Entries Tagged 'Recovered Posts' ↓

 Recovered Posts: So I switched blogging software and haven’t managed to get the old posts back. While I may have the time to figure it out one day, I figured I would take the opportunity to reprint some of my favorite old posts. I apologize for those who have been around since the beginning. Ignore if you like.

Today, eMarketer predicted a huge growth in the area of behavioral advertising, and I figured it might be a good time to find out exactly what that is. So, I researched. I read. I asked, and I will relate my findings. In an effort to retain some originality as I rehash a definition many of you might be familiar with, I will discuss this in an unnecessarily elaborate metaphor.

Imagine you are an advertising agency contracted to advertise a variety of savanna related products and services. These are products and services useful to denizens of the grassy plains of sub-Saharan Africa. One of these products is an anti-lion spray, favored particularly by zebras and gazelles, called Not-Prey. One small spritz of the Not-Prey spray and lions will turn up their noses at even the youngest and sickest potential provender.

Your agency, realizing the importance of targeting, has decided against the more high visibility but haphazard options in savanna advertising such as bull elephant billboards or choreographed buzzard skywriting. The expense of these options (not to mention the hazards involved in painting the side of an irritable elephant) have encouraged more “targeted” techniques. While a breathtaking vulture presentation in the air above your potential customers has the possibility of reaching a very large number of viewers, it also is seen by everyone else in the area, and you’re paying for that exposure.

Instead, your agency decides to target an area frequented by your demographic. Prey, with all the running they are forced to do, are often tired and thirsty.  They require a significant amount of water to stay fast and agile, and thus, they have an extraordinarily high rate of watering hole visits. The target audience for Not-Prey are some of the most regular users of the watering hole and, therefore, that location is a great place in which to reach them. So, you hire a few local amphibians to pop up with a carefully crafted advertising message (something about not being eaten) as watering hole users bends to take a drink.

This is a pretty standard style of targeted advertising that locates its customers through the content they are consuming, in this case, water. However, the problem is that a fairly wide range of individuals might consume similar content, in this case, virtually everybody. So, even though you are getting a high number of views, a considerable number of which are from your targeted demographic, there a still quite a few irrelevant ad messages being delivered. For instance, lions, who also use the watering hole, have no use for Not-Prey and, in fact, might be irritated by the ads. It is not wise to irritate a lion.

So, your agency decides to pursue a behavioral advertising campaign. You hire some smarter amphibians who, by observing the behavior of the creature bending down to drink, can deliver a relevant message on a relevant product or service. For instance, if the drinker has a tendency to be chased, pulled to the ground and eaten, the amphibian will deliver an ad for Not-Prey, whereas should the fearsomely clawed and sharped-toothed water-slurper be more likely to be the chaser than the chasee, the amphibian might deliver ad for a more relevant product like Hyena Heckler, the predator’s answer to nature’s jerk.

Behavioral ads are not attached specifically to the content being consumed. Instead they are based on past “behaviors” or actions. In web terms this can mean search terms or sites visited (on the savanna it can mean previous responses to the smell of weakness). The technology to present these types of ads, tailored to the users history of interest is growing more and more sophisticated. This, according to eMarketer, leads to significant growth as companies see the conversion rate benefits of behaviorally targeted ads.

Help a Neophyte:
As a consumer, how would you feel about being targeted according to prior activity? Is this a privacy concern, or would the relevancy of the ads to your interests actually reduce irritation at advertisements? If, as advertisers, we make use of behavioral advertising, do we risk offending customers by appearing to “spy” on them?

Recovered Posts: So I switched blogging software and haven’t managed to get the old posts back. While I may have the time to figure it out one day, I figured I would take the opportunity to reprint some of my favorite old posts. I apologize for those who have been around since the beginning. Ignore if you like. 

Liz Strauss has put out a request on her Successful-Blog for blogging metaphors or metaphors that explain blogging. Since I am occasionally known to dabble in flowery language, I thought I would have a go at it, or, actually . . .  20 gos at it.

