« Take a tumble
Insecure usernames and passwords on Netvibes »

Targeted advertising, someone explain

I am a 28 year old South African male living in Waterford, Ireland. I enjoy photography, reading, movies, travel and tea. My work is also something I enjoy; web-application development. I am 5′11″ high, average build, I like to wear comfortable clothes and have no interest in fashion or clothing brands beyond their utility and reliability. I don’t smoke but I do drink, normally the odd beer, Carlsberg please not Heineken, but mostly good whiskey. I am in a committed relationship, want children and hope to buy a house in the next few years.

Advertisers, what are you going to send me based on that information that I don’t already know about or have? Camera deals? No thanks, I’m doing fine there. Travel deals? Sure but every other travel deal I have ever seen has been rubbish, how can you do better? Technical books on web-development? Sorry, I don’t read them. Savings on beer and whiskey? You can beat the local Tesco that is undercutting to sell me other things can you? Didn’t think so.

Everything I am interested in I first read about on a friend’s blog or hear about direct from someone. Everything I need in life is already quite well sorted out. If it isn’t then I go out and find it. An advertisement has never ever fulfilled that role. Not once in 28 years.

I don’t get targeted advertising.

So when I read about how social networks, with there deep data mines of personal data on me, are going to revolutionise targeted advertising, I don’t get it.

Is the rest of the world idling their time away looking for something, just anything, to spend money on? “Give me something to swipe for!”

So it seems. Idle spending must be what all the targeted adverts are after. The hope to snap up a few bucks here and there

Professionally I get it. Every user application I have ever worked on has “demographic data mining potential.” People are always talking about “monetizing that personal data” and “demographically pinpointing recommendations” etc. but I have never seen it work. Amazon doesn’t get it right, Google AdSense doesn’t get it right, Facebook certainly doesn’t get it right.

My bank knows a lot about me, a lot more than Facebook ever will. And yet my bank has never sent me something I wanted. They send me loan offers and yet with a glance at my bank balance you’d see a loan is the last thing I want. They send me car finance deals. I already have car finance with them. I’ve looked and I can’t find anything else I want from my bank. So they can data mine my personal data all they want. It isn’t going to target their adverts any better.

There has to be a deep change in targeted advertising for it to become in any way useful to people like me. I hope I am not in the minority, it makes me worry that people are out there idly clicking on “People also bought this” links on Amazon.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 5th, 2007 at 2:07 pm and is filed under Post. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Viewing 5 Comments

    • ^
    • v
    That's a good musing Paul; something that asks a real question. However, I would guess, and only guess, that the targeted advertisers aim to keep products and brands in your mind even if they are no use to you. Since you maintain certain personal attributes such as camera enthusiast, etc you are likely to belong to a collective of others with such interests or become the focal point for questions on such material and from the advertiser's perspective, referrals. So while you rightly point out that the ads will not appeal to you, there is a chance that the products, if good enough, will play on your conscious recollection and resurface as a recommendation to others or somebody starting out in one of the categories that you have been placed within by the advertisers. Then again perhaps I am totally wrong, I have been known to be so. :)
    • ^
    • v
    To be honest I cant remember the last time that an ad that I saw on the web actually had any effect on me at all. I think thats the case with most people working in the area of IT, in that after a while you just block them out and start viewing the web with proverbial "blinkers". When I Google something, I automatically block out the sponsored links and look at what I know to be the real results. My younger sister on the other hand will always click these links, believing them to be the best results that the search has returned. I know its not the exact same thing but its a factor.

    I also think that people in IT are much wiser than those on the rest of the planet ;)
    • ^
    • v
    Good point Jon though from what I can tell most of my "brand awareness" comes not from direct adverts but from sponsorships and reviews of a brand's products e.g. dpreview reviews of Canon.

    Some brands do a lot of, too much, brand advertising and end up just giving me a negative view of them.

    I hardly ever see Apple adverts but I am very aware of their products through word of mouth, reviews etc. How can Apple take advantage of "targeted" advertising when I want everything they make? ;)
    • ^
    • v
    Interesting, Chris. I see most of the adverts when I surf, I just find them completely misdirected.

    As for wise, yes we are but not in a "we are smarter" way, just that we are more aware of how the system works and through experience what not to pay attention too.

    Does your sister ever buy anything from those ads?
    • ^
    • v
    Hmmm I'm not sure if she has ever bought anything from the ad's to be honest. I was more making a case for why targeted marketing may be more geared towards those who, as you put it, don't 'know how the system works'.

Trackbacks

close Reblog this comment
Powered by Disqus · Learn more
blog comments powered by Disqus