Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Thinking Out Loud: Relevant or Wrong
By: Jaffer Ali
Behavioral targeting (BT) is the new snake oil, a veritable
cure-all for the online marketing industry. There is a
difference, however, between BT and 19th-century snake
oil; those touting BT actually believe they have a magic
elixir, while the itinerant salesman in the Conestoga wagon
knew full well that he was fleecing the unsuspecting and
gullible town folk.
Upon closer examination, the rancid formula of this “BT
elixir” should give any and all in the media food chain
pause for concern before ingesting. And in the long list
of what’s wrong with targeting ads by behavior, three
elements stand out as particularly toxic.
Let’s use the FTC’s definition of behavioral targeting:
“…the tracking of a consumer’s activities online –
including the searches the consumer has conducted, Web
pages visited and content viewed – in order to deliver
advertising targeted to the individual consumer’s
interests.”
BT is an invasion of our privacy, for even if we opt in
to the process, we’re often exposing personal data then
obtainable by the government via subpoena. The purposely
stealth nature of this pseudo-science evokes chilling,
Big Brother-esque imagery, and defies the notion that
something of such questionable moral foundation could
proceed this far unchallenged.
The fact that private industry now works in tandem with
the government to stalk and track us online may deflect
but cannot dilute the moral argument. It seems little
considerations like the prohibitions against “unreason-
able search and seizure” enshrined in our Bill of Rights
never made it onto the BT agenda.
BAD PREDICTORS
Besides being creepy, targeting relies on spurious
predictors. Once, Wall Street hired thousands of learned
mathematicians to portend the future of the financial
markets. They poured over millions of transactions and
developed sophisticated algorithms to predict market
trends. Science was heralded as a welcome savior capable
of taming the chaos of the stock market. The underlying
principles of the mathematics were developed by John Nash,
who found that there was an underlying predictive order to
minute human interactions.
Amass enough data, they said, and the Ph.D.s could ferret
out the predictive variables that made people do what
they do.
Only one problem: They were all wrong.
None of the models that identified predictive variables
envisioned the bus careening off the cliff because all
of these models were conceived through the rearview
mirror. The flawed variables derived from past, irrational
behavior did not (and could not) predict the devastating
financial collapse that ensued.
Thousands of suddenly unemployed Ph.D.s left Wall Street.
Where did they end up? Next stop: Madison Avenue, Google
and BT shops.
The underlying mathematical ingredient of BT is snake oil,
but with “a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go
down.” (For a thorough examination of the mathematical
nonsense, see Nicholas Taleb’s two books, Fooled by
Randomness and The Black Swan.)
As instability increases, mathematical reductionism renders
predictions of future behavior untenable. Simply put,
driving by looking in the rearview mirror is a sure recipe
for disaster.
RELEVANCE IRRELEVANT
The main ingredient in this serpentine concoction is
relevancy, the composition of which comprises “getting the
right ad in front of the right person at the right time.”
It sounds so logical and reasonable.
Of course, witch trials were also considered logical and
reasonable once upon a time.
What the relevancy ingredient assumes is that people want
relevant ads. In truth, the data suggests just the
opposite. They don’t want ANY ads at all! But by asking
questions in a subjective, self-serving manner, you can
pervert the Socratic Method to get the answer you want.
Former FBI director Louis Freeh said: “Ask the American
public if they want an FBI wiretap and they’ll say, ‘no.’
If you ask them do they want a feature on their phone
that helps the FBI find their missing child they’ll say,
‘Yes.’”
If audiences are asked, “Do you want more ads?” all data
suggest they will answer with a resounding NO! But if
they are first asked, “Do you prefer relevant ads over
irrelevant ads?” they may reasonably, albeit reluctantly,
say yes. Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.
In an on-demand world, nobody demands more advertising.
An audience so empowered makes advertising a challenging
endeavor, especially when all this snake oil leaves such
a bad taste in our mouths.
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