How Companies Learn Your Secrets 354
Hugh Pickens writes "For decades, Target has collected vast amounts of data on every person who regularly walks into one of its stores. Now the NY Times Magazine reports on how companies like Target identify those unique moments in consumers' lives when their shopping habits become particularly flexible and the right advertisement or coupon can cause them to begin spending in new ways. Among life events, none are more important than the arrival of a baby, and new parents are a retailer's holy grail. In 2002, marketers at Target asked statisticians to answer an odd question: 'If we wanted to figure out if a customer is pregnant, even if she didn't want us to know, can you do that?' Specifically, the marketers said they wanted to send specially designed ads to women in their second trimester, which is when most expectant mothers begin buying all sorts of new things, like prenatal vitamins and maternity clothing. 'We knew that if we could identify them in their second trimester, there's a good chance we could capture them for years,' says statistician Andrew Pole. 'As soon as we get them buying diapers from us, they're going to start buying everything else too.' As Pole's computers crawled through the data, he was able to identify about 25 products that, when analyzed together, allowed him to assign each shopper a 'pregnancy prediction' score and he soon had a list of tens of thousands of women who were most likely pregnant. About a year after Pole created his pregnancy-prediction model, a man walked into a Target outside Minneapolis and demanded to see the manager. He was clutching coupons that had been sent to his daughter, and he was angry. 'My daughter got this in the mail!' he said. 'She's still in high school, and you're sending her coupons for baby clothes and cribs? Are you trying to encourage her to get pregnant?' The manager apologized and then called a few days later to apologize again but the father was somewhat abashed. 'It turns out there's been some activities in my house I haven't been completely aware of. She's due in August. I owe you an apology.'"
That's an eye-opener (Score:5, Insightful)
But not terribly surprising.
Given the opportunity, marketers will be more observant of the goings-on in a household than, say, the father of the house.
Hell, I am the father of the house, and most stuff that happens catches me by surprise. So I can sympathize with the father mentioned at the end of TFS.
Re:That's an eye-opener (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm the father of the house, and I came to the conclusion that I don't want to know what's going on in the house. Both kids are in their late teens now, and mutual ignorance seems to be the best way to get along.
Re:That's an eye-opener (Score:5, Informative)
Indeed. I've got an eight-year-old daughter. When she was newborn, the older guys in band were saying, "you think you're having sleepless nights now? Wait until she's 16 and dating."
Re:That's an eye-opener (Score:5, Funny)
With a son, you only have to worry about one dick. With a daughter, you have to worry about all the dicks.
Re:That's an eye-opener (Score:5, Insightful)
I think once your kids hit their late teens, they're close enough to being adults (if not outright adults) that the time when you're close personal involvement could have changed anything is long past. You're basically stuck with "I told you so..."
Re:That's an eye-opener (Score:5, Insightful)
Teen pregnancy is the topic, and it's implied that you're mutually agreeing to be ignorant of who is banging who, but really, the topic of sex doesn't have to be taboo. If anything that just makes it more of a reason to go out and be a rebel.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm detecting some sarcasm, but my detector has been acting up lately, so my apologies if I'm putting words in your mouth.
If you're suggesting that his giving his young adult children some privacy is a bad thing, I would ask you for a more rational alternative. The best thing I can come up with is give them their space and to simply make it clear that you're always available and open to discussion. Being oppressive and snooping in their private lives only forces them to become rebellious.
Re: (Score:3)
Indeed. I'm pretty sure this poorly-informed rabbit hole of condemnation and retort is already a lost cause.
Nobody here knows this guy. They have no useful context. They don't know his kids, they don't know what his custody situation is and for all they know he's been a model parent with straight-A students heading off to college, who have earned a bit independence anyway.
Instead, let's just assume he's a terrible parent with felons for children, and that he meant he'll take no further interest whatsoeve
Re: (Score:3)
Are you kidding? I feel like I need to wear a hazmat suit when I go into their rooms.
