more democratic electronic media system. But a more pragmatic approach is also required, one based on proactively responding to the array of mergers, acquisitions and venture investment shaping our new media reality. In another words, developing our own new media realities within the framework which has been largely set by all that investment and the development of the basic business model (primarily online advertising). We have always been struck by this analysis from the preeminent historian of U.S. broadcasting, the late Erik Barnouw. In “The Golden Web” (vol. 2 of his three volume history of broadcasting), Barnouw wrote that:

The Communications Act of 1934, re-enacting a 1927 law with only minor changes, was based on a premise that had been obsolete in 1927 and by 1934 was totally invalid: that American broadcasting was a local responsibility exercised by individual station licensees.
The myth held attractions. It dovetailed with the cherished idea of local autonomy in such matters as education. But while the law went on pretending that the autonomy existed in broadcasting, control had been ceded to others—executives at networks, advertising agencies, and sponsors, many of whom had no idea what was in a station license and did not think they had any reason to care.”
In other words, market forces had already shaped broadcasting’s future–even before the ink was dry on the 1934 Act. Something to reflect upon as we engage in work to craft a democratic digital medium.

Google’s Schmidt to the largest advertisers: “new forms of storytelling” will empower brands

The late preeminent communications scholar George Gerbner often explained that society needed to be concerned about who had the power to tell its stories. To set the values and the identity of the culture. Gerbner was especially concerned about television. Today, he would be focused on the emerging digital medium. That’s why we were struck by Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s address yesterday to the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA) conference. According to a story in today’s New York Times [sub required] Schmidt explained that:

digital media will “create new opportunities for advertisers and new opportunities for information.” He added, “The scale of this is underappreciated.” The opportunities will come in the form of “developing new forms of storytelling”…

AAAA, of course, represents the leading global ad agencies. The stories they will tell for their clients will overflow our mobile devices, web browsers, and digital televisions. Content, communications, and commerce are fully intertwined in the new medium, it’s true. But advertisers–including Google–need to more than tread carefully here. These stories will have a tremendous influence on society–and social responsibility is required. But we will also need new governmental rules which address the `product placement is the news and entertainment we receive’ conundrum.

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Senator Dorgan: remember the role of digitally targeted ads & FTC in subprime mortgage scandal

Last November, my CDD and USPIRG filed an amended complaint with the FTC asking it to crack down on behavioral targeting, including its role in the subprime mortgage lending crisis. We are glad Senator Dorgan and others raised concerns that the FTC is failing to do its job in this critical area. Online mortgage lending–and related financial matters–requires serious consumer safeguards. Online marketers–including search engines and social networks–have looked the other way while a great tragedy has befallen so many in the country. We are urging Senator Dorgan to examine the CDD/PIRG complaint, and help get the FTC and other regulators on the case.

Behavioral targeter Collective Media looks to hire

It’s always useful to examine the employment listings. Here’s one from Collective Media, which claims it offers “Targeting like no other. Our comprehensive targeting capabilities are unrivaled in the industry. Not only do we have the premiere technology for content, contextual and behavioral segmentation, we have the expertise to make the most of it…By leveraging partner Personifi’s context targeting and powerful taxonomy, Collective is able to offer advanced audience behavior targeting…

  • Collective tracks frequency and recency of past visits to assign a behavior segment to a user.
  • Collective then targets these users across our network of publishers to extend reach to any audience segment.
  • Understanding people’s interests and actions allow us to reach them at just the right time, place and with the most appropriate message.”

So in case you want to apply for Ad Operations Client Manager, you will need to appreciate that Collective’s “Ad Network Management Platform (AMP) is the revolutionary platform…to manage the thousands of sites and billions of ad impressions that run through its network each month…reaching more than 140 million unique users monthly.”

(PS: Given Collective’s use of DoubleClick, it will be interesting to see what Google’s role will eventually be).

WPP’s 24/7 Real Media pushing “psychographic targeting” to “drive buyer behavior and brand affinity”

The online advertising industry is throwing rocks at our notions of consumer protection in the digital age. Don’t they realize a serious public debate about all this is required before they engage willy-nilly in advanced targeted?
Here’s an excerpt from WPP’s 24/7 April 28, 2008 release:”…announced that it is the first media network to deploy psychographic targeting through a partnership with Mindset Media, LLC. The new Mindset Buysâ„¢ will enable brand advertisers to target consumers with specific personality traits that drive buyer behavior and brand affinity across a broad range of consumer goods and services.Brand advertisers have long known that consumers’ states of mind can determine what they buy and what brands they choose, but advertisers have lacked an efficient way to target mass audiences of people with the right psychographics.

Now advertisers can make Mindset Buys on 20 different elements of personality, including creativity, assertiveness, self-esteem, and spontaneity. Each Mindset Buy on 24/7 Real Media can reach millions of U.S. consumers with the same personality trait, on a completely anonymous basis. The 24/7 network reaches 150 million unique viewers each month, across more than 1,500 sites globally…Psychographic targeting through Mindset Media represents the latest addition to 24/7’s advanced portfolio of targeting solutions, which also includes lifecycle management, search retargeting, geo-demographic, content, behavioral, retargeting and custom. Many of these can be combined to form an endless number of specific targeting options that can be delivered to any digital medium.”

From Mindset: “Our proprietary table of elements makes Mindset targeting possible. The table comprises 20 personality traits that drive buyer behavior and brand affinity across a broad range of consumer goods and services, from beauty care to banking, cars to credit cards, food to pharmaceuticals.”

Update: DM News quotes a 24/7 and a Mindset exec.: “[S]imply put, it’s the ability to target individuals based on what makes them themselves,” said Ari Bluman, SVP of North American sales and operations for 24/7 Real Media. “From a direct marketing perspective, obviously being in front of the right audience that buys a product or is moved by a message is essential,” he said…Mindset Media has identified 20 different elements of personality, which include assertiveness, openness, spontaneity and pragmatism…The goal is to create mass audiences of people who tend to have the same personality type, [Jim] Meyer [CEO and co-founder of Mindset Media] said.