Online Advertising

So, the last resort of Advertising is getting people to pimp stuff to their followers - Mr John Chow, with 50,000 Twittwr followers:

....earned $200 by telling his fans where they could buy M&M’s with customized faces, messages and colors.

Mr. Chow is among a growing group of celebrities, bloggers and regular Internet users who are allowing advertisers to send commercial messages to their personal contacts on social networks. For the last month, he has used the services of Ad.ly, a start-up based in Los Angeles, and Izea, based in Orlando, Fla., to periodically surrender his Twitter stream to the likes of Charter Communications, the Make a Wish Foundation and an online seminar about working from home.

In October, Mr. Chow’s income from Twitter ads was around $3,000. “I get paid for pushing a button,” he said.

It is perhaps the last frontier in advertising — getting regular people to send a sentence or two of text, on behalf of paying advertisers, to their friends and admirers.

(From the New York Times)

Brilliant. Just Brilliant. And do you think the next turn of this particular game will be:

(i) Followers are delighted that you are advertising to them and sign up in droves

(ii) Followers will decide you are compromised and sign off in droves

(iii) Followers will ignore the Ads and keep on listening if the other content is good enough

Now your instinct is probably (iii) - to start with. But what will happen as a larger and larger % of people start to pimp Ads through Twitter onto your flowstream? Or as one person pimps more Ads through themself.

Advertising, like tourism, tends to kill the thing it loves over time because it suffers from tragedy of the commons effects (if no in-system mechanism exists to moderate Ads) and its usual response to the lessening impact of Ads is to increase the volume. Which upstets more people....

If I were the Twitterpeople, I'd be very careful..... in the Twitter Ecosystem these act something like parasites, and they may well damage the host if it is not careful.

Update: Useful analysis of the issues from Going Social Now (abridged below):

1. Your users can revolt with mass un-following
The twitterati who stand to gain the most, will need to test how comfortable their followers are with receiving these advertisements. Formats, frequency and content - all need to be figured out. Because these are new formats (and frankly speaking, the whole platform is still very new), we do not know what will work as yet. We all get irritated by people who tweet a bit too much as it is.

2. Lack of technological sophistication may kill the model
If a Google adwords model is put in place and we start seeing ads on twitter in droves, there will probably be a strong backlash. Unlike other platforms, you currently can't cookie a user who's seeing an advertisement on Twitter. So if I follow five twitter users who accept advertising, there's a chance that I may see the same advertisement from each of them in the span of an afternoon. That would be problematic. The networks need to be implemented with the right technology infrastructure behind it. Twitter must help here.

3. Black box ROI that makes it difficult to compare
Click thru rates cannot provide enough ROI - there will need to be CPM models in place as well. The problem is that there are few good ways to measure impressions. Sure you have the number of followers but that doesn't mean that the total number of followers actually saw the ads. The problem is compounded when you have people using twitter applications to access their streams. There's no way of finding out whether a user has actually seen a tweet. You also need to know whether the users fit your target demographics.

4. Advertisers choose not to intrude on conversations
Advertisers are savvy group of people. They're also increasingly sensitive about how their brands are perceived in the social media space. And by sensitive I don't just mean that they're worried about someone speaking ill of them but about appearing to be invading on a user's social world too. It is left to be seen how many advertisers will sign up for twitter ad networks. Many will probably take a wait and see approach. The last thing an advertiser would want is a backlash against their brand. I for one would recommend that advertisers invest in developing their own social voices first before experimenting with twitter ad formats.

5. Lack of transparency hurts the Twitter trust model
It is sometimes easy to forget that twitter is built on trust. We share more than we realize often because we trust that no one will use the information against us. Our followers reward us with their attention and the conversations that ensue. If there's no transparency in the twitter advertising, some of that trust will be broken. Before you know it, the FTC will feel obliged to institute guidelines or requirements for advertising in this space too. So there's a risk that the advertising may not be as transparent as it should be. And that's where disclosure codes like those recommended by Jon Burg will matter a lot. Maybe these twitter ad networks can build disclosure codes into their platforms?

As with popups, I'd assume that there will be an early market for plugins to kill the Ads (TwAkismet anyone?)

