• by Kate Kaye , July 29, 2005

From communism to market-timed stock trading, most theories look good on paper, but are destined for failure in practice. Why? They fail to consider the fact that emotional, irrational -- and just plain unpredictable -- humans will be the ones carrying those theories out. Well, this may come as a shocker, but the folks on the receiving end of behaviorally-targeted (BT) ads ain't robots, either.

That's why I had to chuckle when reading articles published in the past couple of weeks regarding BT-driven ads and editorial or contextual adjacency. Some commentators have noted they're perplexed by campaign results showing BT-driven ads performing better when served within unrelated content. A recent case study by 24/7 Real Media, for example, found that game-related ads placed in health or news content were more likely to appeal to gamers than when placed in game-related content.

This apparently has some very savvy marketers scratching their heads. Some say it might be a simple matter of clutter; for instance, there are too many car ads placed with auto content, so people end up blocking them all out. Another possibility could be that the content is competing with the ads for attention. Or, it could be that an ad for a digital camera on a cooking site attracts clicks because it stands out.

Call it missing the forest for the trees, or, in this case, maybe it's missing the humans for what they read. Either way, this code doesn't take a Rosetta stone, or even an MBA to crack it. In fact, it couldn't take much, since I think I know why these BT ads did better away from their natural editorial surroundings.

I'd venture to guess the real reason lies in the fickleness of human nature. We're easily distracted. Sometimes, especially when we're supposed to be doing something else, we actually want to be distracted. Think about it. How many inane banner ad games, dumb blonde joke list e-mails, Web surveys, or pointless IM conversations have led you astray from doing what you intended to do when you sat down in front of your keyboard? I can't tell you how many times I've decided to read this week's Onion, or that "You know you're from Buffalo if..." e-mail my dad keeps sending me, when I'd meant to research basement mold removal or do my online banking.

If BT does what it's intended to, and serves up ads based on what the data say we're interested in, it only makes sense that we capricious consumers click on those ads when we're supposed to be doing something else. So, don't be surprised the next time Karl Marx -- or a group of impulsive consumers -- throws you a curve ball.