Advertisers Need To Know More About Us

Forever In My Feed

Six weeks ago, my eldest was just starting her sophomore year at high school. (She's 15, and don't worry -- this is actually about marketing and advertising.) We live a little less than two miles from her school, and there is no convenient bus or mass transit option. Historically, my wife would provide taxi service, but she's now got a part-time job, so my eldest is scrambling to figure out a way home for a few days every week. Walking and biking are options, and so is just staying at the school late at extra-curricular activities, but that's up to three hours after the final class where she's just hanging out. This will all stop being a problem, perhaps, when she's driving and we can think about getting her a car, but for now, it's a bit of a strain. Her books are heavy, and she's fashionable enough to not want to be sweaty at class on a bike or from taking a half hour hike, maybe alone.

Oh a whim, I started to poke around the Web to see if there might be another transportation option. That's when I saw the hoverboard. You have probably seen them on the news or YouTube. They are kind of like a Segway without a podium, and there's a picture of one at the top of this column. Some go up to 10 mph and can operate for up to an hour, so hey -- maybe an option. It looked small enough to maybe fit in her locker. I read some reviews, went to a few sites to price options.

Then I showed it to her, and got the kind of side eye and shade that only a fashionable 15 year old can throw. Oh well. Transaction averted; not the first time that Dad's Idea got shot down. No worries.

Anyone that has thought about buying something on the Web, and wound up not doing it, knows what happens next. The hoverboard has been in my banner ads ever since, with an ever-changing number of prices and shipping options, from an ever-changing number of vendors.
I could, of course, opt out of these banners by clicking on the AdChoices logos, or maybe clearing my cookies, and so on. I am, of course, not going to do this, because no one in the world ever has done that, because honestly, who has the time? Besides, if the hoverboard was not in my ads, it would just be something else.

Now, some see this kind of thing as proof of Advertiser Malfeasance, or an invasion of privacy, or just one more instance of modern life going to hell in a handbasket. (Have you ever noticed that handbaskets are the only carrying containers for trips to the netherworld? No one's going to hell in a backpack. But I digress.)

I see things a little differently. I see an advertising medium that, far from getting too much information on the lives of individuals, just isn't getting enough. In my case, that the hoverboard is a no sale.

In a few more months, I'll shop for some other stuff as part of my Q4 gift giving. My retargeting banners will reset to whatever new thing comes into my life without a purchase. But offline, I'll still be watching football games... and unless there is Congressional action or some spectacular bit of public relations misery, I will be seeing ads for daily fantasy leagues, auto insurance, mobile phones and services, trucks and fast food.

I don't play daily fantasy leagues, and never will. My wife works for an insurance company, so I'm out of market there, thanks to her employee discount. I got my phone four months ago, and won't replace it for another 18 months at least. I've never bought a truck, and never will. I don't do fast food. There's no way to opt out of any of those ads. (And honestly, I think I'd pay money to not see any more daily fantasy league ads. I also don't think I'd be alone in making that purchase.)

Eventually, online advertising will grow up and consolidate targeting files, because there's money in better targeting, and much of the infrastructure is already in place, especially with advertising being much more tied to purchase. Much later, targeting will also occur offline, and I'll stop seeing all of those lovely ads that are so irrelevant to my life.

There's simply too much money in doing things smarter, and life for consumers will also get better. Smarter will happen, as soon as we move past this incomplete amount of information. And just because we're used to dumb ads in non-digital mediums, that doesn't make them less dumb.

(Oh, and as for what my kid wound up doing, rather than pioneering a new transportation fad? She's now pretty much hanging out at her best friend's house after school, who lives pretty close by. And giving me side eye for new and better things.)

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Never Give A Sucker An Even Panacea

Would I sell to you?

So as the continuing fallout from the Volkswagen engineering fraud continues to hit the news, there's one point that continues to hit home for me.

Honestly, how did so many people get fooled by this in the first place?

I drive a hybrid hatchback, in that I'm something of a hobbit (honestly, I've met middle schoolers that are taller and heavier than me), and clean tech appeals to me in a major way. I recycle, walk, run, bike, turn off lights and so on, and so on. For years, my family lived without a clothes dryer, and just used lines and racks. I'm not as far along as we might be one day -- no solar panels on the roof, and we don't compost -- but I do my part.