OK, its a terrible pun, but the rest of this is funnier. Bain has written a report with a 5 point plan to recapture value in the Online Ad market, which has been falling. Mediapost notes that:

The heart of the findings are that online sales organizations have lacked the "sophistication" necessary to turn the perceptions advertisers and agencies have about the value of online advertising from an either/or proposition of "branding" vs. direct response-like "transactions" to one that is far more holistic and deals with higher order elements of branding such as "engagement."

"It's a pretty big rethink about the way [online] sales organizations work," IAB President Randall Rothenberg explained to OMD, adding that the end goal is what he described as a "triple play offering" that combines brand reach, transactions and "brand engagement."

Major obstacles that need to be overcome to achieve that, the report concludes, include:

1 - Ad formats and creative are not innovating with the medium.
2 - We are awash in undifferentiated, low-cost inventory.
3 - Metrics, metrics everywhere... but not the ones that brand marketers really need.
4 - Media companies lack ideas, strategic expertise and engage too late in the planning process.
5 - Marketers want cross-platform campaigns; instead they get a model rooted in platform-specific silos.

To which we would add a sixth - an infinitely burgeoning amount of inventory set against a fixed amount of Ad spend budget. Anyway, there is a Five Point Plan to get out the deep doo-doo:

1 - Measurement: Work with other associations to establish clear standards for measurement of brand impact and reach/frequency.

2 - Targeting: Address current scale and data limitations for targeting. Identify ways to adjust for overlapping audience in reach buys.

3 - Automated process: Help develop low-cost and/or automated buying processes for brand reach and response buys. Establish common technical standards for the industry.

4 - Online creative: Identify and communicate success factors for marketers, agencies, and publishers in executing cross-platform creative.

5 - Engaging marketers: Create ongoing forums with marketers for discussion of branding approach, limitations, and key developments.

The report, "Building Brands Online: An Interactive Advertising Action Plan," a preview of which was given Online Media Daily on Wednesday, is based on an in depth survey or 700 brand marketers, as well as anecdotal research with ad agencies and publishers. God knows how much the IAB paid for it, but this stuff is not exactly new news - all they would have needed to do is come to a few Measurementcamps and they would have found most of this out.

In fact, what fascinates me more about this is the totally different - probably 4 orders of magnitude different - price you can pay for getting the same information.

On Monday I attended the Media 140 Conference. Owing to a confluence of adverse railway related issues, I arrived late (Am reconsidering my opposition to fascism, I think Focussed Fascism - on the trains - would be a Good Thing) so missed the first morning session (but Adam Tinworth has blogged the whole day starting here). The aim of the day was to explore how microblog systems (ie Twitter) work in a more commercial arena for brands, ie "Everything a brand needs to know about twitter & real-time social media". This meant, on the day, focus was mainly on sales, marketing, PR and the occasional dive into customer service rather than any more operational uses.

At any rate, these are the notes I took on the day.:


Quirk's Nic Ray and Unilever's Noam Buchalter on Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing is not new, but new technology helps - cheaper, more people, faster, do more things. It attacks the traditional Ad agency model's economics as:

- there are more creatives outside
- it is lower cost and risk plus faster turnaround
- potentially gives better consumer insight, and often earlier
- drives better consumer exposure
- has high PR exposure at moment (buzz)

However, its not without its challenges:

- sifting ideas takes up a lot of time and effort
- manage the contributing community expectation so they remain "customers" (and prevent backlash etc if they feel they are ignored)
- these, and other production issues still need paying of skilled people
- IP issues with 3rd party ideas
- old agency sour grapes - got a lot of negative press from people who have access to presses

Also, Crowdsourcing is not appropriate for everything, works best with:

-fairly well defined brand
-something the target market would have a view on

They went through a case study for Peperami, who changed to this model, in essence because:

- wanted new ideas from new sources as brand was getting old
- economics of outsourcing to (less expensive) users were very attractive

After the users generated the ideas, they were sifted and scored by:

- fitted client brief
- was actionable
- "wow" factor
-was produceable

What was fairly radical apparently was that the client was fully involved in the process (I must say, coming from the consulting/design side of the service industries that point amazed me - seems like there area few other issues "Olde Advertising" has to deal with still).

There was then a Panel I missed owing to Real Work Issues, but Adam Tinworth has it covered (All panellists are listed in the Media140 link above in Para 1).


Ciaran Norris of Mindshare on Listening skills....