Re: (Score:3)
Just don't touch the kids' computer
I thought that's what .45 JHP was for...
Re: (Score:2)
Hell, I am the father of the house, and most stuff that happens catches me by surprise. So I can sympathize with the father mentioned at the end of TFS.
This man speaks truth.
Creepy, but it used to be more common (Score:5, Insightful)
Back when retailers had a more personal connection to their clients, it was also not uncommon for a shopkeeper to notice that a customer was pregnant and stock something specifically for her. Personalization has always existed; this is a more of a comeback than something completely new.
The flipside is that a shopkeeper also had a personal connection to the mother. Target has no such connection to Customer#9810957065409. This takes the personalization away from 'cozy' toward 'creepy'. It's like the uncanny valley of interactions.
Re:Creepy, but it used to be more common (Score:5, Funny)
But our marketing blast algorithm is programmed to have feelings and care deeply about you. And to maximize the emotional manipulation on you. It's like having an omniscient psycho ex. What's not to like?
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
They're paying a team of people to convince you to come into their store rather then no frill's discount bob's shit-bag emporium.
Remember that marketeers and salesmen don't actually contribute to society. Theirs is a zero-sum game where every dollar they make is a dollar taken away from comp
Re: (Score:3)
Not totally true. Target wants me to buy my everyday products there, even if it doesn't mean upselling me and getting me out the door with a TV or housewares. Marketing that gets me in the door makes a store happy, even if it's not specifically to get me to buy things I don't need.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
But our marketing blast algorithm is programmed to have feelings and care deeply about you
Now that was creepy. I feel like you are going to offer me some cake now.
TARGETed (Score:5, Funny)
This is why I oppose targeted advertising.
As if walmarted advertising is any better.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Creepy, but it used to be more common (Score:5, Insightful)
It's more like retail stalking.
Re:Creepy, but it used to be more common (Score:5, Interesting)
Funny you should mention that. I grew up in a small town. When my wife and I were married, one of the local retailers was on my wife's gift registry for her china pattern. This retailer knew I had a (relatively, small-town-scale) wealthy aunt who frequented the shop. So the retailer loaded up on all the wacko, high mark-up accessory pieces for my wife's china pattern and every time my aunt came into the store she would get the sales pitch for a soup tureen or something. This went on for years.
Re:Creepy, but it used to be more common (Score:5, Insightful)
So the retailer loaded up on all the wacko, high mark-up accessory pieces for my wife's china pattern and every time my aunt came into the store she would get the sales pitch for a soup tureen or something. This went on for years.
I think that's a great illustration of the problem here - Target and all the other companies that are using "targeted advertising" are going beyond simply providing a service to actively trying to manipulate people. Advertising to inform is good, advertising to convince people spend money on products they wouldn't otherwise purchase is bad.
Re:Creepy, but it used to be more common (Score:4, Insightful)
That isn't what they want to do here. What they want to do is become the prime retailer for a set of products that people start buying at certain stages in their lives. Like how Gillette will send out free razors to people when the turn 18 to try and make them Gillette consumers for their life's supply of shaving products. Target here is trying to predict people who are pregnant and have reached the stage where they are ready to buy the associated baby products and providing incentives for these people to buy the products at Target. Then, the customers will be predisposed to continue buying these products at Target.
They aren't trying to convince them to buy products they don't need, they are trying to convince them to buy a new range of products that they will need or want to buy from a specific retailer.
Re: (Score:2)
Target doesn't need to worry about stocking things for particular individuals. The reason they do this is to offer good discounts to select individuals that are at a crucial point in their life where they "settle down" and adopt store loyalty. These discounts could actually be a loss for the store. Once the customer becomes loyal, there is no reason to offer further discounts.
The store that has the personal relationship will continue to stock diapers until there are no longer customers who have young childr
Hot dogs... and Ice cream (Score:2)
How to tell they're in the 2nd trimester?
