Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog! This week in class we are discussing the power of advertising. You can probably guess by the title of my blog what this week's post will be about! This week I'm going to be talking about advertising and whether it's truly an invasion of privacy.
Let's start with the definition of advertising! Advertising is the occupation where advertisements are produced for different products or goods to promote them. Without advertising and advertisements, companies wouldn't be able to easily promote the products that they sell.
Have you ever thought about a specific brand or product and somehow that brand or product magically appears on your social media feed? Have you ever googled a brand and then an ad for that brand popped up on your social media feed? Seriously, this has happened to me so many times and I always felt weirded out by it.
Targeted advertising is an online form of advertising that targets specific traits, interests, and preferences of consumers. Advertising cookies are designed to collect and store information from your browsing history so it can be advertised later. Third-party cookies are used to re-target ads. According to Jessica Davies, "by adding tags to page advertisers can track a user or their device across different websites. That helps build a profile of the user based on their habits, so messages can be better targeted to their interests."
Invasion of Privacy
Over the years targeted ads have caused controversy because people think that it invades their privacy. Personally, I was one of those people. I always thought that it was weird that whenever I would search or google something, somehow an ad for that specific product would show up on my social media feed. I would always wonder how this was possible. I used to think that I was mysteriously being watched by the government or that someone was tracking my phone. It made me uncomfortable because you never truly know what you agree to when you got to certain websites unless you read all of their terms and agreements. Come on! I know I can't be the only person who just scrolls all the way to the bottom and clicks agree without reading an abundance of pages about the different terms of a certain website. Somewhere in that long-term agreement is about targeted advertising and whether you agree or not. I used to believe that targeted advertising was an invasion of privacy but the more I learn about targeted advertising, the more it makes sense. Don't be confused. Let me explain.
Reasons why Targeted Advertising is beneficial
Erica Sunarjo gave some great benefits to targeted advertising.
- Targeted ads emerge mobile users at the right time and place: I have experienced an ad while for a restaurant on pandora that I thought was new to the area, but when I googled it, I realized that it wasn't even on the same coast like me. This was annoying and this has happened to me quite a few times. This makes targeted ads beneficial because you don't have to worry that the content that you're seeing isn't in your area. The ads that you come across are directly beneficial to you or of interest to you.
- They reach their local community: Bigger brands have ads that play everywhere, regardless of where you are because their product is sold everywhere. Products such as Nike, Charmin, Walmart, and Apple products are ads that I see literally everywhere. But what about the local businesses. Targeted ads help local businesses directly reach the community that they serve.
- They ensure personalization: Targeted ads ensuring personalization is one of my favorite things because ads that I see on my feed are about things that I'm currently interested in and that I have been looking up. I believe that this helps brands and companies that irrelevant to me stay off of my feed. What do you think? Do you agree? I like that the ads that I see apply to me because it makes me click on them. If not, I'm just going to continue to scroll and not click on any of the ads on my timeline.
- They allow the introduction of exciting innovations: In the article Sunarjo, gave an example of an eyewear brand allowing its consumers to virtually try on eyeglasses before they purchase. I have personally seen this with beauty brands and different color lipsticks and glosses. I know with Mac you can virtually try on their different lipsticks before you buy them to see if you like them. I believe that these innovative ads help produce clicks to their sites and it makes consumers more comfortable with buying although they're not there to physically try it on.
Sunarjo, E. (2020, December 18). 5 reasons to include targeted ads into retail marketing plans. Retrieved April 25, 2021, from https://retailnext.net/en/blog/5-reasons-to-include-targeted-ads-into-retail-marketing-plans/
Know your cookies: A guide to internet ad trackers. (2017, November 01). Retrieved April 25, 2021, from https://digiday.com/media/know-cookies-guide-internet-ad-trackers
I think targeted ads are useful for both consumers and the customer, but I did not always think that way. I will be the first to admit that it still blows my mind to get targeted because it does still seem somewhat wrong. However, working in the newspaper industry, we made a flip to doing targeted advertising about two or three years ago. I had to go through a two-module training and I learned the benefits for businesses and how, if used, properly it really is one of the best values and produces the best results for businesses. It gives them more control over who sees their ads, which in turn, is a better ROI for them. While it is still creepy, I think it’s also giving consumers information that they may not have had before and since most people do not make big purchases at the first place they go to, it opens the doors for more businesses to get their name and product out to consumers who are looking to buy their products or services.
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