Ciaran addressed the economics of "Social media" marketing - he noted that points not often grasped up front are that:

- Listening is very labour intensive
- Shirky - transaction cost and the creator effort is much lower - but this means there is a lot more stuff, much of which is dross (my words)
- Search is the biggest social tool still
- Buzz metric tools are not cheap - search, viral tracking etc - once you scale up.

Also today one needs to track video not just text, and there is a proliferation of listening posts

- Delicious is a good listening tool, has RSS feeds
- Tweetdeck good for listening too
-Tweetfunnel - allows multiple people to manage Twitter
-Tweetmeme tracks links spread around Twitter (Ciaran hypothesis 90% of content shared on Twitted is professional, not amateur)
-Twitterfall searches a hashtag
-Trendistic etc etc - all seem to be point tools

He also made the point that the brand may have its online personality hijacked - For example, Weight Watchers on Twitter is not expressing it's personality, its just a recipe feed - so "Tweet what you eat" has hijacked the brand personality on Twitter by being far more about peopel commnicating to lose weight

Lunch and another Real Work Break so I missed Mr Red Bull, John Beasley, and then we had.....

The Great Twitterwall Hijack

There was then quite a useful panel with real experience - or at least it could have been except for The Twitterwall. As far as I can see, the dynamic went something like this:

- Panelists stop talking when Twitterwall goes up and start reading Twitterwall and responding to it
- This encourages twitterwalling audience to become more strident in their twts, trying to be seen by panellists
- Result is random, diverted panel with not a lot of useful stuff.

That at least was my view, I'm coming to the conclusion that Twitterwalls should be shut off (or at least curated) while panels are talking and only switched on at question time, or there is little point in having the panellists. Anyway, Adam Tinworth covered this panel well (and disagrees with me re Twitterwalls....).

The Last Panel of the Day

This was quite useful as (i) it had a real user - Virgin Trains and (ii) it had Will McInness and Drew Benvie on, who I think know their stuff (as in fact did the others, I just didn't know them).

Richard Baker from Virgin Train made some interesting observations (see his blog post over here)

- brand is in hands of the people in the company. Some customers want a conversation, others just want info/answers
- to start up: no strategy, started on Twitter, just listening. People very positive - but after a while it's not enough - the service actually needs to work
- issue with the instant gratification of real time media - why should a brand respond instantly? There is a penalty if you don't, but its lousy economics sometimes
- but people are ruder to Virgin trains than to his own persona

By the way, the Grauniad's Mercedes Bunz (yes, really) covered this panel over here.

The Real Time Web & Show me money - Bernard Desarnauts, Glam Media

The Real Time Web and how to make money - two topics dear to my heart! Here is the Problem:

-Fragmenting content
- fragmenting audience long and mid tail
- fragmenting traffic
- classic web less important (I love the idea of the Classic Web)
- brand engagement higher in distributed media

The Solution - analysis tools, in this case Tinker, a sort of Real Time Walled Garden which allows brands to see in real time stuff but gives them a safe place. The main issue though is the same as with any Real Time system, ie stopping clutter. The solution - blending algorithm and curator via real time categorisation of type of source, aggregation and filter plus metadata curation eg of hashtags.

Other things coming down the road in Real Time are:

- Event ads and real time ads
- Integrate real time web data - for example real time location targeting
- Where was the money and how does it flow? Provided metrics will be key in future
- Data send to user on various sites eg Twitter depending on what they are on, will see integration to Twitter, Friendfeed, YouTube.

Why will these approaches work? Money. Early indications are that it works 5x better than other Ad systems

- 17 vs 2.7 % interaction rate
- 15 vs 2 seconds engagement times
- 28 average tweets into Ad unit

As to how they are filtering, for eg how do you screen and remove noisy inanity - you can't yet, so they are scrubbing repetition

Dave McCandless - InformationIsBeautiful

Dave's view is that information visualization was "a new trend" (consternation in the back row as we all tried to work out if it was 10 or 15 years ago that it was a hot new trend). Anyway, Dave's view is that to to sell on social media, you need to give something - and "interestingness" is great currency (if you are not a sleb, that is?). At any rate, Dave provided some brilliant graphs and data visualizations, one of which I've put up. (By the way, the brevity of this precis is more than made up by the graphics he showed. You can get (more here)- a picture, as they say, is worth a 1,000 words)

