Adaptive advertising invites depressive stereotyping

Detail of a New York Times Advertisement - 1895  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

"Data-driven discovery is tech's new wave" touts a recent article in the New York Times. The article points out that developments in computing power coupled with inexpensive data storage has produced a digital "boiling point" that will enable companies to begin surgically targeting consumer groups based on incisive analysis of web browsing "trails" and age, gender and interests profiles using machine-learning algorithms.  One company they mention is  Rocket Fuel, a four-year-old Silicon Valley start-up that uses artificial-intelligence software to place display advertisements for marketers on the Web .  So I visited the company's website to see how they describe the service they offer to their own clients.

Rocket Fuel points out that they have defined over 20,000 audience segments that I assume are applied to vast numbers of potential client customers.  I was hoping they would define a retirees segment online so I could see how much of their profile applied to me.  Unfortunately, they didn't detail that demographic group but they did describe others with which I share some attributes.  Here are those segments with my take on their validity based on my own preferences.

Gadget Geeks technology early adopters who are passionate about gadgets

• Passionate about technology and gadgets - yes
• Enjoy sharing tech expertise with family and friends - sometimes (I don't like being tech support for friends and family - after all I used to do that for a living and retired to get away from it!)
• Prioritize quality and brand when shopping - as long as I get bang for the buck
• Interested in researching and buying the newest gadgets - research yes, buying - not usually a "dot.zero" release and not unless the gadget offers perceived value based on my needs

Leisure Travelers love to travel for pleasure and frequently hunt for travel deals

• Passionate about travel and travel deals - yes if in my preferred travel area and not a cruise
• Frequent fliers - yes
• Enjoy researching about travel online - yes

Not bad so far but how about less niche-oriented segments?

Value Shoppers are budget-conscious shoppers seeking value and quality

• Research online for deals and coupons - only if I have a product already selected
• Interested in sweepstakes and contests - no
• Primary grocery decision-maker, coupon clips, bargain hunts - yes, sometimes and only if bargain information is delivered to me (email) or readily available without extensive research

Moms-on-the-Go are career-oriented and thrive on time-saving products

• Socially active and web savvy - yes
• Interested in products that allow more time with family - more leisure time
• Enjoy dining at family restaurants and steakhouses - no; prefer international cuisine
• Frequently buy quick-fix meals and time-saving products - no box meals; prefer freshly combined ingredients at a deli or takeout
• Altruistic, responsible, and creative psychographics - usually

It's obvious when they try to stretch their profiles over a much larger segment, discretionary preferences become more of an issue.

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I'm not saying this development is necessarily bad.  I am the first to admit that I really appreciate the algorithm Netflix has developed to recommend movies to me based on my viewing history and expressed ratings.  Their recommendations hit the mark more and more often.  But I have rated over 1,000 movies on Netflix.  I usually only buy a car once every ten years or so and I have no particular brand loyalty.  Furthermore, I am in no financial position to "surprise" my spouse with a new Lexus at Christmas time either! (How I hate those commercials during the holidays - I feel they have been particularly tasteless during this economic recession!!)  Not that I would consider spending that much for mere transportation a worthwhile investment anyway!

As an older consumer, what I fear most is that the media I watch will become depressingly saturated with what Rocket Fuel delicately describes as "senior products".  It already seems like I hear about nothing but incontinence products, sexual dysfunction, medications for all kinds of diseases that befall an aging body, hair loss, wrinkle creams and face lifts, Alzheimer's care centers and estate planning.  It makes me wonder if DISH network has already begun a campaign of adaptive advertising.  Maybe it's just because the educational programming we watch in our household earmarks us as demographically more mature viewers.

After all, during the day the TV is often left on for no other reason than to provide background noise for the dogs and no "consumer" is actually watching it anyway!

What we really need is on-demand program selection so our interests are more specifically defined and we are not automatically profiled by the overall channels we watch. Furthermore, now that so many of us have smart TVs, broadcasters should take a cue from Facebook and give us the opportunity to give ads a thumbs up or thumbs down then remove all ads for products that we have indicated we are absolutely not interested in.  Of course that would mean satellite and cable providers would FINALLY have to surrender their antiquated marketing model of channel tiers!!

Related articles

• Stereotypes: Geeks Vs. Artists
• Machine Learning Process Explained
• Tapping into Consumer Sentiment on Social Networks
• The rush to 'anonymised' data

Making Serious Money With YouTube

I found this article particularly interesting. Maybe I should look into it further to supplement my retirement income!

One year after YouTube, the online video powerhouse, invited members to become “partners” and added advertising to their videos, the most successful users are earning six-figure incomes from the Web site. For some, like Michael Buckley, the self-taught host of a celebrity chatter show, filming funny videos is now a full-time job.

Mr. Buckley quit his day job in September after his online profits had greatly surpassed his salary as an administrative assistant for a music promotion company. His thrice-a-week online show “is silly,” he said, but it has helped him escape his credit-card debt.

