Two reasons you really want that new pair of jeans: micro-targeting and behavioural advertising
When you were a kid would you pester your parents for the new toys you would see during the commercial breaks of Saturday morning cartoons? Many parents probably dreaded those commercial breaks, knowing what was to come. It’s not so easy for advertisers these days: new technology has made it possible for people to pause live programming and then skip through all the commercials. Other new technologies and products mean you can customize most of your experiences – today, no one can force you to look at an ad or sit through a commercial.
But advertisers have found a way around this. What we used to think of as commercials (messages that introduce you to a new product or service and make you want to purchase it) are more effective than ever before. There are two reasons for this: one, the messages are often tailored specifically for you, about something that you actually want and two, many times you don’t even realize that you are looking at an ad.
The terms for these practices are micro-targeting and behavioural advertising. Micro-targeting is when messages and offers are created specifically for you as an individual and are sent straight to you. (For example, you could be clicking through a music site and an ad could pop up featuring the new disc from your favourite artist. If that pop-up is a video of his new song you might not even realize you are looking at an ad.)
Behavioural advertising is a form of online advertising that “follows” you around as you click through the Internet. For example, say your mom is booking some airline tickets online for an upcoming holiday, and then she next clicks on a totally unrelated site – but in the corner there’s an ad for a restaurant in the city that she just booked airline tickets to.
It’s important for you to understand that when you are online all kinds of information is being collected about you – nothing you do on the Internet is truly private. All you have to do is visit a web site and, already, information about you is being collected – information like the songs and plug-ins you’ve downloaded, your computer’s technical configurations, address of previous sites you’ve visited. Even your e-mail address. Owners of web sites can view all of these things – and more. Click here if you want to know how they do this.
So the next time you’re surfing the Internet, filling out an online survey or taking a quiz on one of your favourite web sites remember – someone out there is interested in what you are doing. And the next time you are tempted by that new pair of jeans ask yourself – where have I seen these before?