Utku Can Akyuz - MintDigital

Utku put up the Hemlock Open Source middleware applications, which seems mainly optimised for making game type environments. Applicatios mentioned were:

- Games: Real time open source tools for eg bamzooki as game
- Filtering and graphics
- 2 Screen behaviour TV plus Lsptop integration - made as game
- Data from the ads to interact with, or for eg pulling data from shows for Ad placement next to TV

Mark Rock - AudioBoo

As the last speaker, Mark did the sensible thing and made his talk short and sharp. Key points were:

- Twitter made SMS social, trying to do same with audio at audioboo (and video in future maybe?)
- Podcasting was too complex, turned people off
- AudioBoo cannot be edited, deliberately trying to keep it fresh and simple

So what's with the headline - a sale of two Twitters - I hear you ask?. Well, the interesting stuff is often what is said in the discussion at lunch etc, and there were two strands of polarisation I picked up - firstly, the view that not a lot new was being said, but what was being said was to new people (In this respect I thought that it varied, the individual speakers were quite perceptive but sometimes the panels struggled to get insights out, as it were).

The second polarisation was a philosophical difference about how Twitter is used by Brands, 2 "tribes" in this space as it were. These tribes are:

(i) The "Sell, Sell, Sell" fraternity - the view is that some people see this as just another channel to flog stuff on, and stuff the other users' experience. The channel has a higher response rate still, so make hay while the sun shines and the devil takes the hindmost. (The "Tragedy of the Commoners" approach)

(ii) The "Social Sell" fraternity who believe that you do actually have to act differently on this medium, be part of a conversation (ie the "Its a Sewer" fraternity - what you get out of it depends on what you put into it)

There was also a feeling that the "newbies" are predominantly of the former persuasion, the old hands of the latter.

Thoughts of Which Twitter will win out?

(Update - as always, kudos to the organisers, I know how much work is involved in things like this)

Last week I attended the IAB Europe's Research Showcase on Social Media (hat tip Andrew Gerrard). Speakers were:

- Tom Smith Managing Director of Trendstream
- Bradley Little Director Industry Solutions Online, Nielsen
- Pawel Petkowicz, from Poland’s largest social networking site, Nasza Klasa.
- Charlie Osmond, Managing Director of FreshNetworks

Here are my snapshot views from quite a thought provoking day:

Tom Smith - European Social Media Trends

Tom put up a "Hype Timeline" from blogs to twitter, Facebook is so last year, MySpace falls off the groovy scale. Reality of course is different, as usage is opposite to hype - and Internet forums on Google and Yahoo are still most active still, despite Geocities demise.

He also put up some market research charts on Usage Motivation (you can get them here) including the above one showing - guess what - that Usage is mainly driven by "Staying in touch", "sharing views" (which is of course why the popularity of simple connection tools - email, sms, twitter) confound verey generation of tech pundits. Also very popular usage is market research to buy stuff. He notes the Rise of Iphone, and the most popular apps are around getting access to social media.

This balance shifts by country - Russians and emerging mkts are more social whereas UK, Germany most purchase research based. I saked why re Russia et al, Tom's hypothesis is that these countries have more rigid social structures, so fewer alternatives for good old open comms. I also wonder if its harder to buy online....

On Social Networks, the online ones are bigger than F2F (due to lower transaction costs in my opinion - does this impact the Dunbar number?) but not so many online friends are "have a beer with" friends - also noted different social nets have different "mean distance of relationships" vs. F2F and each other

On research to buy, he notes Twitter is becoming more heavily used to promote something, and Trusted recommendation are moving to online social network from geographic/professional recommendation sites.

A few other nuggets:

- All content will be somewhat social eg the Social Electronic Program Guide (EPG)
- We will all have one identity across all media (I Disagree)
- Augmented reality will be driven by social, not commercial metadata (much to the disappointment of those hoping to cash in on Advertising)

Marketing implications are:

- social in path to purchase
- it's good to talk
- make purpose clear
- social media impacts all the voice of the customer stuff and HR, Recruitment
- so trend monitoring (eg Www.trendstream.net) will be key

Brad Little - State of the Debate

Key points were:

- metrics still emergent
- Pepsi pro facebook page 250k Coke homebuilt by fams 2.5m friends
- social media is like a big focus group

