One of the more popular sessions of the day was OwnerIQ CEO Jay Habegger’s timely presentation on the emergence of brands and retailers as media companies.
Jay’s presentation hinged on OwnerIQ’s prediction that by 2014, at least half of brands will be acting like media companies by leveraging their web traffic data to generate new revenue through advertising and sales conversion. As Jay noted, last year, top online retailer Amazon made its quiet move into the world of advertising by creating an ad network using its consumer data, enabling advertisers to run online display campaigns targeting Amazon’s audience, after the consumer leaves Amazon.com and travels the web.

Amazon, like many retailers, recognizes the value of its audience and knows that there is a slice to be had of the $39 billion pie of online advertising spend. Of course, most retailers don’t have the reach and resources that Amazon does and therefore rely on companies like OwnerIQ to manage the collection and segmentation of data and the delivery of targeted ads to choice data segments. With this support, brands and retailers are now able to use their web data not just to optimize website experience for customers, but also to generate new revenue beyond their core business.

Jay acknowledged a couple of the most commonly voiced concerns with sharing audience data: consumer privacy and competition. As for privacy, the advertising industry itself has taken initiatives to ensure the protection of consumer data by forming the NAI and DAA, and providing consumers with in-ad options like AdChoices to learn more about the ads presented to us, as well as the option to opt-out. And, as Jay mentioned, consumers vote with their behavior. In this case “the silence is deafening” with low opt-out rates and low incidence of consumers taking action to even learn more through the AdChoices icon. This action (or lack thereof) suggests that consumers are willing to share anonymous information about themselves in exchange for foreseen benefits they receive online. When it comes to competitors having access to your audience, Habegger says there are defined ways to prevent this from happening that solutions such as OwnerIQ Media Solutions have built into their program.

The presentation was well-received by the brands in attendance, with many seeking out OwnerIQ to ask follow-up questions regarding changes in the retail industry. As always, CMO Collective was a great opportunity for OwnerIQ to meet with top brands and share and collaborate on changes in the marketing landscape.

Much of the conversation focused on the continued shift to purchasing online, and the expansion to industries that previously were impacted on a smaller scale. The group consensus was that much of this change could be attributed to ‘show rooming,’ where people visit a brick and mortar store to view a product and then purchase it online at a lower price. All agreed that traditional brick and mortar stores will need to develop strategies around price, selection, service and marketing to compete in this new buying environment or risk being undercut by large online retailers like Amazon.

Another key topic was how manufacturers and retailers have a valuable asset in their online audience. While few retailers and manufacturers currently take advantage of this asset, companies will become more engaged if they begin to view their online audience as a new revenue stream. However, the separation of roles and responsibilities across large companies requires that corporate leaders view the opportunity to monetize their online audience or share it with key partners to run highly targeted co-op campaigns as compelling enough to bridge departments within their organizations.

Corporate leaders have a lot of industry-wide developments to keep up with. When introducing the process for monetizing and sharing online audiences to retailers and manufacturers, it is critical to stretch and develop their knowledge over time. Manufacturers particularly must adapt. They likely see the retailer as their consumer and thus using their online audience to run targeted co-op campaigns requires a shift in mindset and the ability to integrate a new program with their current processes.

The meeting provided great insight to the challenges facing retailers and manufacturers in the constantly changing landscape of path to purchase. Successful companies will learn adapt to the new buying environment and take advantage of their assets. We left the meeting with strong takeaways about the mindset of retailers and manufacturers today and how we can further tailor our offerings to meet their needs.

The Pulse of Innovation

Innovation was a major theme of the event, with particular mentions of social media and start-ups. Discussion focused on the importance of SXSW as a launch pad for new and innovative businesses in the digital space. An interesting idea is partnering large institutions with new startups in order to keep a finger on the pulse of innovation. Participants agreed that while social and mobile are the new media of choice, scaling or fully quantifying their success continues to be a challenge.

Missing the Boat on Women

One of the highlights was the introduction of Frank About Women, Mullen’s consultancy that focuses on marketing to women. As expected, this discussion considered women’s significant buying power that’s expected to keep growing (moms already controlling an estimated $1 trillion), while marketers are still trying to find a fool-proof way to market to women.

Data Reigns Supreme for Today’s CMO

Data (collection, management, analysis) was also a theme throughout the day’s talks. Questions presented throughout the day ranged from “Who manages it?” (the CMO, because data is key for innovation and tracking success and failure) to “How do we use it?” (optimize data usage by constantly tracking and analyzing). The marketing leaders acknowledged that analytics are increasingly important when determining a business’s media mix and vetting new media.

