Targeted Advertising: Am I feeding the beast or is the beast feeding me? {{Does my phone have ears?}}

Like many other marketers, I am PAINFULLY aware of the fact that my phone is always listening to me. At this point, my cookies are so bloomin' accurate that my phone knows when I am driving, sleeping, eating and even socialising.

The accuracy of my targeted adverts has become so precise that it’s a bit scary…but also kind of cool. Once you overcome the thought that Big Brother is always listening and start using the technology to your advantage; targeted adverts become a tool to effectively download apps, read up on certain topics of interest and of course, find a good deal.

What lead me to this sudden targeted advert fascination and what can we learn from it??

It all started roughly two weeks ago when I began giving ‘feedback’ to my adverts when they were inaccurate (eg. When I was not interested in fitness leggings or intermittent fasting apps, I’d ask for the ads not to be shown again). Shortly after this, I noticed that the quality of ads I was being served had significantly improved. I knew I’d officially succumbed to the target ad life. I was feeding the beast by engaging with them (both negatively and positively). As a result, this week alone I’ve made two full pipeline journeys with adverts; eg. Tapped on them, engaged and had a positive outcome. This has never happened before, mainly because I believed that the “Metaverse” was listening to me and it was an invasion of my privacy. But now I feel the opposite (or at least I think I do).

I can give you an example:

Disrupted sleep is pretty normal for me. I’d actually go as far as saying that I am a farcical sleeper. I was chatting last Friday night at dinner with some friends about how I simply can not fall asleep and when I do, it’s pretty much a couple of hours and I’m upright again wondering things like: “why do grown adults consciously choose to drink cows milk?” or “why on certain days I can parallel park my car and others I can’t”. Anyway. Shortly after this we had a conversation about Disney+ and how my daughter had been watching Winnie the Pooh non stop, I was raving about just how much I love the programme. To this day, I think A A Milne perfectly captured a child’s imagination and Disney superbly brought the Hundred Acre Wood to life.?

A couple of days later my sponsored adverts presented me with the Calm app, the header read “Calm: Sleep and meditation”. Pretty interesting but not that exciting right? What made it totally mind-blowing and in no way accidental was the caption “Drift off to sleep while Tom Hiddleston reads you a classic story about Winnie the Pooh and the Tales of Friendship.” Well dress me up and call me Sally! Intrigued, I listened to the 10-second sound bite, Tom’s voice had me at “hello”. Of course, I downloaded the app, played around with the UI for roughly a minute and signed up for a yearly subscription seconds later.

??You see, that’s how easy the sell was.?

??The problem: I don’t sleep.

??The solution: The calm app (literally the #1?app?for sleep and meditation).

?The golden thread: A household that loves Winnie the Pooh (my child won’t drink out of any cup but the one with the lovable stuffed bear in the red t-shirt on it - toddler Moms know how serious this is).

It goes back to the age old marketing technique. Solve a problem, find a niche. Sell to the right audience. It really is that simple.

And you bet Tom has been putting me to bed in the far away land of The Hundred Acre Wood ever since.

It gets even stranger:

Another friend and I were discussing schooling for our children next year. Flip it’s a topic to get into. Government vs private, Montessori vs traditional, sporty vs artistic. We all have an opinion (and I am open to them all). We’d discussed her choices for schooling next year and then mine. The conversation evolved but focused mainly on the pros (and cons) of Montessori. The debate was lengthy and inconclusive. We poured another glass of wine, acknowledged our differences and moved on.

The next day? The below advert:

Make up your own mind, but surely not a coincidence. This time round I wasn’t nabbed by the ad. Simply because I’ve made our choice for our child’s schooling next year. The funny thing was the Mum who sat opposite me that evening had not. Good job iPhone, but there’s work to be done on voice recognition, because if my phone knew the difference between her (a South African) and I (a Brit) it wouldn’t have served me the advert.?

There’s so much to unpack when it comes to the world of targeted advertising and it’s exciting to think how specific these adverts can get; and how they can influence consumer behaviour. It gets especially fascinating when a user starts engaging with these ads.?

As I head on my quest to better understand the algorithm and how to use it to my advantage it makes me wonder… is this the future? And if it is the future, how much privacy do we have left? Are our thoughts even our own? (can you tell I’ve been rewatching Mr Robot?).?

Is the theory of putting a thought out into the universe being taken that literal now? Or is my phone the new gateway to that universe? The more I search the more I find. There’s for sure a fine line between technology empowerment and the need to turn off all electronics and start a self-sustainable farm (a real thought).

You should try it out, play with sponsored ads. I’d love to hear I’m not the only one on this very guineapig-esk journey.?

*Accepts all cookies and moves on.

Stay curious fellow creatives, Em.