Track who buys what by Credit Card #. If 3 months after buying a lot of vaseline and thigh highs their buying trends switch towards buying stretch pants and "hot-dogs and ice cream" together... ... and their husband starts buying the vaseline instead... and ear plugs.
Re:Hot dogs... and Ice cream (Score:4, Interesting)
That is a pretty shady area. There are some pretty strict laws about when and how credit card data is to be stored. I don't think brick and mortars are allowed to store CC#s at all. Then there is the matter of tying that information back to an address. Unless you are doing this online, or you willing gave them your address, then there should be no legal way for them to tie a credit card number to an address. Of course, maybe in this case they were using a Target credit card in which case they probably do have the address.
Re: (Score:3)
Hash the credit card number, associate the hash with the customer ID. Every time a card is swiped, see who's hash it matches. Card number isn't stored. Hash is useless if stolen.
Combined with a Loyalty card, it's a great way to see who's married to who, since the card minimally gives you the names of the people who are swiping. Names provide geneder information. Purchase history provides information on age, family status, etc.
Baby stuff (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I think it boils down to younger siblings hate seeing the older ones get everything first. Maybe marketing has picked up on a similar trend.
Re:Baby stuff (Score:5, Insightful)
What a wonderful, mature, high-minded reason to bring a child into the world...
I'm guessing you didn't grow up in a family, or in a family where family is actually considered important. Especially one where there's a lot of little brothers or sisters in it.
Ah, so you could not refute what I said, yet you still didn't like the way it sounded, so now here come the thinly-veiled personal attacks concerning how inferior my life or my family must be. How transparent of you.
My answer to you is very simple. I grew up in and remain in a family where family is considered very important. It's so important, in fact, that we don't make petty "me too!" games and contests of "I got first place!" out of important life events, particularly those as life-changing as becoming a parent.
The family? Very important. Who did what first as if it's a competition? So unimportant that it isn't even on the radar.
No here's the part you don't want to face: if two women in your family actually care about who gets pregnant first, to the point that they will try to become pregnant when one or more of them otherwise wouldn't have done so, the importance of family is low on their list. High up on their list is being petty, catty, and soaking up the attention and adoration from everyone else. If pointing that out offends you, or if you're struck by the realization that there are a lot of petty immature people in the world, then maybe you should deal with that on your own terms instead of trying to make a scapegoat of me.
Big Business and Big Government (Score:5, Insightful)
Coincidentally, the FBI now lists as suspicious activity making purchases with cash.
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, but it's harder for them to know when you do it, so it cancels out.
Re:Big Business and Big Government (Score:4, Interesting)
Be part of the solution. - Require valid ID from all new customers.
- Keep records of purchases.
- Talk to customers, ask questions, and listen to and observe their responses.
- Watch for people and actions that are out of place.
- Make note of suspicious statements, people, and/or vehicles.
- If something seems wrong, notify law enforcement authorities.
Yes, but it's harder for them to know when you do it, so it cancels out.
... until they convince (or force) all the shopkeeps to do their spying for them...
ad hominem, outing, and stalking (Score:5, Insightful)
Almost all forums have rules against personal attacks [wikipedia.org]. You'd commonly be banned for posting someone else's "IRL" (in real life) information. Yet here we see corporations doing exactly that for nothing more than profit. Data-mining like this is the beginning of an assault on our right to be "secure in our persons" and enjoy privacy.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah, data mining w/o direct consent should be illegal.
As we better understand the mechanisms of consciousness and the brain and realize this shit it possible, it should also be made illegal.
it is ridiculous that one could use these to manipulate you into buying more stuff. It goes against much of what the founding fathers of the US were against. An individuals mind must be their own.
Same goes for the propaganda networks posing as "news" programming on television. It's blatant co-opting of an individuals ow
Bullshit ban is bullshit... (Score:3)
...it should also be made illegal....It's blatant co-opting of an individuals own faculties.
