How often do you sit down to watch television and are bombarded with ads for things you’d never in a million years buy? It’s kind of weird right? Compared to how ads work on the internet, it’s actually more than a little archaic. A guy sits down to watch television with his girlfriend and they’re shown an ad for tampons. Sure the girl’s in the target market, but the guy is not. To him, it’s essentially the equivalent of spam - unsolicited, untargeted advertising. And for advertisers it means a wasted opportunity and money down the drain.
So is there a way to do for television and other media what Google ads do for web pages? Google thinks so. Check out this NY Times article on Google’s gradual takeover of the ad business. Very interesting stuff (here’s a registration for that site if you don’t have one).
I’ve been puzzling over this conundrum/media opportunity in my head for several months now, so it’s interesting to hear that I’m not the only one trying to crack this nut:
Now it is preparing to extend its technology to nearly every other medium, most significantly television. It is looking toward a world of digital cable boxes and Internet-delivered television that will allow it to show commercials tailored for each viewer, as it does now for each Web page it displays.
Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, explains the company’s astounding success in advertising - and reconciles it with the founders’ distrust of hucksterism - by suggesting that advertising should be interesting, relevant and useful to users. “Improving ad quality improves Google’s revenue,” he said in an interview at the company’s headquarters, known as the Googleplex. “If we target the right ad to the right person at the right time and they click it, we win.”
This proposition, he continued, is applicable to other media. “If we can figure out a way to improve the quality of ads on television with ads that have real value for end-users, we should do it,” he said. While he is watching television, for example, “Why do I see women’s clothing ads?” he said. “Why don’t I see just men’s clothing ads?”
How they will do it is the big question. Will they give advertisers the opportunity online to create highly targeted ads which will then be fed through some kind of Google-TV station intermediary, and get relayed down to individual tv programs? Seems like it’s not impossible actually. And chances are, they are already taking steps in that direction. Have you checked out Google’s video tools? Not only are they already learning how to index video content, but they’re also doing work with transcriptions of video. So this means feasibly they could apply their filtering technology to the transcript of a television show, and use that to automatically generate ad content from their servers which matches keywords and topics discussed in the show. And they could also target people with geographically relevant ads. Nevermind that if you use a cable company or some other provider, they already keep records of what you watch, which means they have a roughly accurate profile built of your age, sex, income, race, & interests. So they could similarly filter down to ads which fit exactly into your demographic segment.
It’s pretty wild actually. Imagine if every ad you saw on television was for a product or service that you were actually interested in? Some people might see all this as intrusive, but most people would see it as a godsend because it means that their media would be adapting to them, rather than vice versa. And it all seems entirely within range over the course of the next few years. I’m going to keep a close eye on this as it all develops.
The only technological hurdle that I don’t yet see them being able to leap over is the scenario I described above where multiple people are watching the same television program who are in different demographic segments. A guy and his girlfriend and a tampon ad were my examples. It seems like in order to overcome this, a television set would need some kind of biometric identification ability, to make sure that the stored user profiles match up to people in the room, or are adapted to visitors. This could be “easily” done though if everyone in the country at some point was required to be outfitted with RFID or some other identity chip. They could then correlate all your tv habits with all your internet habits, with all your buying patterns, with your education, and everything else. Then the only challenge left would be to physically make different people perceive different ads. A girl would see the tampon ad, and hey boyfriend would see like an ad for sports or something.
Sounds like a sci-fi scenario that will never happen? Tell me that in five years.
- END -
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3 Comments
Wouldn’t mind never ever seeing another ad again. Sure the greatest of ‘em make me chuckle, but so does my little niece - she makes me chuckle. That’s where it’s at. Sure enough, I have seen something advertised that I wanted to buy, and have bought. So why do I feel that without that advert, I would have found the f***ing THING anyway if I really needed it? If i did not see the tree fall in the woods, it did not fall. But if it falls while I am window shopping on a crisp autumn evening at a crossroads in some downtown neighborhood, then I’m sold. Usually I just need new socks.