The Industry is still in learning curve mode, basically trying to use push metrics on pull media. PR and Marketing are "early in" to being reshaped by the new technologies, and he sees big future market in:

- Customer service - as Big companies make it into a profit centre
- Insight and research
- Product development based on the above

How to unlock value? Some thoughts are:

- understand all data is not equal.
- Corollary issue is too much data - needs filtering, explaining
- use dashboards, and use "zero bse" metrics to see progress
- combine research approach
- derive testable insights (and test them)
- Interaction - just listening leads to insight, then try to understand, then interact

He gave the Snuggies "Outstanding Success" Example (Snuggies are blankets with knitted arm tubes)

- The Standard media view was that Snuggies was a functional product, had good ads and well defined benefits = market win
- The "Real story" - people mocked it on social media, and so it went viral online and was bought by many.

If you stuck with the Standard story you would make the wrong investments in media, marketing and possibly product development.


Next up - Andrew Gerrard chairing a panel Talking ROI

This featured some of the afternoon’s presenters, plus Facebook's Trevor Johnson, Head of Planning & Stratgy EMEA. Issues are:

- Getting organisations used to new metrics & blending it with other media
- People are asking a lot more of it than Older Media because of data available, but its still in its infancy so less able to answer
- Not everything that can be measured is worth it and vice versa

Other useful comments I noted were:

- All new mediums have struggled with ROI in early days - also need to differentiate between direct, indirect and added value ROI
- The "you have no option" argument - lots of "social media e-forces" today
- Good start is using it for cost cutting areas eg customer service to build experiences
- Social networks massively dominated by women and their values (this is something we have banged on about tima and again)
- Many types of social media means lots of different ROI,
- Social Media goes across boundaries also structurally hard to do in Silo companies
- Don't worry about detailed metrics do monitor the big things
- Story key for internal sell - how to link to CRM etc

I had to miss most of Pawel's Sony case study due to real work related tasks, but picked up that they found the "Recommend to a friend" is best way of promotion

Charlie Osmond Fresh Minds - building online research communities

Having aon Online Research Community Allows better innovation to customer led organisation eg Dell Ideastorm as response to MyDellHell. Some thoughts on how to make them work are:

- Use their language, so if thy use txt 2 spk u hve 2 follo suit
- Using social media for insight risky as 90% are only readers, you will never see their views
- Need to be able to get the more detailed info from follow on questions

Some other points made

- Social network is about me, online Community is about us
- You need a social community hub (a blog, website etc)
- Control is a dirty word but some is needed - (nudge?)
- Need to differentiate between buzz and sustained impact (buzz is by definition ephemeral)

How to build an online community:

1. Listen
- ongoing monitoring
- snapshot audit

2. Planning
- website is 20% of work
- community recruit takes time
- plan demographic
- need to get org online, how do you deal with umpleasants

3. Platform

Different channels for different reqmnts - hub idea
Tools key to reduce labour

4. Community Management

Not just about moderation, more like being a host at a party, creating conversation, external outreach

Eg Starbucks wound up 20 people heavier due to poor design of community, tools etc

5. Measuring results

As per discussions above

All in all an interesting day, the analytics alone made attendance worthwhile.

Fascinating bit of research from ComScore, as reported on MediPost:

....the number of people who click on display ads in a month has fallen from 32% of Internet users in July 2007 to only 16% in March 2009, with an even smaller core of people (representing 8% of the Internet user base) accounting for 85% of all clicks.

In other words, any stats from Ad Clickers are picking up a tiny minority of real activity on the Web. Now, we have felt for a while that Display Ads are massively undervalued (on a whole raft of measures) simply because one couldn't measure them as easily (we first advanced this thesis in our major report on Online Advertising in 2007 and have kept to that view). Seems like Comscore is coming to similar conclusions:

....comScore is advocating looking beyond the click because other comScore research has shown that online display ads generate significant lift in trademark search, online and offline sales, and brand-site visitation across all verticals, among those internet users who were exposed to the online ad campaigns - whether they clicked on the ad or not. These results, compiled in comScore's influential "Whither the Click?" white paper, were reported in the June 2009 issue of the Journal of Advertising Research.

and

"a click earns no revenue and creates no brand equity... online advertising (is) certainly not to generate clicks... (but) to visit website, seek more information, purchase a product, become a lead, keep brand top of mind... "

Will we see the Rebirth of Display Ads in 2010?

