In the insinuating world of digital advertising, companies will stop at nothing in their quest to turn potential clicks into conversions. These endeavors have welcomed forth a brave new era unknown to the Madison Avenue of yesteryears – one where billboards and radio spots have crumbled in favor of pixels and targeted ads. This brave new era gives birth to a renewed contour of advertising, more personalized and sophisticated than ever before, christened “targeted advertising”. Embraced by marketers and advertisers alike, targeted advertising employs data to tailor ads according to the specific interests of consumers, ensuring that ads are served to the right audience, in the right place at the right time.
However, the twin miracles of targeted advertising and personalization are not bereft of their own set of flaws. Sometimes, when algorithms are combined with a little too much information, targeted ads can go overboard, becoming less helpful and more invasive, thus casting an eerie shadow over personalization. It’s a new unease filled with unprompted ads for products or services you just talked about, ads haunting your digital devices’s screens, sometimes without even searching online for them. This creation of a virtual crystal ball by targeted advertising can be a little unnerving and can draw unease, leading us to wonder: when does targeted advertising cross its Rubicon, morphing from persuasive to creepy?
Consider this — you’re chatting about your recent camping trip with a friend over a cup of coffee, reminiscing about the inconveniences caused by your old worn-out camping gear. Later that day, you browse through your smartphone and voila, you’re inundated with ads for brand-new camping gear. A paranoid coincidence? Certainly not. With ubiquitous data-gathering tools, companies tap into your conversations, pick up keywords and subsequently flash relevant ads on your screens. While this disrupting feature might seem like a breach of privacy, the tech Goliaths, including Google and Facebook, assuredly deny this, attributing such instances to hyper-vigilant algorithms.
The unsettling pathos of modern digital advertising is best comprehended when we delve deeper into two of the pillars holding it – cookies and data brokers. Cookies are tiny text files saved on your browsers when you visit websites. They basically allow websites to recognize users and remember specific details about them. Next up, data brokers, these enterprises collect, analyze, and package personal data, selling it off to parties invested in targeted advertising. Herein lies the menace of overstepping boundaries. Your online activity, across multiple devices and websites, is collected, packaged, and sold without explicit permission, leading to a breach in privacy walls.
A striking example of this was when Target, the American retail giant, found itself in the spotlight for its targeted advertising getting a little too accurate. An upset father walked into a Target outside Minneapolis, demanding why his teenage daughter had been sent coupons for baby items. It was later figured out that Target’s predictive shopping algorithm had intelligently picked up signals from the girl’s buying habits that were suggestive of a possible pregnancy. This example underscores the disconcerting side of personalization where customers can be left feeling violated, rather than supported, realizing the unseen extent to which their data is being harnessed.
In the light of these instances, it’s requisite to question if targeted advertising is gradually blurring the lines demarcating personalization and violation of privacy. To add, is there a way to balance this delicate teeter-totter without toppling it over?
Regulators across the globe are already treading ahead to tackle this problem. The likes of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union have taken stringent measures for ensuring data privacy. Moreover, companies are starting to understand the pitfalls of prying actions, aiming to provide better control to users over their data. Features like Google’s ad setting, which allows users to manage their ad profiles, Facebook’s similar setting and Apple’s recent move to block third-party cookies, are steps in that direction.
The journey of targeted advertising, from being a cutting-edge tool for marketers to curating an environment of unsettling surveillance, embarks upon an important tryst of our times. It’s about navigating the balance between technology’s potential to create a personalized and more engaging user experience and its propensity to violate privacy norms. This tryst, in essence, shapes the future of how businesses connect with their customers – creating a symbiotic environment where personalization steers clear of its creepy avatar and focuses more on nurturing a meaningful relationship with the customer.
Sources:
CNN Business, “When Targeted Advertising Goes Too Far”,
Financial Times, “Are Targeted Ads Stalking You? Here’s How to Make Them Stop”
Forbes, “Is Targeted Advertising Destroying Consumer Trust?”
The Verge, “Google Now Lets You Block Any Ad You Want”
The New York Times, “Facebook Offers Privacy Checkup to All 1.28 Billion Users”
Wired, “Apple’s ‘Biggest Ever’ Privacy Update Is Here. How to Use It.”.
