Really hitting the target
During World War II, over 3000 bombs needed to be dropped to guarantee placing a single bomb within a target area averaging 20,000 square feet. Fast-forward to today, one missile drops out of a drone, separates into 17 independently targeted warheads, and each one hits its target literally within inches.
The direct marketing and advertising industries are operating at World War II levels of targeting efficiency; think about the unsolicited mail you receive every day (both hard copy and electronic) that isn’t even remotely relevant to your interests. Companies carpet bomb an entire neighborhood (for example, demographic segmentation by zip code) hoping to get that one hit. This is a staggering nuisance for consumers, and an expensive and inefficient process for marketers. Why would consumers be interested in something irrelevant? They’re not. Why do direct marketers carpet bomb? Mostly because they don’t have a choice. As the underlying technologies that identify consumer interests improve (cookies, embedded java scripts, advanced analytics, etc.), there has been a backlash by privacy consortiums acting in the “best interest” of the consumer to ensure than nothing relevant or personalized is delivered unless the end-user has jumped through both legal and technical hoops. The result is that when companies develop consumer-targeting capabilities that would actually create serendipitous moments, they’re restrained by concern of regulatory oversight driven by privacy fear-mongers. The mongers wildly overstate the potential for privacy abuses; this is similar to saying people could drive recklessly, therefore no one should be allowed to drive, or consumers using a credit card are at risk of identity theft, so credit cards should be restricted.
The sad part is the privacy advocates appear to be winning this battle, the IAB and other advertising groups are clearly on the defensive, and have allow the privatistas to set the agenda. It is clearly in the interest of both the consumer and the vendor to reduce the amount of spam (which is defined as irrelevant, as opposed to unsolicited advertising—something can be unsolicited and still be highly relevant). Focusing advertising on what is meaningful to the consumer and therefore profitable to the vendor creates a win/win scenario, but it requires an analysis, understanding, and prediction of the consumer’s most likely interest, which is delivered by targeting technologies. The advertising and direct marketing industries have got to stop backing up, take control of the agenda, and show consumers the benefits of accurate targeting, while addressing privacy issues in terms that are in a non-technical, non-legalese, and non-hysterical context.