• Avoiding 'Truman Show' Moments
    The proposition "If we build it they will come" is by now nearly universally recognized as a fallacy by marketers, as well as, nowadays, even most real estate developers. Unfortunately in many sectors of the online advertising world, where behavioral is all the buzz, another often unwarranted assumption has taken hold, namely that "If an ad is (apparently) relevant consumers will engage with it," regardless of how inappropriate or irrelevant the context of the page it runs on. The latest survey on consumer attitudes toward privacy, advertising and related matters from Burst Media is a useful reality check on that …
  • Welcome To OMMA Behavioral
    Once again, tomorrow at OMMA Behavioral we assemble the leading thinkers and practitioners of the online audience targeting arts. Almost two years ago we started this series wondering whether the ad world really needed a show devoted to a specific model of digital targeting. Yet the need for a BT gathering was evident at that first event. We so overwhelmed the Yale Club that people were filling the balcony. On both coasts now, OMMA Behavioral has grown, because there's an acute need to discuss, in a focused way, behavioral tracking techniques, and the special issues of complexity and privacy that …
  • The Big Mommy Shift
    Something happens to parents on or around the time their kids turn 12. Most of us know intuitively that we are dealing with a different kind of sentient near-adult by this point, and the sheer terror of parenting a teen must kick in some kind of special defense mechanism. But the change is not only in the way we relate to our kids. Our children's move into that next scary stage of their lives also triggers different media consumption behaviors in us. As we drill deeper into social networks and watch more carefully how people gather information online, the behaviors …
  • Tearing Down the (Data) Walls
    Behavioral targeting is driven by the premise that by paying attention to how people express their interests and needs, brands can connect and communicate more relevantly with the people who most want to hear what they want to say. Unfortunately, advertisers and publishers too often artificially limit their ability to do just that by confining their definition of "behavior" to a single dimension (clicks) in a single channel, online. Key to taking advertising targeting beyond its current silos is to pay attention to another, currently poorly followed or completely ignored, component of behavior: how media, all media, is consumed, argues …
  • FTC Guidelines: Drilling The Details
    A day after the Federal Trade Commission issued its revised guidelines for managing privacy concerns in behaviorally targeted advertising, industry figures are starting to weigh in and pore over details.
  • Voice: The Once (and Future?) Killer App
    At the moment the tantalizing (but somewhat elusive) promise of a take-off for mobile advertising pivots, in the minds of many, around the iPhone and other data-rich smart phones. While the industry has been mostly focused on trying to scale mobile Web banner and text ads, Apptera has staked its claim to a less beaten track, one where there aren't so many obstacles. "There are five BILLION cell phones on the planet and every single one of them has voice," says Randy Haldeman, the company's CMO.
  • Conversation As Behavior
    Behavioral targeting technologies can extrapolate from raw usage data and patterns a remarkable amount of implied information about a consumer's intent and mindset. It cannot tell us much about what people really are thinking during their interactions with a Web site or a brand online. For that, you really need to talk to people as they traverse your site.
  • Deepening The Dialogue
    It took brands a long time to acknowledge the existence of consumers as autonomous entities with voices of their own, as opposed to focus group "subjects" filling in the lines of scripts. Though most brands today have crossed that threshold intellectually, few have actually figured out what to do about it. A few are attempting to open up new ways in which consumers can not only speak about -- but TO and WITH -- the brand, as collaborators. One of the most interesting initiatives along these lines is Chrysler's Customer Advisory Board, a "collaborative community" developed by Passenger.
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