Those Pesky Consumers Are At It Again

Consumers are so on the war path when it comes to advertising. From banned XBox print ads to Aquafina having to admit it’s tap water, the advertising industry had better realize we need to stay on the alert. The latest addition to the fray is the FTC’s recent call for a town meeting on privacy issues and online behavioral advertising. Privacy groups like The Center For Digital Democracy and the State of New York have been pushing the FTC to take some action. Microsoft must be thrilled at the slow pace of government considering that they went global with their behavioral system almost a year ago (Google got involved last month, though they’re smartly backing off) and industry insiders are reporting that this type of advertising could hit $1B by 2008.

Nonetheless, the lumbering giant is awake now. While conversions are higher when people are targeted through behavior, we have some thoughts for both advertisers and brands:

1. Behavioral advertising is circumspect. While millions of people use the internet with a straight face, many others are creating identities and thus, not behaving as they normally would.

2. More and more consumers are refusing cookies or locking down their sites with blocking software of some kind. The number of people doing this will only grow.

3. There is no way for software to differentiate between multiple users on the same computer. So lil’ Katie could be seeing ads for lawn mowers, while dear old dad is looking at the latest Bratz doll. As a media buyer, if you can’t target between members of family, you could be wasting serious cash. You’re conversion metric is nulled at that point.

3. Transparency and “consumer empathy” will get you further in this day and age than raping them for every piece of data that they can give you.

We can’t wait to see what happens with this one. Behavioral advertising could be the new third rail. Stay tuned….