• by Aaron Reinitz , August 11, 2008

If you ask most people how they feel about ads, they'll tell you they hate them. Sometimes, after I tell someone that I work in the business, we play a game whose object is to try and identify the worst ad we've been exposed to in recent memory. After laughing over a few winners, my curiosity begs to ask, "Just what about them is so bad?" Interruption, excessive frequency, grab-you-by-the-throat creative, and poor production quality generally appear interchangeably. But above all, the most consistent complaint is irrelevance.

Let's face it, the vast majority of advertising messages we receive are simply not relevant to us. As a result, most folks reduce the stimulus to audiovisual noise, not unlike a car alarm or an outspoken toddler. This April, Wall Street Journal columnist Walt Mossberg addressed a telecommunications conference held at the Finnish Embassy in Washington. In his remarks, he touched upon the negative impact of irrelevant advertising. "There are a lot of people who could care less about erectile dysfunction, there are a lot of people who could care less about buying tampons, there are people who will never buy a truck, and there are people who will never buy a Lexus. And there's just no discrimination in the ads. And you're not interested in the ads, but there are a huge amount of them."

I work in the Web, a developing space where targeting technology has become so advanced that age/gender demographics are just a starting point, and can go as deep as demonstrated and quantifiable purchase behaviors. Many in the industry view the internet as the targeting mecca of our business. However, in order for the advanced stuff to work, a great deal of information needs to be collected, often in real time. Hence the fundamental conflict: Few want to see irrelevant ads, but even fewer want to give up the personal information necessary to be targeted.

I haven't done a formal study, but I'd bet if you randomly ask 100 people on the street if they'd prefer to filter out irrelevant advertising for the rest of their lives, most of them would likely say yes. If you were to ask whether they'd prefer to only see messages for products and services deemed relevant to them, you may get a similarly positive response. However, if you were to ask their age, household income, martial status, occupation, shopping habits, political affiliation, the age and gender of their children, etc. the conversation may end as quickly as it began.

So how do we solve this problem? Acquiring the information to target ads is a value proposition like anything else. Give your consumer something they may want, and you just might get something back in return. For years, advertisers have been subsidizing the vast majority of our news, information and entertainment outlets, and have enjoyed a relatively high tolerance for their presence. Now that they want something more--more targeting, more consumer information and more attention--advertisers have to up the ante. This means that in exchange for reduced waste in a media budget, they'll have to do more than just subsidize, and offer some services entirely for free. I know a few CMOs who would gladly pay a premium for guaranteed reach of their target.

So what is the ideal testing space for this strategy? How about mobile, an area that has just barely taken off the ground? People who use the internet, or internet-like services, on their cell phone are still a minority in the U.S. Some of this has to do with their inability to justify the cost. Why not have advertisers pick up the tab in exchange for some targeted ads? I'm not asking Pepsi to pay the entire phone bill, but I do suggest they pick up a portion of it to encourage use of features that help them advertise to me. Sponsor my data plan, I might listen.

A study by UK-based Mobixell Networks interviewed 832 mobile users aged 16 to 35. The responses showed that 35% would use more ad-funded multimedia messaging services, or MMS, if those services were offered for free or at a discount. Twenty-nine percent said that they would use more video services for the same deal.

The interesting question is posed when both end users and advertisers raise the stakes. What if the terms of service include a clause about disclosing age and gender? What level of transparency would be appropriate? Does the balance of 'more personal info' for 'more free stuff' hold up in the real world? I suppose only a legitimate and earnest effort to try it out will hold the answer. In the meantime, we're resigned to spending ad dollars knowing that a significant portion of them go to waste, and will keep our ROI and performance expectations low. But, with the right strategy, a little bit of risk, and a healthy dose of respect for the user, that could very well change before we know it.