It's not as easy as not doing your part. You can, and will, save time by using a dryer, dumping everything in the same trash can, driving everywhere, etc. You might save a few bucks as well, but you'll have to take a little sacrifice, from time to time. You know, like a grown up.

I like my hybrid a lot, but it has tradeoffs, mostly from torque. If I need exceptional giddy up, I'm going to pay for it with poor mileage, and I better turn off the air conditioning and the econo settings to get it done. So I just don't drive the car the way I used to drive other cars, and I drive proactively to not put myself in those situations. I still drive at or faster than the traffic around me, but with much less in the way of sudden acceleration. I used to own a two-door sports car with a stick shift, and in terms of being fun to drive, there's no comparison; that ride was a hoot. I get 18 miles per gallon more with the hybrid, and accept a little less fun in my life for the payoff. I didn't have the means or interest in paying a lot more for a Tesla, or the tech chops to make my own electric supercar. So I compromised with my hybrid.

Volkswagen, with the promised clean diesel (never mind the idea of a fossil fuel having clean slapped in front of it) offered, and its buyers believed, in a fraudulent tradeoff. You could still be green, have the same get up and go, and not have to pay for the bleeding edge Tesla. All of the benefit, none of the pain. Automotive panacea.

Not very surprisingly, it was a lie. Just like, well, just about every panacea ever sold. Drugs, even life-saving ones, have side effects. Patriotism, faith, fitness, all great virtues in moderation, but all can be taken too far, or have unforeseen consequences. Those solar panels might not be made under the best working conditions, or be as reliable or potent as other sources, at leas for a while. Adult life is filled with choosing the lesser of two evils, from going to the doctor or dentist for preventive care to voting to buying insurance. The only people who get to believe in panaceas are kids, and they get away from it soon enough.

So while I have sympathy for the defrauded VW owners, who are suddenly driving cars that are worth a lot less than they were before, and feel like they've been taking advantage of...

Well, that sympathy is not total, because on some level, you had to know better, didn't you?

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Awful, Awful Peeple

Urge To Say Mean Things Rising

So there was a lovely example of utter and complete Start Up Fail this week in the media. First came the news in the Washington Post that a new start up (Peeple, because the concept alone wasn't creepy enough without hinting at clandestine viewing) was coming to be "Yelp for everyone", where users would get to post reviews of, well, anyone they'd meet.

After the WaPo shot the fish in the barrel for a few hundred words for privacy violations and the rights of the general public to not worry about getting their lives ruined by a problem neighbor with time on their hands, social media joined fire. Now, the founders are backpedaling to say that the reviews have to be positive and approved by the named user, so the too creepy but potentially voyeuristic and useful site is being replaced by non-stop fluffery that's unseen outside of a talk show couch.

A few points:

1) There is, of course, next to nothing shown here that you can't already do with other applications that you've already heard of; you can write a blog that says how so and so kicks puppies, start a Facebook page over how your 4th grade teacher is in need of abuse, and so on. The fact that no one uses them for this purpose, because it's beyond the pale of human decency and can't drive sustained traffic on its own, seems to have eluded everyone involved.

2) While the truth is always a defense against libel and slander, it's also generally difficult to prove, and expensive when court is involved. It's hard to imagine how a successful Peeple rollout wouldn't result in a great deal of work for the nation's lawyers, which is yet another reason to really dislike this.

3) Honestly, did we need another way to be horrible to each other?

4) Short of paying the site to not be on it, how is this a business?

No one reads the Internet for B+ opinions, and that 1 and 10 ranking rule isn't going to make for nice moments among humanity. We also, as individuals, tend to limit our marketability moments for, well, professional marketability, and to have who we are while on break or vacation or whatever impact our professional lives is always dicey... and even more so when, unlike a lapse on social media, it wasn't entirely self-inflicted, and indicative of a lapse in judgment.

I get that this is now a gig economy. But it really does not need to be a bad gig, with always-on criticism. Work-life balance, people.

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Please like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the agency boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.