subject: Internet Advertising Has Gone Too Far [print this page] New trends in advertising are becoming flat out strange in the way advertisers are trying to track my life. I experienced this yesterday for the first time. I was enjoying a free music generator during my work day yesterday, and almost on point at 2:30 a commercial started playing on my headphones. This commercial consisted of a very tired man, reluctantly announcing all the things that he would do for the rest of his day; meetings, reports, etc.
The narrator then verbally materialized to sympathize with the man who was experiencing what the narrator dubbed as, "that 2:30 p.m. feeling," many of us feel at work. Unexpectedly, the tired man loudly slurps something and all of a sudden he is now alert and energetic, breezing through his to do list with gusto. "Three Meetings, CHECK," "Months of reporting, CHECK!"
This online solicitation was irritating for two reasons. The first, it interrupted my awesome play list I was rocking too and second, it violated my comfort zone. It penetrated my personal no fly zone because it practically painted a picture of me at that moment. I was at work, feeling tired, looking at my to do list, and it was exactly 2:30PM, a little too close for comfort.
Think this is a onetime occurrence? Think again, recently my friend was innocently shopping for a pair of jeans online. He browsed through the search results, explored a variety of clothing sites but didn"t find what he was looking for and did not complete a purchase. My friend next moved on to his favorite auto news website when unexpectedly he noticed a sponsored message in the background that said, "Noticed your interested in blue jeans, wanted to let you know we are having a 20% off sale." This ad appeared because a tracking cookie was installed on his browser, not a huge security violation. But imagine his surprise when it felt like this website was actually addressing him as an individual!
These occurrences illustrate the new trend in internet advertising where companies really push the boundary of privacy invasion and relevant targeting. Since I was feeling tired and wanted a remedy I did go by a soda, not the product being advertised, but the ad influenced me to take action. My friend didn"t buy the pair of jeans on the second try but what if the only reason he didn"t convert was because of price? Highly targeted internet advertising could be a very effective technique and lead to great ROI but is the general public willing to accept this new form of intrusion?