Mr. Buckley, 33, was the part-time host of a weekly show on a Connecticut public access channel in the summer of 2006 when his cousin started posting snippets of the show on YouTube. The comical rants about celebrities attracted online viewers, and before long Mr. Buckley was tailoring his segments, called “What the Buck?” for the Web. Mr. Buckley knew that the show was “only going to go so far on public access.”

Technorati Tags: YouTube, revenue, advertising, media, content development,

Google promotes advertising widgets

Google is seizing on the popularity of widgets — small online tools that function like mini-Web sites — for its latest push into advertising.

An ad for Honda Civic was an example of Google’s widget program. Users can give the ad a ubiquitous presence on the Web.

The online giant will announce today a Gadget Ads program that will provide tools for advertisers to run widget ads in Google’s AdSense network.

Marketers can use space within these display ads on Google’s network to show videos, offer chats with celebrities, play host to games or other activities. If consumers like the widget ad, they can save it onto their desktops or on their profile pages online on sites like Facebook and MySpace.

The new widget ads represent a more aggressive push by Google to attract big brand advertisers who like flashy ad units rather than the simple text ads commonly run in Google’s ad network.

One big advantage of the technology is that the consumer does not have to click through to a Web site. A weather widget, for example, would constantly update the weather report in a particular area. Similarly, marketers could feature content to attract consumers while constantly updating their own messages.

More than 48 percent of Internet users in the United States — over 87 million people — now use widgets, according to comScore, the online measurement company. Some of the most popular widgets on Facebook, for example, are the “Top Friends” tool, which allows people to go to their best friends’ profiles with a single click, and iLike, which lets users add music to their profiles.

“Consumers are pulling in content from multiple sources” said Christian Oestlien, a business product manager at Google who is overseeing the new ad program. “It is what we are calling the componentization of the Web. The Web is sort of breaking apart into smaller pieces.”

Google turns to overlay advertising to gain ROI on YouTube

I realize nothing in life is really ever free so it was just a matter of time before Google wanted ROI on it's $1.35 billion investment in YouTube. At least these new ad overlays are much less exasperating than "preroll" ads. Preroll ads have gotten totally out of control at movie theaters. This past weekend when I went to "The Last Legion" I had to sit through almost a half hour of ads before finally seeing the feature film (In fact I use the term "feature film" loosely - the film itself was so short it seemed like a made-for-TV movie). At least on a DVD you can fast forward through them. The worst part is I suspect that film editors are apparently slashing content to the point of making the plot seem choppy and disjointed just to accommodate this crass consumerism.

Ever since Google bought YouTube last November, it has avoided cluttering the site and the video clips themselves with ads, for fear of alienating its audience.

A demonstration of an ad for a movie on the bottom of a YouTube video. Real ads would not reflect the content of a video.

Multimedia

Sample Ad Spot Video (youtube.com)

The strategy helped cement YouTube’s position as the largest video Web site but didn’t do much to justify YouTube’s $1.65 billion price tag.

Now Google believes it finally has found the formula to cash in on YouTube’s potential as a magnet for online video advertising and keep its audience loyal at the same time.

The company said late Tuesday that after months of testing various video advertising models, it was ready to introduce a new type of video ad, which it said was unobtrusive and kept users in control of what they saw.

The ads, which appear 15 seconds after a user begins watching a video clip, take the form of an overlay on the bottom fifth of the screen, not unlike the tickers that display headlines during television news programs.

A user can ignore the overlay, which will disappear after about 10 seconds, or close it. But if the user clicks on it, the video they were watching will stop and a video ad will begin playing. Once the ad is over, or if a user clicks on a box to close it, the original video will resume playing from the point where it was stopped.

Honda's "Minisodes" on My Space a glimpse of the future of broadcast programming?

"Honda will be the sole sponsor of what Sony Pictures Television is calling the Minisode Network, which is scheduled to begin next week. Visitors to the MySpace Web site (my space.com) will be able to watch episodes of 15 vintage Sony series like “Charlie’s Angels,” “The Facts of Life,” “Fantasy Island” and “Who’s the Boss,” edited from their original lengths of 30 or 60 minutes each to an Internet-friendly 4 to 6 minutes."

I thought this development is very interesting. Not only does it address the problem of many web viewers shortened attention span but their tolerance for extended ad space. I doubt that anyone is going to try to skip an 8-second ad. Shortening a 30-minute television episode is not really as daunting as it sounds anyway. If you remove all the advertising from a current 30-minute episode you are usually left with less than 12 minutes of programming. Subtract from that the intro and end credits and you're probably looking at 8 minutes of content. Remove a single scene or lead up dialogue and you've got your 6 minutes.

The one hour episode is a bit more of a challenge. But think about movie trailers. Many people complain that now days you see most of the main scenes of a movie (2.5 - 3 hrs) in the trailer anyway.

I also find it interesting that the amount of video time is geared toward the "YouTube" time limit. Furthermore, Honda has targeted the coveted youth demographic by introducing the new media in My Space.

I watched the example T.J. Hooker episode and noticed the intro credits were applied over the introductory scenes to the episode and the end credits popped by fast but were still readable.