Some of these sound cynical and some sound overly romantic but there are many types of bloggers and blogs. There are also many types of me that appear and disappear according to mood. Sometimes blogging can be frustrating and lonely. Other times I am amazed by the concept and the ways in which it can allow us to connect. So, twenty different metaphors for twenty different moods.

Blogging is a hundred tiny lectures to a class that might just be there to pass notes or nap.

Blogging is writing 10 books at the same time.

Blogging is standing on a crowded street yelling out the ten best methods for crosswalk usage.

Blogging is throwing rocks at thousands of windows and trying to wake the sleeping beauty inside.

Blogging is a long car ride as a child where every few minutes you reach over and pinch your sister.

Blogging is a bar where a surprisingly large number of people are intelligent (and sober) enough to say something worth listening to.

Blogging is a polygamous marriage.

Blogging is potluck dinner only without the Rice Krispies treats.

Blogging is an infinite refrigerator with a never ending supply of magnets.

Blogging is a commercial that sells itself.

Blogging is a song where you only know half the words, and, hoping no one will notice, you make up the rest as the melody continues.

Blogging is picking lice off the universal monkey.

Blogging is open mike night at the worlds biggest coffee house.

Blogging is stepping into traffic.

Blogging is the manufacture of ghosts.

Blogging is memoir serialized.

Blogging is a box of chocolates. You do know what you’re going to get if you bother reading the explanatory literature Mr. Gump.

Blogging is a comprehensive stamp collection.

Blogging is bad joke told over and over until it is finally good.

Blogging is a junior high dance with enough slow songs to go around.

Anyone who wants to take one of these metaphors and spin it their own way is welcome to it. Thanks for the inspiration Liz.

Recovered Posts: So I switched blogging software and haven’t managed to get the old posts back. While I may have the time to figure it out one day, I figured I would take the opportunity to reprint some of my favorite old posts. I apologize for those who have been around since the beginning. Ignore if you like.

This post was written as part of Middle Zone Musings’ group writing project “What I learned . . . “. This month’s assignment focused on what I learned from work. Check it out and join in.

A 50 pound package of shingles is a heavy thing for a 140 pound, scrawny teenager to carry up a rickety ladder. By the tenth trip the shingles had rubbed my shoulder raw, which was actually an almost pleasant relief from the sunburn that covered the rest of my body. My right arm was only semi-functional after hours swinging a hammer, and it was still buzzing with the dull, aching aftermath of several angry, homeless hornets. There was tar in my hair and at the peak of the day the roof was so hot it would melt to the bottom of my shoes. I was exhausted, unhappy and, I’ll admit, a little bit whiny. The men I was working with wouldn’t even play decent music.

Roofing, as you can tell, is remembered mostly for its misery, but I did take an important lesson or two away with me. I learned, from that experience, that no matter how bad your job seems, someone is doing something worse (unless you’re roofing). This helped me through a litany of less than exciting work situations. Long days did not seem so long compared to my time with the shingles. Tedious tasks were nothing compared to picking fallen nails out of the grass. Annoying customers didn’t bother me nearly as much as bees. I would always say, “at least it isn’t roofing.”

I also learned, much to my disbelief, that there were people who actually liked roofing. At the time it lead me to assume that these people must also like having red hot needles shoved under their fingernails. That they were, in a word, crazy. However, time and several other jobs where my unhappiness was not mirrored by all of my fellow workers, showed me that different jobs appeal to different people. Some  types of work, the kind that would make me want to pull my teeth out one by one just for a break in the monotony, would be the most exciting occupation in the world to someone else. Whereas, a job I found interesting would appeal to them about as much as nice, solid smack in the face. Hell, there are even people who actually enjoy a nice, solid smack in the face.

Now, I have a job I enjoy, and I don’t have to say, “at least it isn’t roofing” anymore, but I still remember the lessons from that time. I remember some of the guys I worked with on those roofs. They were smiling and laughing. They were happy up there. They had found something about roofing that I couldn’t see and, despite what I thought, it wasn’t crazy. It was simply different. At the end of the day I could imagine them at home. Their wife asks, “how was your day?” They reply, “It was alright. A little hot, but at least it isn’t marketing.”