Tag Archives: advertising

January 20, 2016 · 11:26 am

Pew, Privacy, and You

I think we all know that Big Brother is watching.  Putting aside what the government may or may not be doing (no politics here!), most people are aware that every move of their digital lives is cataloged, analyzed, and might be sold to someone.  The Pew folks released a study about how we (Americans) feel about that.  In Pew’s words: 

While many Americans are willing to share personal information in exchange for tangible benefits, they are often cautious about disclosing their information and frequently unhappy about what happens to that information once companies have collected it… Many people expressed concerns about the safety and security of their personal data in light of numerous high-profile data breaches. They also regularly expressed anger about the barrage of unsolicited emails, phone calls, customized ads or other contacts that inevitably arises when they elect to share some information about themselves.

Let’s drill down a bit.  The phrase “context-specific and contingent” is a good one to guide us as we think about how to set up a mutually beneficial relationship with the consumer.  First, what benefit is the visitor deriving from giving me their information?  Is it content?  If so, is that content so unique and of such high-quality that they feel it’s an equal exchange or is it just commodity content, something reprinted from some other source?  That contextual decision isn’t yours, by the way: it’s the consumer’s.

Second, what happens to that data after the consumer surrenders it?  Do consumers feel you are a trustworthy repository for their information or are you selling it to anyone regardless of what that third party’s intentions are? The consumer’s initial value exchange with you might be fine, but the subsequent actions by someone else may render that satisfaction null and void. Even if you’re retaining the data, are you doing “creepy” things with it such as constantly remarketing to the consumer so they feel as if they have a stalker in their lives?

While people are used to the notion that privacy is a disappearing concept (for better or for worse), that fact doesn’t mean that they don’t care.  As Pew found, they do care.  I think there is always room for a company to gain an advantage by being transparent and respectful about how they are using the data consumers share with them.  You?

Leave a comment

Filed under digital media, Helpful Hints

Tagged as , , , , ,

January 7, 2016 · 11:46 am

A Snap Of A Dilemma

Are you on Snapchat? I am, although I don’t pretend to understand it as well as some of my younger friends. What I do understand about it, however, is that they are facing the sort of dilemma that torments a lot of businesses. I don’t have any real answers today but maybe you do. Let’s see. 

Snapchat began as a way for users to send disappearing content – photos, videos – to other users. Of course, as with everything on the internet, the content never really disappears (screengrabs, anyone?), but let’s put that aside. The app became very successful and now has over 100 million daily active users. That’s the sort of scale that becomes incredibly appealing to marketers, and it also makes other revenue options such as commerce and data mining more viable.

Now the dilemma. Snapchat’s business has been built to a great extent on the premise of privacy. If you’ve ever tried to locate someone on the platform, good luck. If you don’t have the email address they’re using or their exact Snapchat name, it’s very hard. That may be great if you’re a user trying to avoid stalkers, but if you’re a brand trying to get users it means you need to do a lot of external marketing of your Snapchat presence.  This quote from a recent Digiday piece says it nicely:

One of Snapchat’s main selling points with users entails its combination of anonymous users and disappearing messages. The company has been strident about not building profiles on users to creepily advertise to them. As the reality sinks in about the need for a viable business, more targeting and data capabilities follow. Technology partners are able to bring their own data to an API — email lists and other customer information — to serve ads against.

Therein lies the dilemma.  Until now, Snapchat has tried to make money by selling “lenses”, overlays that will let you alter your snaps so that, say, you can be vomiting rainbows (and who doesn’t want to do that!).  While $300,000 a month in lens sales is nothing to sneeze at, it’s not nearly the kind of monetization that a platform with this kind of user base can command. They also tried to sell ads embedded in some of the “stories” that are a part of the service (they’re a series of snaps linked together around a theme).  Apparently they don’t have enough user data or metrics about engagement to satisfy big spending.  So what do they do?  What is the business?

The balance between staying true to the reasons customers engaged with you in the first place and making money is tricky.  Better metrics and targeting might mean less privacy.  More ads in content mean less user enjoyment (no one likes being interrupted). Less enjoyment and decreased privacy might mean a decline in the user base.  But it is a business, and investors want to see a return.

So what’s the answer?

Leave a comment

Filed under digital media, Thinking Aloud

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

January 5, 2016 · 12:14 pm

Dishonesty As A Feature, Not A Bug

Since we began the year yesterday with a screed about data gathering practices which are less than forthcoming, let’s continue with some thinking on native advertising.  I admit I’m fairly old school about it, but before you jump to conclusions about what that means, let me explain.  I mean REALLY old school, such as when the show’s talent stood in front of the camera and did a commercial read.  With 40 years in the media business under my belt, I have no problems with advertising.  Where I do have an issue is when advertising masquerades as something else.

Let’s start with the fact that consumers generally don’t know that native ads are, in fact, ads.  Two studies support this:

Across both studies, relatively few viewers understood that the article itself was paid advertising: only 7% in Study 1 and 18.3% in Study 2 (in which all conditions used the most recognizable language, “sponsored content”).

So even though there was a disclaimer of sorts around the article, having the reader mistake it for editorial content isn’t a bug: it’s a feature.  The FTC seems to understand this and issued some guidelines around Christmas.  As reported in Media Post:

The new guidance directs companies to label native ads that potentially could be mistaken for editorial content with terms like “advertisement,” “paid advertisement,” or “sponsored advertising content.” The FTC specifically criticizes labels like “promoted” or “promoted stories,” stating that those terms “are at best ambiguous and potentially could mislead consumers that advertising content is endorsed by a publisher site.”

In other words, don’t mislead your readers.  Call an ad an ad.  The studies, by the way, say that you should do so in the middle of the native piece for maximum identification, and not at the top as is commonly done now.  Seems pretty fair, except that the IAB reacted by saying the FTC was way out of line because it might “stifle innovation.”  It’s not a small issue – native ads represent a $7.9 billion pool of ad money and that pool is expected to grow to $21 billion by 2018.  That’s a lot of misleading.

One need not be a publishing genius to grasp that when a reader figures out that something they perceived to be editorial is, in fact, advertising, they will think less of, and possibly question, everything else in the publication.  The research found

When readers perceive a difference between publisher-created editorial content and paid advertising that resembles editorial content there are differences in how they perceive the credibility of the news story. As online publishers seek to balance the pull of native advertising revenue with a potential push for disclosures from regulators and advocates, they should be aware that the best attempts to create informed consumers may result in negative perceptions of news credibility and quality.

In other words, the short-term gain of the native ad can jeopardize the long-term value of the brand’s credibility.  That’s not a bug either.  There is not a thing wrong with the ad-supported business model until we start disguising the ads.  That’s when we jeopardize the entire enterprise, in my opinion.  Yours?

Leave a comment

Filed under digital media, Huh?, Reality checks

Tagged as , , , , ,