We've said it before, and no doubt we will say it again - its risky to put all one's eggs in one basket, especially if its someone else's basket. Aaron Choi of Rock You's letter below is reported in All Facebook:

As you know, Facebook has gone through another round of aggressive compliance checks, and have flagged a number of ads that they deem offending. We’ve included some ads that Facebook is flagging as part of this email - most of which RY does not serve but are served by other networks.

We are as surprised as you about this latest round from Facebook, and have been consistently sending creative to them in an effort to get much clearer guidance. Much of the time, we don’t hear anything back or we get vague answers. In some cases, we have had ad creative flagged through our network when very similar creative is running on Facebook itself, served through Facebook’s ad system.

The result - all those application developers who have been depending on the "get millions of users and throw up irrelevant display ads" model are at risk.

What is interesting to me is why, in theory, this model even needs to exist on Facebook. I mean, this is supposed to be the place which understands its users best given the vast amount of personal data they have online there - and its been through the wringer on Beacon and still has pretty sleazoid privacy policies and T&C to ensure your data is theirs to mine. This, in theory is The Great Differentiator between Facebook and placing random Ads on websites. This is the ACME of Personalisation.

So, one of two options present themselves as explanations:

- The ACME of Personalisation is still not possible, so why p*ss off your users (and alert investors/competitors to the weak spot) just to let some poxy developers live a bit

- It works, and by golly Facebook wants all the loot - so start to clear out the developers by an Ad squeeze (A corollary - it works, but it needs access to Facebook's datamine that they don't want to hand over to 3rd parties).

I think if I were Facebook I'd do a similar thing - the invasive random Ad model is p*ssing off users, and its a feature they can get all over the 'Net - and Facebook as yet doesn't need the money - but it does need happy users.

As for the developers, return to top of post. Do not pass first sentence.

This is funny - a report comes out today that notes that about 2/3rd of US people don't like being tracked online for advertising purposes, as reported in the NYT (its due for full release later):

Tailored ads in general did not appeal to 66 percent of respondents. Then the respondents were told about different ways companies tailor ads: by following what someone does on the company’s site, on other sites and in offline places like stores.

The respondents’ aversion to tailored ads increased once they learned about targeting methods. In addition to the original 66 percent that said tailored ads were “not O.K.,” an additional 7 percent said such ads were not O.K. when they were tracked on the site. An additional 18 percent said it was not O.K. when they were tracked via other Web sites, and an additional 20 percent said it was not O.K. when they were tracked offline.

The survey company also asked about customized discounts and customized news. Fifty-one percent of respondents said that tailored discounts were O.K., and 58 percent said that customized news was fine.

On the advertising question, there was not a big difference between age groups. Marketers often use teenagers’ behavior on Facebook as anecdotal evidence that they do not mind handing over information. But 55 percent of respondents from 18 to 24 objected to tailored advertising.

Now, this should be no surprise, surely. As Kara Swisher puts it, this study:

"should surprise only the people behind the Beacon debacle shows that a majority of Americans of all ages don’t like being tracked online by advertisers."

So who do you think is pooh poohing this - why, Google of course. Matt Cutts takes the lead apologist role - but plays the ad hominem card (which is always the sign of a weak case in my view):

One of the study’s co-authors was Chris Jay Hoofnagle. Hoofnagle has served as the Senior Counsel and Director of the West Coast Office
of Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). You haven’t heard of EPIC? EPIC was the group that in 2004 argued that Gmail should be shut down: “In a letter sent to California Attorney General Bill Lockyer on Monday, the Electronic Privacy Information Center argued that Gmail must be shut down because it ‘represents an unprecedented invasion into the sanctity of private communications.’ ”

I can guess what you’re saying. “That was five years ago. People didn’t know then how useful Gmail was going to be.” Okay, then did you know that EPIC lobbied the government to shut down Google Apps earlier this year?

No surprises there either - as Mandy Rice Davis said, "well he would say that, wouldn't he".

And the beef behind his beef? None, as far as I could see - no counter evidence, no attack of the factual base. At what point does dissembling stop being good and start being evil?