I believe your founding fathers would have supported Fox's right to bullshit. You are still the sole guardian of your own mental faculties, you are the only person who can decide what you believe and who you trust. Fortunately bullshit detection is not a genetic trait, it is a skill that can be taught [wikipedia.org]. Self-skepticisim is an essential part of that skill, the simple fact that you recognise you're just as susceptible to bullshit as everyone else already gives you some degree of immunity to it, and it's certa
Faulty analogy: Lack of hostile intent (Score:5, Informative)
Lets have a fictional person called Phil (a victim) and Bob (the guy posting the info) for the purpose of this post.
If Bob posts Phil's name, address, and phone number in a message board without Phil's permission, there is most likely some kind of hostile intent. This usually happens when Phil has managed to make Bob angry for some stupid reason (flame war, abortion debate, maybe Phil is just being a jackass here. Who knows? The reason is not relevant). So Bob gets Phil's info and posts it online in that message board. Why does Bob do this?
Most likely, Bob is hoping someone will go to Phil's house and beat him up. Or break a few windows. Maybe Bob just wants someone to take a crap in a paper bag, light it on fire, and throw it on Phils porch. The intent is to make it easy for all of Phils enemies to harass or inflict harm on Phil.
Target or Walmart do not have any hostile intent. They just want to sell you stuff. They gather and analyze data, and the only objective harm thaty they would intentionally cause is filling your mail box with unwanted spam. I would agree that doing so should earn someone a kick in the nuts anyway, but it is only annoying, not dangerous. In many cases they are using info they gathered themselves for their own benefit. It could also be argued that what they are doing is of mutual benefit: Walmart gets Phil to buy stuff, Phil will have a chance to buy something he wants.
The only problem for Phil is when access to that data is then sold, shared , or illegally accessed by those whose interests may run against him. There needs to be legal protections in place for Phil, and Walmart needs to be held responsible for any harm that comes of them keeping that database.
END COMMUNICATION
Re: (Score:3)
Target or Walmart do not have any hostile intent. They just want to sell you stuff.
Yeah, buts let's just parse out the term "sell" a bit. They want you give them the maximum amount of your money in exchange for the least amount of value. Its not about finding out what you need/want, because they could just ask you that. Its about manipulating your perception of your own desires so that you "want" to buy as much as possible of the highest margin possible goods.
Not hostile?
Re: (Score:3)
I thought charges like "negligence" and "reckless endangerment" were already crimes where the perpetrator didn't need to have criminal intent. That's sort of the point of having those charges along with "abuse" and "assault" - in the former the perpetrator should have known what they were doing was wrong (but didn't) while in the latter the perpetrator clearly knew it was wrong.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure I understand your post. Are you saying the ads were a personal attack?
Good Data (Score:2)
Good Data is just that.. and it can make solid predictions. It's clear transparency is good for markets (e.g., stock markets, Etc.) but is it good for people? My own take is data mining and tracking isn't evil; if you do business with a company you should assume, for better or worse, that they will try to understand and learn about you. If you don't wish that to happen, you need to pay in cash, not give them your zip code and avoid reward clubs, etc.
Statistics 101 (Score:2)
Not that specific (Score:2)
So they are analizing what kind of products a customer buys, and if they are products associated with pregnancy then they market them even more products associated with pregnancy. Seems like that without all that funny little anecdotes about pregnancy prediction, this is just the same algorithm everyone else uses: offering a customer the types of products they have bought in the past. Also, a pregnant woman in the second trimester is quite easy to detect by the good old method of looking at her.
Target: (Score:2)
That is why I frequently and easily lend out my ca (Score:5, Interesting)
People often forget there client card at my super market (AH) and I happily lend them mine. Must give them some interesting stats.
The problem is that marketeers really think this matter. Lets examine this particular case for just how idiotic it is.
Target profiles its EXISTING customers to be able to bombard them with coupons for products these same customers already pass everyday... Can win these customers for live? YOU ALREADY GOT THEM! And now instead of them buying the products they already seen at full price, you are reducing the price for no good reason.