An interesting final take-away was on the topic of CMOs themselves. Industry leaders anticipate that the next CMOs are increasingly likely to come from the business sector, rather than marketing divisions.

CMO Collective was a great event as usual, and provided a number of interesting thoughts for the OwnerIQ team to consider.

Only about one in a thousand online display ads leads a consumer to click, but consumer electronics retailers Abt Electronics and Crutchfield say they’re boosting display ad click-throughs and conversion rates via “retargeted” marketing that’s triggered by consumers’ visits to manufacturers’ web sites.
To read the article go here.

Brick and mortar retailers are in a fight for their lives. The consumer path-to-purchase has migrated online, with Internet retailers benefiting to the detriment of traditional retailers who struggle to match the price points of their online competitors while their physical stores drag down margins. It makes you wonder why so many legacy retailers show up to this fight for the consumer without the right technologies.

To read the entire article, click here.

“The Retail Giant Is Leveraging Brand Equity and Hiring a Big Sales Force, While Others Will Choose to Outsource.”

read the full article here.

In the ad tech marketplace OwnerIQ is known for ownership targeting, an advertising solution that enables marketers to target online consumers based on the products and brands they own or intend to buy. This capability is powered by OwnerIQ’s Media Solutions, or OMS, which has relationships with online retailers, manufacturers and publishers for whom we enable marketing capabilities, such as co-operative audience sharing, and provide ad revenue in exchange for consumer browsing and purchasing data. The acquisition of DiJiPOP, an on-demand shopper marketing technology platform, will add even more value to our OMS relationships and enable our partners to generate new revenue through on-site display advertising and product placements.

Is shopper marketing becoming more of a focus for OwnerIQ?

OwnerIQ’s always been focused on “shopper marketing” as we define it: influencing a consumer along the entire path to purchase. We’ve been delivering online campaigns for advertisers to help them address the new online path-to-purchase from the very beginning. However, some in the industry have a narrow definition of “Shopper Marketing” that refers exclusively to advertising within a retail environment, or, in the online case, advertising on a retailer’s website. With the addition of DiJiPOP, we are extending our offerings to current and potential retail partners to enable on-site advertising programs to generate new revenue streams. As we onboard these partners onto the platform, we will push these advertising opportunities out into the marketplace.

Why is former DiJiPOP CEO Ji Kim a good fit for a BD role? Is there a pub dev strategy emerging for OwneriQ?

Ownership Targeting has always been powered by our unique relationships with our retailers, manufacturer and publisher partners. Ji’s experience at DiJiPOP, which is a platform specifically designed for online retailers and ecommerce sites, makes him the perfect candidate to help us accelerate our partnership growth within the retail category.

To read the article on AdExchanger, go here

“I see it as being a somewhat under-the-radar trend for the next couple of years,” he said. But in three to five years, the ad industry will wake up and say, “Oh my gosh, some significant percentage of the digital spend is now being spent in media outlets that nobody would have considered a media outlet today.”

To read more, click here.

I was honored to represent OwnerIQ at the 15th Annual Consumer Electronics Association’s CEO Summit. The CEO Summit is an invitation only gathering of top consumer electronics retailers and manufacturers providing a rare opportunity to network in an executive-only environment, garner insight helpful to an individual’s business and focus on the issues most critical to the industry. Notable attendees included Mike Vitelli, President Americas – Best Buy; Joe Hartsig, SVP and GM –Sam’s Club; Stan Glasgow, Chairman – Sony; Noel Lee, Head Monster – Monster Cable; Pat Lavelle, President & CEO – Audiovox; Henry Juskiewicz, CEO – Gibson Guitar; Eliott Peck, SVP & GM – Canon, as well as several other notable senior executives from companies including ESPN, BMW, Wal-Mart, Intel, IBM, HSN, Newegg, Samsung, LG, Panasonic, Netflix, Vizio, Dolby, Ingram Micro, and many others.

This year the Summit took place from October 1st thru October 3rd against the picturesque backdrop of Lake Maggiore in Stresa, Italy. Topics at the summit ranged from dealer-vendor relationships, branding and merchandising of products, and achieving customer satisfaction. Through roundtable discussions, presentations by key industry leaders and organized activities, the Summit facilitates relationship- building and encourages open dialogue among attendees.

OwnerIQ has an extremely strong presence within the consumer electronics ecosystem and attending the summit provided an excellent opportunity for us to nurture our current relationships as well as foster new ones.

“Online retail, by its very definition, exists so that companies can sell products and turn a profit on those sales. The model has grown steadily over the past decade as consumers become increasingly comfortable purchasing goods online. But savvier online retailers aren’t merely consumer-facing stores anymore; they’re evolving into media companies that can sell advertising and profit off their audience. In the process, they are creating a myriad of new digital co-operative marketing opportunities for themselves and their suppliers.”

