NAMIR 4:Ad’s for the benefit of the consumer? What a load of rubbish!
Working as I do, on the edge of the digital marketing industry, I get an insight in to what digital marketers, and the journalists who write for them, are thinking. I’m following a story that’s been bubbling away for a while - the debate around whether ISP’s should be able to target users with online ads. For those who don’t know, ISP’s (or Internet Service Providers) are the people who provide you with the connection to the internet, it might be Virgin media, or BT, or Tiscali, or a service provided by one of the mobile phone companies.
The idea is that, if ISP’s track consumer behaviour online they can use this to fire targeted ads at their customers. Not surprisingly, a majority of customers don’t want their surfing habits tracked and used by ISP’s for marketing purposes; they are concerned about data privacy issues.
Industry journal, New Media Age, has been wrestling with this issue and this week they report from their own research which shows that 58% of consumers think on line advertising is irrelevant (I’m surprised it’s not more) and 81% would opt out if they could from their ISP tracking their behaviour. What is interesting is reading Deputy Editor Nic Howell’s mild indignation at the fact that consumers don’t want to be ‘helped’ by more targeted advertising. His argument is that if consumers think on line advertising is irrelevant then they should welcome a more targeted approach. Nic says:
“58% of users think ad’s they see online are irrelevant, yet they are suspicious of relating ad’s to behaviour”
Well of course they are Nic. The belief of a lot of people in the industry is that somehow they are doing consumers a favour by making advertising more targeting, that it will make the ads more relevant - and that’s the argument that they tend to present. But what these guys don’t get is that consumers are never going to buy the line that the ad’s can be there for their benefit: the truth that consumers understand, and most marketers don’t is that generally ads are just a necessary irritation and making them a bit more targeting isn’t going to change that. They pay for the content, that’s what they are there for from the consumers point of view. If the industry tries to use the line that ads can somehow benefit consumers their words are going to fall like seeds on stony ground. What makes this situation even worse is that consumers perceive this to be an infringement of their privacy, and tthey care about data privacy much more than better targeted ads.
The irony is that behavioural targeting can be anonymous and personal, you don’t have to know who someone is to understand their behaviour, and advertisers needs be none the wiser about their customers if behavioural targeting is adopted. But somehow I suspect that the industry wont be able to get this message across; it will be people’s perceptions that count and so far it looks like a lot of people are giving a more targeted approach the thumbs down.
If the ISP’s and their advertising paymasters lose this one, in part it will be their own fault - they have tried to sell behavioural targeting as a benefit for consumers and the consumers have seen this for the bunkum that it is; they will need to change strategy soon or they will lose the chance to use any kind of targeting with an ever more sceptical public.