TV shows just how desperate marketeers are to prove they matter, the program you are watching interrupted by ads, for the program you were trying to watch followed by overlays of the next program, so please stay tuned... I would if you didn't ruin the program with all this begging. It is like going to a restaurant and having the chef come over after every bite to ask if you are enjoying yourself.
Marketing doesn't sell products, marketing sells marketing. I am not saying ads don't work but rather that the constant overloading of ads, does not work. Check this for yourself, if an adblock takes longer then it used to, do you continue watching? Once ads were singular, to short to flick away. But the "going to the toilet" during the advertising is now a way of life and has been for decades. And here poor advertisers are trying to sell their products to viewers who are studying their toilet door.
Myself? I barely bother with TV anymore. If for some masochistic reason I want to see what happens, I download it and get rid of ads altogether. I have ad block installed and ghostery. NOT because I mind being tracked so much but because I just can't stand the interuptions and delays that slow ads and scripts cause.
This Target campaign targets existing customers into buy stuff they have to buy anyway and ignores new customers altogether... BRILLIANT. I know how effective it is, some marketeers and statisticians got payed big bugs. Mission accomplished. Any actual new customers that make up for the costs and potential lawsuits? (Oh you just wait till they get it wrong or target a woman who had an abortion, or didn't want her family to know or had a miscarriage).
Re:That is why I frequently and easily lend out my (Score:4, Informative)
The marketing campaign tries to get customers to buy new different products based on their past purchases. They want to identify pregnant women so they can encourage them to buy products at Target once they have a baby, instead of the customer shopping at a competitor for their baby needs.
Target figured out that people change their shopping habits the most when they had a baby, so it provides them with the biggest opportunity to win over customers. Knowing that someone is pregnant is marketing gold. The methods are based of research and the evidence is supported in Target's sales. It isn't just a bunch of BS.
Netflix (Score:2)
If for some masochistic reason I want to see what happens, I download it and get rid of ads altogether.
I too believe that watching television is an incredibly painful experience. But there is some good content out there, and I pay Netflix $8 a month to watch it ad-free. I seriously think Netflix is easier and more convenient than TPB. Eventually, I suspect that significant price hikes and/or advertisements will make their way into Netflix, but until that happens I think Netflix is superior.
Re: (Score:3)
Not me (Score:2)
On a side note, I also don't buy the slightly cheaper store brand just to save money. It's inferior quality, and once sales drop for the good quality brands, they stop ordering it and it disappears from shelves, and guess what? They just raise th
And people called me paranoid (Score:2)
Absolutely detestable. And common. This type of thing is precisely why I take great pains to avoid being tracked, online and off. Pay cash, don't use affinity cards, block all online ads, javascript, etc., and avoid doing business with companies that use these types of methods.
Doesn't Really Bother Me (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Absolutely detestable.
Why is this detestable? "Detestable" is Comcast sending me mail at least once a week for the last three years, despite the fact that I don't watch TV, have no use for their services, and have never responded to anything they sent. Or American Express checking my credit rating nearly ten times in the space of a few years, and bombarding me with credit card offers. I already have two cards, assholes, and that's at least one more than I need. If I call a girl twice and she doesn't cal
AARP (Score:3)
Maybe this is what AARP has been doing. They've been sending me invitations to join their organization for years, ever since I was in my 20's. Undoubtedly their data mining algorithms determined that I would one day reach retirement age, so they are doing everything they can to "capture" me now!
Re:AARP (Score:5, Funny)
I, on the other hand, at age 41, have not been contacted by AARP. This probably means that their data mining algorithms have determined that I will NOT reach retirement age.
What do they know on me? (Score:5, Funny)
Walmart (Score:5, Funny)
I'm convinced that Walmart does this kind of data mining too. As soon as I walk into the store, their computer systems identify me, figure out what I'm about to buy, and make SURE that item is already sold out!
Wow, for a second I thought it said... (Score:2)
... even if she didn't (herself) know that she was pregnant! I thought maybe Target had pheromone/hormone sniffers or hidden ultra-sound scanners.
