There’s nothing that kick starts a conference about a new movement in digital media like a couple of old sepia-toned black and white photos. But there was a reason why OMMA Behavioral conference chair Steve Smith put photos of two 20th Century figures up on the screen to get things going. First he asked the audience if they could identify the figures. One was B.F. Skinner. The other was John B. Watson, who Smith described as “the father of American behaviorism.” “After his career in academia, what did he do,” Smith polled the OMMA conference crowd? …

MediaPost Publisher Ken Fadner got things off to a self-deprecating start this morning, describing the frenzy surrounding behavioral targeting as essentially nothing more than placing cookies to target ads more effectively. That of course is a bit of understatement akin to describing “Moby Dick” as a book about a crazy guy who chases a big fish (okay, a sea mammal). But Fadner saved himself by pointing out that BT is really far more than that prosaic description. “It’s really code words for a whole new scientific way of target,” Fadner declared, adding that it would be …

If you do, click here  http://www.btstandards.org to learn details about Behavioral Targeting Standards Consortium, or BTSC, a new effort being led by behavioral marketing firm Revenue Science to develop industry consensus around trade practices. Plans for the consortium, first reported by Online Media Daily’s Tameka Kee, are scheduled to be unveiled today during the OMMA Behavioral conference. Revenue Science hopes all the key players will get involved in an effort to help shape the future of behavioral marketing. "With enough players in the consortium, we can objectively obtain a definition of behavioral targeting, as …

If you do, you’d better make them known. The deadline for submitting to the Federal Trade Commission’s request for comments on proposed rules to self-regulate the behavioral marketing industry is approaching. And while the rules will be cast as self-regulation, their interpretation could influence accepted industry practices for years to come, liberalizing or curtailing the flow of data used to plan advertising and media buys based on actual consumer behavior. Key aspects are likely to set guidelines for data warehousing, opt-out policies, and the process for consumers to file complaints and request to have their personal data removed from …

It's been six months since MediaPost’s last OMMA Behavioral conference, and if anything has become clear during the past half year, it is that the industry is, well, altering its behavior. Specifically, there has been a pronounced shift away from surrogate targeting like demographics, and geodemographic market segmentation and toward data and analysis based on actual media consumption behavior. It was likely overdue for some time, but the advertising world can be slow to change, and takes a good kick to get it moving in a new direction. The kick is coming from a couple of places, including the integration …

Welcome to OMMA Behavioral. This our second show in this series comes on the heels of a six month span of high profile deals, announcements and controversies in the field. We will be covering much of this today, as well as looking forward to ways of integrating BT more fully in the media mix. Â As we speak, our keynote speaker Peter Horan of IAC Media is ready to go on and kick off the show, explaining how publishers can practice precise targeting and still maintain scale. Â Revenue Science already made news today announcing a …

Lisa Hsia of Bravo says that luring advertisers to devote more budget to mobile programs depends on their willingness to experiment.  "Advertisers should be more open to experimentation.  This is really a period of experimentation, but I m being held to same standard as Web and I don't have the metrics yet." Jeff Miller of Telescope says mobile advertising is ready for prime time, "Particularly if you leverage it with TV.   We are seeing a billion interactions each year from Telescope alone.  The scale is here, depending on one's marketing objectives, at a minimum you will get guaranteed impression." …

Jeff Miller, president of mobile media copany Telescope, says the company is working on, among other programs, a mobile-media program for "Make Me a Supermodel" one of Bravo's programs. Wireless company Alltel Wireless is sponsoring the company's text-vote for viewers'  favorite supermodel.  "We have done similar programs with ATT and others." He says the advertisers have been telecoms, but that "It can apply to any other vertical.   "We are sending customized or personalized responses to those votes: if the participant is an Alltel subscriber they will get a message upselling them; if not, they are upsold to various mobile products." …

Lisa Hsia, SVP new media at Bravo named some Bravo's mobile digital programs over the past two years:  including Project Runway, and Top Chef.  "We decided to ask people who should choose to win Project Runway.  We got thousands of  responses.  People who particpated were young, wealthy, they all owned fancy cable remotes.   After that we evolved from SMS to offering wireless websites to all kinds of things." She says the latest was location-based social networking, where a consumer with a mobile device can get information pertaining to an advertiser and specific to his or physical location.  "It's  constantly …

One questioner from the audience during the Mobilizing the Agency panel wondered if one of the panelists, James McNamara of Wasabi, was saying advertising doesn't work on mobile devices.