Advertising that Assumes Who You Are

While studying form my math semester exam, I decided to give listening to classical music a try.  I'd heard from someone somewhere that listening to Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, etc. may increase your ability to focus while doing mundane schoolwork.  So, I created a Pandora "Classical Music" radio channel and as the rich symphonies and piano works relaxed my stressed brain, I slowly began to focus on the math better.  What I didn't focus on (and try to never really focus) are all of the ads that pop up on the side of the screen while using Pandora radio, but a strange and somewhat funny thing happened while I worked through the past semester's math.  Unlike most times where I try to block out the obnoxious ads, I realized a big difference in my music listening experience: instead of anti-drug ads, there were anti-wrinkle ads and instead of Pizza Hut plugs, I think I remember seeing weight loss supplement advertisements.

Websites often tailor their advertisements to better target a specific demographic.  Facebook and Google are both big fans of this method of advertising and both gain significant amounts of money from companies looking to put their names out on the world wide web.  T.V. networks do the same.  If you've ever watched The Price is Right or Jeopardy, you would know what I mean.  Nevertheless, I found it strange that the advertisements I saw were based off assumptions made by, I would have to guess, someone at Pandora who controls what ads show up when and where.  They assumed that older people listened to classical music and therefore would like to see the anti-wrinkle and weight loss blurbs.  But I'm not 50+ years old, of course, and as a result found it kind of funny that I would be tried at being sold these types of products.

It turns out that, according to a study conducted by researchers from the Federal Trade Commission, "Contrary to what many marketers claim, most adult Americans (66%) do not want marketers to
tailor advertisements to their interests."  I'm not sure if I particularly care one way or another on this issue, yet I find the results of this survey interesting.  Why do marketers feel that Americans would like to be categorized?  Or from another viewpoint, why do people not appreciate tailored advertising if its purpose is to consider what type of person you are and give you a better online or television-watching experience?

The study done by the FTC was more directly addressing the issues people have with being "followed" on the Internet and subsequently targeted for certain ads based on their web activities.  Even still, in all cases of ad targeting, the same ideals hold true.  The specific privacy and civil liberties issues that arise from this type of marketing a discussed on the blog "Elise on Life" under the blog post titled "Google's New View on Privacy".  Aside from the issue of the right to privacy, however, I'm still interested in the fact that Pandora advertisers assume people listening to Mozart want anti-age cream and people listening to Phoenix automatically need an anti-drug commercial.  


The study says, "Being labeled in ways they [American adults] consider unfair by marketers online and off may be just as important a concern.  Whatever the reasons, our findings suggest that if Americans could vote on behavioral targeting today, they would shut it down."  I find the word "labeled" interesting here because this is kind of what happened to me when I was benignly listening to classical and alternative music.  The subtlety of the marketing is what somewhat discomforts me.  Television advertising that is so subtlety tailored it is practically subliminal is unsettling as well.  I remember last year talking to a fellow classmate about the high number of U.S. Army commercials on during shows like Family Guy, shows that are most popular among the teenage boy demographic.  He was the first to notice that the Army is directly trying to appeal to impressionable, young men while they watch T.V. without even knowing they are being directly targeted from a marketing standpoint.  My questions for you are, when does advertising targeting cross the line into infringement of privacy and does it really matter if we are "labeled" or not by advertisers while we browse the Internet or watch television?