Now THAT would be creepy!
Re:Am I the first to call BS? (Score:5, Insightful)
You underestimate the power of directed advertising. To give you a hint, that's what makes Facebook worth and estimated $100 billion.
Re:Am I the first to call BS? (Score:5, Funny)
There are ads on Facebook? Really?
(hugs his ABP)
Re:Am I the first to call BS? (Score:4)
Or Facebook and the advertisers overestimate it. For many of the things advertised (that aren't click-through buys) there's no way to know if the ads work. The ad sellers exploit this fact.
When coke shows you a coke advert they really have no way to know if you wander off to the corner store and buy one or not. I suspect for many large companies you could virtually eliminate advertising and not change sales one iota.
Ironically it's the sort of tracking in this article that might eventually prove it.
Re:Am I the first to call BS? (Score:5, Insightful)
where it really gets creepy is their study of children in order to manipulate the spending of parents
Re:Am I the first to call BS? (Score:5, Interesting)
But cash has serial numbers! Production dates! Traceability through the Fed and member banks down to the ATM you withdrew from, and the account you used to withdraw, and who has been paying money into that account.
I post this kidding around, but I have to wonder if there has even been a truly dedicated group of people who have set to track a person that they could audit cash. I guess I'll know if I see a cashier scanning the bills I pay with.
Re:Am I the first to call BS? (Score:5, Interesting)
Pay cash. That ends their data mining at Target (and Walmart, and everyone else).
Don't count on it. For one thing Target has been installing license plate scanners in all their parking lots - ostensibly for "customer safety." But if you are in the habit of purchasing the same combination of products on most of your trips to the store all they need to do is compare that "purchase fingerprint" with the list of cars in the parking lot at the time and after a few iterations they will be able to link your license plate with your purchasing habits.
Re:Am I the first to call BS? (Score:4, Interesting)
That kind of link would only be possible under the following conditions;
1. You would have to purchase the exact same list every time you went there. A different list would create a instance of you car there but no identifying list.
2. Noone else could purchase exactly the same list of items; An instance of the list being purchased without you car being there.
At best there could be a probable link.
The other issue is that there are hundreds of different lists purchased every day and hundreds of different cars parked in the lot ever day which creates a huge mamy to many relationship. Trying to link lists to cars is almot impossible.
Who is to say you even went into the store as many Targets are in malls.
Re: (Score:3)
I think you can actually make some tentative links. For example, if you have some product that sells very rarely and you take the intersection of the sets of cars that are in the parking lot whenever that product is sold, if that intersection becomes one car, the probability that this is the guy buying that product is probably higher than if you just averaged the sales of the product over all the cars that were ever present during that purchase. After all, if this product X is only purchased a few times a y
Re:Am I the first to call BS? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ultimately, it would be easy to get freaked out by all this, but let's remember what this information is used for: to send you coupons you'd actually want to use. That's the whole thing. Dial back the paranoia a bit.
See, that's the thing. Once they've collected all this data and made all these cross-references there isn't anything preventing the data from being used for other reasons. Kind of like the way drivers licenses and social security numbers were not initially inteded to be a form of identification. Yet once they became widespread it was just soo easy to repurpose them.
Same thing with all of these marketing-driven data collection systems - once they've got a ton of data in them it is pretty much inevitable that someone is going trying and use them for something else. It is just too valuable for people to ignore.
Re:Am I the first to call BS? (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't have the original article that tipped me off, but here is one from 2008 that talks about the early stages of the program.
http://newsbuster.com/pages/Mar08/03_14_08_target_creates.html [newsbuster.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Waaaay back when I first got email (late 90's... I'm young, I know), our family used Juno. When creating a new account, the client gave you the option of going through a 3 minute survey so you could choose your interests and hobbies - the ad-supported client would then display relevant ads based on your survey. I thought this was a decent model for a good balance between privacy and showing me ads that I might actually be interested in.
