Comments on: The fight for our attention: where next for online marketing?

By: John

John — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 08:45:52 +0000

@JohnONolan
Thank you for your reply, yes I know you were talking about innovative uses of data including profiling. I am perfectly well aware of Google’s profiling. It is possible to delete both your Google account search history and cookies and the like, if you don’t want to be bothered by persistent adverts for Abyssinian Wire-haired Tripe Hounds. You can even unsubscribe to Amazon’s persistent e-mails that arrive soon after you search for a tripe flavoured dog food.

You make it sound in your reply, that I was citing profiles as leading to exhaustion of the world’s resources. I was certainly not saying that.

What a nightmare to think that you could imagine a world where everyone was the same as me. You must have some pretty scary nightmares;)

This blog is innovative in that it constantly looks for something fresh, instead of multitude of “The hidden gem of Lugash” posts, when we all know that Inspector Clouseau got it in the end

By: Andy Jarosz

Andy Jarosz — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 07:45:30 +0000

Thanks John and John for your comments and debate. Relevance is key as you say John, and yet I agree with John when he says he doesn’t want to be bombarded with targetted ads – however well I have been segmented according to the profile others have built up. I might spend my time on travel websites but does that make travel advertising relevant to me? Not at all. I have times when I’m thinking of buying and I have the places where I like to buy. Most of the time such ads, though carefully targetted might as well be about nappies and baby milk.

I just don’t buy many things. I know it sounds strange, but that’s me, a marketeer’s nightmare.
As you say John, if we don’t like it we can always get off the internet – it’s not compulsory after all. Maybe that’s a dramatic step but perhaps over the next few years there will be a growing awareness of online profiling and data management among consumers, and a realisation among marketeers that such profiling, while very powerful for them, is not always welcome among the general public.
Thanks for the contributions.

By: JohnONolan

JohnONolan — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 18:53:08 +0000

@John

If you don’t use Foursquare then you can’t really comment on the advertising being obtrusive enough to prevent you from using it. It’s actually the very opposite.

As for finding profiles intrusive… Google has more information about you than you could possibly imagine. Every single click from every single search you’ve ever done is tracked and tagged onto your ‘profile’. There’s absolutely no difference there, so if you think it’s going to lead to the exhaustion of the Earth’s resources then I suggest you stop using the internet altogether

The only thing I was talking about was a new and innovative use for that data, and it certainly, certainly has nothing to do with “Dear John” adverts.

“If I need to buy something, I just do a search on the internet and speak to friends … Why can’t everyone else do the same?”

Because there isn’t a law that says everyone has to be the same as you, thankfully. I sometimes wonder why I’m the only one who can’t stand using a spoon to eat anything, but I don’t expect everyone to do the same simply because it’s my preference. That would just be ignorant.

By: John

John — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 14:26:46 +0000

Andy, to reduce some of the publicity coming through your letterbox, my approach when I was in the UK was to print a sticky label with a big red cross and the Caption “No unsolicited mail or leaflets” and another with “No free newspapers”, Here in Belgium the you can pick them up at the Maison Communal. You can also put a green tick if say you want to receive the Weekly Free Newspaper. Saves giving the mailing preference service all of your details. The Post person would probably not remember anyway.
John, sure relevance is important to advertising. I don’t use Foursquare, but if I did and it kept coming up with advertising messages, then I wouldn’t use it for long. Not everyone in the world is incomplete unless they are spending money. As for building up profiles of people, I find it really intrusive. If I don’t need something then why should I be subjected “Dear John” adverts for something? Mass consumerism will only lead to the exhaustion of the Earth’s resources. There are better ways. If all of the companies producing and selling us throw away consumer items diverted their energies to things that we and more importantly future generations need then they could really make a difference.
All of that junk mail, free newspapers, leaflets,spam e-mails and spam comments consumes resources and produces a carbon footprint. If only 1 to 2 % actually influences someone then that is too wasteful. Future generations will be appalled by our behaviour.
If I need to buy something, I just do a search on the internet and speak to friends who know about the product or service. Why can’t everyone else do the same?
There are so many other less wasteful avenues that can be pursued from conventional advertising in the media to product placement in films, music videos and computer games.

By: JohnONolan

JohnONolan — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 10:53:13 +0000

Interesting post Andy, I don’t think there’s anyone who *can’t* relate to this in some way, however I think I’d argue that the future may be slightly brighter (but probably not Orange).

New media and marketing has a lifecycle of about two years, inbetween which, everything is reinvented from the ground up. Right now we’re in some what of a golden era where new things are happening and marketing is somewhat more interesting than in years past, the problem is that everyone is still figuring out how it all works.

As you rightly mentioned, one of the first things that companies latched onto was “social recommendation” – friendly faces rather than corporate entities, which has changed everything in a big way.

What’s next? In my limited experience I’d say relevance, which is of critical importance to those of us who hate spam:

Example: You’re in London and you check in to a starbucks with Foursquare, a message pops up saying that if you go next-door to H&M you’ll get 10% off if you give them this code: ___.

Or, an example more relevant to web: There are advertising networks popping up now which have quite a unique take on the whole thing. Instead of showing you an ad with content of relevance to the site which you’re on (eg. a banner for baby clothes on a website for pregnant women), they show you an ad relevant to visitor regardless of what site you’re on – they build up a profile of you, see that you visit a *ton* of sites for pregnant women, so even if you happen to then visit a site about mobile phones, they’ll still show you the baby clothes ad.

Mindless spam will never die, but I think it’ll probably shrink a whole lot over the next couple of years