Yes, I’ll be online for the rest of my life and I do realize I will have to depend on google, or something, for help. So if they can figure out a way not to piss me off or distract me or reduce me to consumer unit, well fine - otherwise I will look for innovators who use their gifts and energy to create a thriving honest media/info tool that helps me connect and learn, rather than on new ways to sell me stuff.
“…most people would see it as a godsend because it means that their media would be adapting to them, rather than vice versa.” If they adapt to me, they’re gonna have to cut out the commercials. Can they do that? Will google tivo?
That said, I should protest that I am no luddite purist. That, that said, take a look at this: “You’re about to watch a future history of the media…”
http://www.robinsloan.com/epic/
This is a short video project clip which looks into the future of the mediascape, and especially the possibilities/potentialities with Google. The video predocuments the progression and consolidation of media via a very plausible war between Google and Microsoft. Have you seen this? Very well made and thought provoking. Takes us on an EPIC tour to 2014.
Have you ever watched an episode of American Idol? You could Tivo out all the explicit commercials in that and still be exposed to pervasive advertising by Ford, Coke, and whatever cell phone company that sponsors them. If filtration technology gets big (which it will as ads get more and more pervasive), then companies will simply find ways around the filtration, a la American Idol and heavy product placement.
Would you not watch a tv show because some of the characters drink Coke or coffee, or drive Mazdas? How do you really even draw the line between what’s an ad and what’s actual content?
And furthermore, what does an ad really do? Is my little box at the end of every article that says “Read Similar Articles” an ad? Or does it connect you to relevant information for you to follow-up this experience with? What’s the difference between that and an ad?
Anyway, there’s a million questions that this raises, but its getting late here. I’ve never seen that documentary you linked to. I’ll try and check it out.
Yes, raises a lot of questions. Hard to draw the line anymore - maybe there is no more line. The world outside our TV and everyone around has been commodified and labeled. My Mama has been branded. Impossible to filter out the products we wear drink eat ride or listen to. It’s part of the air. Heck, even I, conscious ad-hater, identify with certain brands and even feel some loyalty. That had to happen somehow. We can shift loyalty from Coke to Pepsi or RC, or not shift at all, but one way or another, they’ve got most of us subconsciously hooked on one or the other. Me, I reject all soft drinks because I have “bought into†a lot of the health information I have consumed. So new, emotional, pitches will not override my knowledge (or my belief, if I do not entirely know) about certain products. Like they say, you can’t make someone under hypnosis do something against their belief system – but I wonder if that is true. Certainly not true when we are talking about more sinister suggestion or mind control.
Hell, even daily news about the bads of Walmart could be considered an Ad. (By the way, they are now hiring former Bush and Clinton political media advisors to counterspin negative media, such as that upcoming documentary).
Hot off the press: Record profits for Exxon?! Another ad. (Driving down the street, need gas, 3 choices: exxon, shell, BP - subconsciously: what did i just hear on the news? Something about Exxon….I pull into the Exxon station if I am not up on the evils of obscene energy profits in today’s economic context). Knowledge trumps stealth marketing.
The way I see it, the Producers are now the also the Consumers: they consume us with their products. We, the consumers, have been consumed totally by corporate marketing psy-ops, and we wear and eat the results. We are totally immersed and dependent. (And the military is taking a cue from corporate/clandestine america by catching up with their own ‘total war’ datascape and mindwar initiatives). They may be also dependent on us, but they are more aware of it than we most of us are, and so, advantage them.
Thus, I think it is a false notion, sleight-of-hand, that marketers will “adapt to what we need”, as they put it - they already have us big time and will keep us by staying a step ahead by pandering to and exploiting our own perceived image as a free individual identities always a step ahead and savvy to those crazy commercials. They know better. Who’s on top?
If an info ad box leads to information and not to a product for sale, then I’ll go there. I realize we are also commodifying and selling information, but I think that fact highlights how unfair it is to people who can’t afford to participate in this kind of learning and are thus more at the mercy of emotive pitches and stealth product placement.
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