Re: (Score:3)
And the fact the web is killing retail makes all this sound so meaningless. Wow they can pickup human behavior and manipulate it to try and get a sale, yet the retail sector is recording record low sales...
Re:Intelligent Advertising (Score:5, Insightful)
if you took away all forms of advertising, people would spend much less, and only on things they needed more. we are manipulated into buying stuff we don't need, and that's why there is such big money in advertising (google etc).
Re:Intelligent Advertising (Score:5, Funny)
Obviously you've never had a girlfriend who has sent you to buy tampons. You make damn sure you get EXACTLY what she tells you to... when she needs them is NOT the time to be making mistakes.
Re: (Score:3)
Nah, this is real. And it will work out just as well as the last time.
OK guys, raise your hands - how many have gotten 'feminine products' adverts?
Garbage In, Garbage Out.
Re:Am I the first to call BS? (Score:5, Funny)
OK guys, raise your hands - how many have gotten 'feminine products' adverts?
Uhh... Dude... I don't know what kind of web sites YOU visit, but...
Re:Am I the first to call BS? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Am I the first to call BS? (Score:5, Funny)
Or your wife has been cheating on you, and Google has figured it out already and is trying to get you to get your act together. They've also figured out that the son of a bitch got her pregnant, even though she's still trying to hide that from you, hence those ads.
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Just like TFA, two months ago gmail started serving me nothing but breast pump, neonatal vitamin, and baby bottle ads. I'm a guy, but I am married so maybe they're trying to send a hint "why don't you have kids yet? Here we'll give you discount mail-order vitamins if you get busy!" But they also send me dating site ads. So if they do know I'm married, they don't have a high opinion of my marriage! Maybe that's why they want me to knock my wife up? ;)
Google's ads are based on the email you are reading or other things on your screen. For example, I see ads for the delicious meat-like product Spam when I'm on the Spam page (then again, Google does have a sense of humor). So for a fun exercise, try to find out what it is in your email is triggering the ad you are receiving.
Re:Am I the first to call BS? (Score:4, Funny)
try to find out what it is in your email is triggering the ad you are receiving.
Probably the Days of our Lives listserv.
Re:Am I the first to call BS? (Score:4, Interesting)
Just like TFA, two months ago gmail started serving me nothing but breast pump, neonatal vitamin, and baby bottle ads. I'm a guy, but I am married so maybe they're trying to send a hint "why don't you have kids yet? Here we'll give you discount mail-order vitamins if you get busy!" But they also send me dating site ads. So if they do know I'm married, they don't have a high opinion of my marriage! Maybe that's why they want me to knock my wife up? ;)
Soo... how much more competitive would their prices be, if they didn't spend money on these kinds of systems and marketing and customer tracking, and just accepted that there's nothing wrong with people buying what they want, when they decide they want it? Think they could undercut (or nearly undercut) Wal-mart while providing a more pleasant shopping experience (which wouldn't be hard)?
Consider all the effort it takes to design systems like this, to hire employees to use and maintain them, to purchase the equipment, to pay for data centers, etc. I mean if a woman gives birth she's going to be buying diapers; if she likes your store she'll buy them there on her own without this sort of manipulation. Then there's the cost of ill will -- the desire to treat my private life like your personal marketing brochure without even showing me the basic respect of asking for my permission strongly disinclines me to do business with you. It's called dignity, and I realize it's going out of style but it isn't dead yet.
So is this truly profitable in the long run, as a business practice? Or is it just another "make this quarter's numbers look good, the 'consumers' are used to bending over and taking this kind of thing anyway" type of deal?
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Targete
Re:Am I the first to call BS? (Score:5, Funny)
I practice yoga regularly. My mat wore out, so I was looking for a replacement. (I'm taller than the normally-sized 68" mats, so story of my life, I have to get something 4" bigger.) My job is military contracting.
The combination of yoga + weaponry apparently triggers a profile of "interested in single men".
