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| Privacy Warriors |
Remember, you are fighting for this woman’s honor, which is
probably more than she ever did. – Rufus T. Firefly (aka, Groucho Marx in “Duck
Soup”)
Let us wrap up the first half of 2015 with a quick word
about my favorite online advertising and marketing straw man… privacy. It has
said to be growing an importance as a problem that needs solving, what with the
explosion of mobile, cloud and Internet of Things computing. For the fearful, there
is an ever-growing amount of coverage about identity theft and
malware-controlled machines to drive impression fraud, along with services to cover
the problem. Programmatic and remarketing spends makes all of this more obvious
and wearable… well, yeah, I cannot even finish the set-up.
Privacy concerns are nearly as old as the Web, and what has
been true all along is that the younger you are, the less you seem to care
about this, and willing to trade it off for any kind of personal benefit. I
have worked at start-ups that made software that served ads based on
clickstream, which any number of people would pule against… but it did not stop
nine figures of downloads over a short span of years, for the simple trade of
free software. Once that concern went sideways, the same basic trade-off was
achieved, but with cookie files and without apps, and that’s more or less the
industry standard now.
What happens next? More intrusive technology, with greater
targeting capabilities, and cross-platform learning cycles. Fevered reactions
about how some brands are cyber-stalking individual consumers, and some
consumer categories getting special attention from ad exchanges, because they
will be deemed as too over-the-top or out of bounds. Then, the Internet of
Things, which will multiply the pace of all this by a factor of ten.
How? Well, wearable tech really is a game changer,
especially when it has cross-device information. Monitoring health features for
fitness is just the first moments of a very long game, with greater iterations
doing more to establish a baseline of health to prevent for seizures, strokes
and other significant issues. It’s not all going to come from your watch or
your phone, of course – your car will also monitor your body for performance
issues, and maybe even your mattress, toothbrush, eyeglasses and so on.
That is not controversial at all, really. The idea that
wearable tech might be able to save your life, or in the case of an automobile,
others, is a product that sells itself. However, when it turns into ads for
products that seem delicate for a shared screen or too far down into the
bloodstream of the individual user… well, that is where the privacy problem
falls away really. Screens are just too ubiquitous, and there is no reason for
a screen to be shared by anyone, especially to younger demographics. Combine
this with the willingness to trade private information for any sort of gain,
and it is, once again, a virtue that will not be fought for.
Finally, this. We presume that ads that are “too targeted”
violate privacy… but what if such ads are rare, beneficial, and even of a high
value due to aggressive offers and price? If you are willing to share your
photos with social media, your preferences with publishers and e-commerce
sites, and your email address near and far… well, why would you have a line for
anything else?
* * * * * *
Speaking
of a targeting with value, I would like to ask you to like or share this
column, connect with me on LinkedIn, email me at
davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or make an RFP at the top right box. We offer copywriting, direction and strategy, along with design, illustration,
photography, coding and hosting. The RFPs are always free. Hope to hear from
you soon.
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