IAB: 'Advertising Is Creepy'
- by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, December 3, 2009
Faced with increasing pressure from Washington, the Interactive Advertising Bureau launched a public service campaign on Thursday aimed at educating consumers about behavioral targeting.
The online campaign, created pro bono by WPP's Schematic, features rich media banner ads with copy like "Advertising is creepy" and "Hey, this banner can tell where you live. Mind if we come over and sell you stuff?"
More than one dozen publishers -- including Microsoft, Google's YouTube, and AOL -- have committed to donate a combined 500 million impressions for the initiative.
The campaign comes as policymakers are questioning whether data collection by marketers violates consumers' privacy. Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.) has said he plans to introduce a bill that could require Web companies to notify users about online ad targeting, and in some circumstances, obtain their explicit consent.
In addition, the Federal Trade Commission has criticized the industry for using dense privacy policies to inform people about behavioral targeting, or tracking people online and sending them ads based on sites visited.
In a meeting with reporters Thursday morning, IAB President and CEO Randall Rothenberg said one goal of the campaign is to address regulators' concerns that consumers don't understand behavioral advertising.
The ad units themselves offer information about online ad techniques. For instance, users who mouse over the "creepy" banner can pull down copy stating that companies don't use "personally identifiable information" to determine which ads to serve.
Users who click through land on the IAB's Privacy Matters page, which includes a description of various forms of online advertising, information about cookies (including Flash cookies) and links to opt-out pages.
The portion of the landing page devoted to cookies says they "contain data that allow a Web site to customize content and advertising to your interests but generally do not contain personally identifiable information." A section with information about geotargeting states that an IP address "reveals nothing personal about you to marketers and websites."
But privacy advocate Jeff Chester immediately raised questions about such statements. "They are ignoring the growing consensus that cookies and IP addresses are personally identifiable," says Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy.
Cathy Dwyer, a privacy expert and professor of information systems at Pace University, also questions whether the banners' headlines are too sophisticated to draw in users. "Even 'creepy' itself is a technical term," she says, adding that it's mainly industry insiders and observers who use that word in discussions about behavioral advertising.
The FTC said this year in its report about online behavioral targeting that non-personally identifiable information could be used to identify specific users.
In the past, industry groups and observers defined personally identifiable information as names, addresses, phone numbers or other information that could be used to contact an individual directly.
Critics recently moved away from that definition, in part because Web users have been identified based on supposedly anonymous data. The most famous example occurred in 2006, when AOL publicly released search logs showing users' queries and "anonymized" IP addresses for more than 600,000 users, Within days, one "anonymized" user, Thelma Arnold, was profiled in The New York Times after reporters identified her based on her search queries.
Schematic CEO Trevor Kaufman told reporters Thursday that a test of the campaign in late October and early November yielded a click-through rate of 0.5%. The trial involved 7 million impressions, mainly served on Microsoft's Hotmail.
Separately, the digital rights group Center for Democracy & Technology also launched a privacy campaign on Thursday -- although with a different goal. The CDT is hoping to persuade users to lobby Congress for online privacy legislation. The Web site for the CDT's "Take Back Your Privacy" campaign enables users to submit concerns directly to the FTC and to send emails to their lawmakers.
What kind of behavioral targeting will they use for this ad buy?
This campaign is way too "inside baseball" for consumers. Did they message test this? Really test it?
Feels really reactive. And why aren't we highlighting the customer benefit of all of this? Better targeting means NOT seeing the ads that don't matter. Why not play to an angle that's a universal truth... people don't like irrelevant advertising.
Agree with James entirely (Hi, by the way). While I applaud the IAB for trying to educate consumers, studies have shown that "reveal" ads backfire in online: you have less than 2 seconds to get across a message and most likely consumers will not remember the payoff as it is too complex a message. I am sure this was not tested and is a great example of what is wrong with online creative: rushed to market with no concern for the impact of the message.
For a really great examination of creative best practices, look for the Dynamic Logic doc on the subject issued last month. Better yet, the Ad Age reporters should have gotten Ken Mallon of DL or Joy Liuzzo of Insight Express to comment on how this type of creative might work based on the thousands of studies they have conducted...
Three thoughts:
1) Pretty ill-advised to infuse the message with such a "creepy" headline and then entrust it to a banner ad in the face of CTRs that now dwell south of .1%.
2) Not a single mention of "advertisers" in 626 words, despite the fact that they are the poor saps picking up the tab and taking the hits for this ridiculousness.
3) The folks at Schematic (now there's a name that just oozes creative) and IAB should enroll in an Advertising 101 course ASAP.
So much for Randy Roth's Creative Manifesto.
LMAO Warren.
Ditto James.
I agree with James at Click Here.
Aren't we missing something big here? How about an opt-in campaign that says "I want my online content free, and I want my ads to be relevant," inviting web visitors to sign up to receive targeted advertising and free subscriptions from paid content sites.
Why is nobody talking about this?
Perhaps it's no coincidence that the banner ad positioned across the top of this article is for an Internet Marketing Certificate from USF that takes just eight weeks to earn. That pretty much says it all.
I agree there's a risk that the average consumer won't "get it" and Jeff's point below about having consumers opt in for free content and relevant ads is well placed. As a matter of fact research shows that, if faced with the notion of having to pay for content, most web users opt to give some data instead.
But the IAB has been vocal in the face of this mounting threat and some members of our community have already testified in front of congress.
http://energycommerce.house.gov/index.phpoption=com_content&view=article&id=1829:exploring-the-offline-and-online-collection-and-use-of-consumer-information&catid=129:subcommittee-on-commerce-trade-and-consumer-protection&Itemid=70
(sorry if this link comes across chopped)
At some point legislators will ask if there's been any attempt at educating consumers. So this effort is a must. Additionally, the CDT is running a campaign touting facts like, "90% of young adults reject advertisements that are tailored based on information gathered about their offline behavior." Where they got this from I don't know - but clearly educating consumers on the innocuous nature of our data collection is important.
Perhaps there's a second round of creative that can focus on the benefits rather than this first stage of "enhanced notice".
Great idea, poor execution. Why are we telling people that advertising is "creepy" if they already think its creepy? The humor / sarcasm / inside joke is totally lost on end users.
My informal survey of about 20 of my non-industry friends confirmed it. They just don't get it. They already think we are spying on them, reading their email, and reselling any piece of data we can get our hands on.
Ironically, the IAB just isn't good at actual advertising. The "cookies are actually good for you" campaign is years overdue, and this is just a step in the wrong direction.
How 'bout a nice positive message? "Advertising makes the web free. Want it to stay that way? Click here to find out how."
(note: I'm not a copywriter)
-TDH
Leave it to the IAB and other digital marketing scions to educate the public about behavioral targeting in the one place where no one looks: the banner space.
Talk about beating a dead horse...