Google thinks I'm gay... or possibly a woman, I'm not sure.
(It's IE at work. I don't get ads at home.)
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Now I'm picturing something like:
You searched for: "I want my mat to be 4" bigger"
Did you mean: "I want my Matt to be 4" bigger"
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OK guys, raise your hands - how many have gotten 'feminine products' adverts?
That, and worse. It's partly a consequence of the whole family sharing the same IP address in conjunction with quasi-safe browsing habits.
We all have different logon accounts on each of several PCs, and we tend to use more than one browser per person (mostly Opera, Firefox, Chromium). However, both my wife and I have shown the kids how to get their browsers to automatically delete cookies and LSOs on terminating a session, and encourage them to clear private data regularly. So essentially all the vendors
Re:Am I the first to call BS? (Score:5, Informative)
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I imagine that the cost of mailing out pregnancy coupons, both paper costs and PR, is low enough to tolerate a lot of bad guesses.
Re:Am I the first to call BS? (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you ever checked your mail? Notice how it's literally full of completely untargeted advertising? If that's profitable, how could this possibly not be?
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Hint:
For the vast majority of mailer, the person making money is the person who go the companies to buy in.
The great lie of advertising gets more and more exposed.
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There is a test (ROC [wikipedia.org]) used to evaluate sensitivity and specificity of a selection criteria. If you have 2000 known cohorts, use 1000 to train the algorithm and 1000 to validate the algorithm. Once tuned, use that algorithm to classify remaining candidates that match the cohort criteria (i.e.: women, age 20 to 40, ... yada yada)
I suspect they're using the loyalty program mass mailing to send these. There are probably 100's of coupons in the packet. The packet probably already has language like, "just for
Re:Am I the first to call BS? (Score:5, Insightful)
The anecdote might be fake, but the use of stats? More than you can imagine. The fact is, human behavior is predictable.
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Re:Am I the first to call BS? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do you find it so surprising that they do a good enough job of detecting pregnancy that after the better part of a decade they'll have found a case where the girl's father didn't know yet? Keep in mind that the girl is probably trying a lot harder to keep it a secret from her father than she is the store. Especially if he's the type that gets upset enough over stupid coupons implying potential pregnancy to go yell at a store manager? Yeah, I'm sure he's the first person she would tell.
Honestly, I expect this happens quite a lot, but most people aren't hotheaded enough to go yell at a store manager about coupons. (Who would then have to call the them back a couple days later? That strikes me as more creepy than the preggo-score.)
Re:Am I the first to call BS? (Score:4, Insightful)
(Who would then have to call the them back a couple days later? That strikes me as more creepy than the preggo-score.)
Maybe the manager asked for the telephone number when the guy came to complain so that he could call back a couple days later and offer them some kind of conciliatory special deal at the store (like discounts on something). On the other hand, maybe the manager was trying to arrange for the guy's family to no longer get (at the time, presumed faulty) targeted advertising, and was calling back to give them an update on the process (once again having explicitly asked for contact information for just this purpose). I don't know if it was actually creepy. We don't know enough details to come to a conclusion about that, I think.
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No you don't. You hate seeing marketing material that wasn't meant for you. I feel the same way. Personally, I love the marketing material that's on the boxes of plastic toys I purchase.
The fact that you would presume to know better than he what he does and doesn't hate means you certainly do believe in marketing. That presumption carries a burden of proof, and the fact that you feel differently does not constitute proof.
The hinge of marketing is that it relies on emotional manipulation. It's least effective on people who have emotions (since they have a pulse) but are not governed by them and do not make decisions according to them. That's why they use small children in commercials,
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The manager apologized and then called a few days later to apologize again [...]
I know this is slashdot, it might be ok to not read TFA, but it seems you didn't even read the fine submission!
Holy Captain Reading Comprehension! (Score:3)
Lying with statistics is an art, but it appears that once in a while they can be useful.
How is this "lying"? Seems to mee they are spot on.
That isn't what he said at all.