But why the instant response with such low grade ammunition - well, timing, as they say, is everything - and this is becoming a hot potato:

The topic may be technical, but it has become a hot political issue. Privacy advocates are telling Congress and the Federal Trade Commission that tracking of online activities by Web sites and advertisers has gone too far, and the lawmakers seem to be listening. Representative Rick Boucher, Democrat of Virginia, wrote in an article for The Hill last week that he planned to introduce privacy legislation. And David Vladeck, head of consumer protection for the F.T.C., has signaled that he will examine data privacy issues closely.

I thus expect to see an equal but opposite conclusion report out soon funded by groups friendly to Google et al, arguing that this is all wrong and arguing for self regulation being the best option in this best of worlds. But, as was pointed out last year (as the Crunch bit) on the FT's Maverecon blog:

Unfortunately, self-regulation stands in relation to regulation the way self-importance stands in relation to importance and selfrighteousness to righteousness. It just isn’t the same thing.

And the lessons of the last 12 months have shown how little the bankers's have possessed ability to self regulate

If you watch Mad Men, the TV drama about a 1960's Advertising company, there is a subplot about the rise of a TV advertising group within a larger more traditional media based Ad company. The shift from Print to TV advertising in the 1960's was the last great upheaval in Adland, and most of the great Ad agencies of today were the ones who bet right then. Many great names at the time fell by the wayside. However, Adland is undergoing another upheaval now, from TV to the Web. And if one was going to call a day when the writing on the wall became clear, today may as well be it. From the FT:

The internet has overtaken television to become the UK’s largest advertising medium, according to a report by PwC for the Internet Advertising Bureau.

Spending on online advertising grew 4.6 per cent in the first half of 2009 compared with the same period last year to reach £1.75bn, driven largely by search engine advertising.

By contrast, overall advertising spending fell 16.6 per cent. As a result, online’s share of the total grew from 18.7 per cent in the first half of last year to 23.5 per cent, ahead of TV’s 21.9 per cent.

Although its probable that TV advertising will rise again for a while (the 17% drop is recession based) its clear that soon Web advertising will be the dominant form of Ad spend - which is only rational as its increasingly where people - especially the sort of people advertisers want to reach, i.e. those with money - are. The reason for its success is feedback loops and that most boring of things, ROI:

Online advertisers are able to discern more precisely than from other media how many people have seen a commercial and whether they have made an immediate purchase. This “accountability” had helped online increase its market share.

In other words managers are still extremely keen to see which half of their advertising budget works, and drop the excess. The lesson for this generation of Mad Men was clear some years ago, but this is pretty much the sign that the game is up and the play from now on is to make the best effort one can not to be left behind in the TV to Web transition, as many great old newsprint based agencies (who are thus no longer with us) did in the 1960's.

Its also very strong proof (if more was needed) for the TV industry that the Web will force the same structural changes on them that it has forced on newspapers and radio - There, but for the bandwidth, they go. Follow the money, as they say.

So there I am, working away, with Spotify on playing some stuff I really like, when suddenly on comes this music track Ad - its totally different in style and volume, and is advertising a type of music I don't like. It totally jarred with the music of a few seconds before, the shock was visceral. I was incensed enough to Twitter:

Hey Spotify - inserting a few seconds of some random singer that totally jars with what I'm listening to at the time really doesn't work !

Which of course brought a few sensible replies on the lines of "buy the premium service", "turn it off until its over" etc. But there was one reply which I really had to blog about - David Jennings, fellow Tuttler and expert on all matters to do with online music, noted that:

I recorded the same thing ("audio whiplash" with ads) abt We7

We7 being a music service a few years ago (where are they now....). For those of you who don't know him, David wrote "Net, Blogs & Rock n Roll" which in my view is still the definitive guide to online music in the social media age - and other online media by inference. Anyone who fancies themselves a strategist or expert in this industry needs to read David's book.

What David wrote in his blog (also called Net, Blogs and Rock n Roll) about this issue, over here, in a piece entitled "Audio whiplash from personalised ads with free music downloads", was:

.....listen to that audio whiplash between the ad and the track itself. When you're listening to French chansons from the '20s and '30s, just the tone of the ad is enough to make it come across like an aural invasion, and thus counterproductive in getting across the message.

Given that my selection of tracks is probably a better guide to my personality, lifestyle and buying habits than my age and gender, why not tailor the ads to the music rather than the listener demographics? No need for the clever software (patent pending) then, but the 'creatives' at the ad agencies might have to work a bit harder to think about the context in which their work will be heard.

"Audio Whiplash" was exactly the right term. That shift in music really had impact, I felt mentally assaulted. I hated the advertised music and artist far more than I would have in a neutral environment, and I was incensed with Spotify for being so insensitive as to play it when I was listening to something so different, that I liked.

Its interesting to think about why I had this reaction. Music may have the charms to soothe the most savage breast, but it certainly works in reverse if its the wrong music. My initial hypothesis is that music reaches deep into us and bypasses some of our more rational functions, so that when it goes wrong, the reaction is far more visceral than even a popup Ad will cause.

In my view, any service that is dealing with music probably has to be far more careful to tailor the Ads to what the person is listening to, and as David notes, music selection is probably a far better guide to personality - and mood - than any blander demographics. Spotify and other music stations are in my view sitting on a goldmine of realtime user demographic data, but its clearly very early days in terms of using it. Considering David wrote his piece in 2007, its clear that there is still much to learn.

Or maybe its just me - others thoughts?

Every so often, someone asks us about the viability of dating sites (they're viable, but competition is huge....) and the last time I was asked (a few weeks ago) I was looking over a few papers when Futurist Iain Pearson's 2005 article "The Future of Flirting" popped up. I recall reading it at the time as we were researching types of SocNets and dating sites were early entrants. Its been on my spike the last few weeks, so here it is (abridged), for your enjoyment on what must be one of the really slow news days of the year:

On Flirting:

Flirting has certainly moved on in the last decade. People today can flirt with each other in chat rooms, in on-line games, via email and text messaging (flirting actually accounts for most text messaging). A few people use Bluetooth to send anonymous messages to other peoples’ phones. None of these were in significant use 15 years ago and even by 1995, only a fraction of the population had email or mobile phones. Now, most people have had some experience of electronically mediated flirting. People often say things in a text that they wouldn’t dare say face to face. They can squeeze in a little smiley or an LOL at the end of a message to test the water without any serious risk. Did the LOL really mean ‘lots of love’ or was it the ‘lots of laughs’? If the person plays along, they can safely proceed to the next level, sneaking in a little x at the end of the text. But the ambiguity gives a welcome path of retreat without loss of face in case of rejection.

On Mobile Games:

Mobile device technology is improving rapidly. Messaging technology is becoming multimedia, so video clips, photos, cartoons and games can now all be used to flirt via a mobile phone. Soon, we will be able to send directional messages, so that provided you have reasonable aim, you could send a compliment to someone you fancy across the room, even without knowing who they are. Various forms of ego badges will communicate automatically with ones other people are wearing, electronically exchanging details of our personality, sexual preferences, availability, willingness, and maybe desperation level.

Anyone ever read Brian Aldiss's book The Primal Urge, which explores the effects on society of a forehead-mounted Emotion Register that glows when the wearer experiences sexual attraction. (Tsk, thats Science Fiction, not Futurism ). Anyway..........

Software would work out compatibility level, and if appropriate, would alert both people that they should chat, maybe by beeping, vibrating, flashing lights, romantic music, perfume, whatever. With virtual air concepts developing, we might even be able to leave virtual pheromone trails as we wander around, so that people can track each other down. I’ve often heard people remark that a difficult pursuit is half the fun, even if that’s not my personal experience. Well, it can be made as difficult as they like. A person could make themselves the prize at the end of a really tough treasure hunt, or detective game, where only potential suitors are even allowed to play at all.

But this passage is my favourite:

Artificial intelligence will also play a part in flirting in the future. If you have a number of flirty relationships, you might not have time to invest properly in each one, so AI will be essential to stand in for you when you can’t interact personally. You may be able to convey much of your personality to an AI, and it could then pass of as you sometimes. So you could get a lot more fun, with little extra personal effort. But I wonder how often we will then see AIs just flirting with each other. If neither of the people are available, or both have lost interest but just didn’t want to hurt the other person, their AIs could be flirting away madly in the background, with no-one watching.

Yes, the Flirtbot will be the must have thing of 2015, you heard it here first. Actually, I suspect very soon on Twitter the pimps will be talking directly to the bots.....

By the way, I filed this piece under Online Advertising, as that of course is what this all is......