Read more..

“Amazon flew under the radar in late June when it announced it was entering the world of advertising by using its consumer data to deliver targeted advertising on third-party sites across the web, but it’s big news for online retailers and advertisers.”

Read the whole article here.

“Two-thirds of all consumers use an online resource as a step in the path to purchase”.

Read the full article here.

“Another interesting approach comes from OwnerIQ, which calls its model “owner targeting.” The company collects data on user actions that demonstrate product ownership to deliver prospects with highly probable interest in categories, brands, and interests. Then it delivers media as an ad network. Like regular networks, it measures interest via site visit behavioral data, but adds ownership data points to sharpen its perspective.”

Read the whole article here.

OwnerIQ is an active member of CEA (Consumer Electronics Association). Besides attending CEA’s annual CES (Consumer Electronics Show), OwnerIQ also participates in several of the functions and events CEA hosts throughout the year. In addition, I serve on two different CEA Boards, volunteering time to help with the needs of the association, members, retailers and manufacturers.

Last week, on June 1st, I was honored to participate at CEA’s request to lobby key members of Congress, not only on behalf of CEA, but also on behalf of OwnerIQ. We met as a constituent to our direct members of Congress as well as other Congressmen including a key member of the Commerce Committee that oversees consumer interests and protection.

Our country is at a key pivot point. There are several decisions that need to be made in short order, the outcome of which will have long term effects on our quality of life, as well as the growth and prosperity of our country. During my time with the representatives, I was able to cover a wide range of topics from size of government, looming debt concerns, capital gains taxes on small business/start-ups, regulation of ecommerce and internet consumer privacy.
OwnerIQ was honored to participate with CEA on these key visits to the hill.

On a personal note, I found the experience to be very rewarding. Speaking directly with the people elected by the people to run our government is a key founding privilege we are meant to have! Our participation needs to go beyond just casting a vote on Election Day. I encourage all of you to take an active role with your voice in our government and be heard on topics important to you as well as to the generations to follow.

The iMedia summit took place in Bonita Springs, Fl from May 22 – 25th. There were a number of interesting presentations and speakers giving their insights on the current state of online advertising and what we can expect moving forward. Topics throughout the conference ranged from online privacy, the future of media buying to how humor can play a key role in persuasion.

Monday, the first full day of the conference I had the opportunity to attend a number of interesting panels. The opening keynote titled “Navigating in a World of Gray” focused on the need of agencies, publishers and even brands to become hybrids since the lines are more blurred now than ever. Publishers are turning into exchanges, agencies are taking on the role of publishers and brands are becoming content syndicators. The most interesting takeaway for me was from Jack Myers, a media economist who said that currently digital advertising is 8% of the total media spend but that by the year 2021 it will account for 42%.

Among the other hot topics of discussion at iMedia centered on the mainstream usage of DSP’s and what if any were the threats facing this model. Three things that were identified as potential destroyers of the DSP included the adoption of rigorous privacy legislation, quality publisher embargo as well as economic in-sustainability, meaning prices fall and handling costs overwhelm the model.

The one on one portion of the conference was the best way to meet potential clients and talk about the capabilities of OwnerIQ. I had the opportunity to meet a number of planners from across the country from New York to San Francisco.

The most impactful discussion I had was with a group director from OMD in New York who happens to handle the GE and Coty accounts and could definitely be a great client for us down the road.

The OwnerIQ video played twice at the conference. Once before the main keynote on Monday morning and again before an afternoon session. The feedback from the video was positive and it definitely made an impression among viewers. The shake weight and six pack of beer segments definitely helped to leave lasting impression on attendees of the conference.

Evenings were filled with dinner and drinks. It was a great time to network with other publishers and agencies in attendance. All in all iMedia was a success for OwnerIQ as we continue to build our name in the market place and stand out among the clutter.

Speakers at the event included industry thought leaders, such as Robin Steinberg, EVP of Publishing, Investment and Activation for MediaVest Worldwide, Judith Hammerman, Director of Content Solutions for AOL, and Jason Krebs, SVP of Tremor Media.

The OwnerIQ sponsorship included an exhibition booth and a raffle for a free AppleTV. But the buzz around our company seemed to be centered on our new “I am what I own” marketing video which we debut during the morning session. If you want to see the video for yourself, you’ll have to wait until May 23rd when the video officially launches at the iMedia Summit and across various digital media channels; e.g. – OwnerIQ.com

To learn more about the event, click here.

“During the last year I’ve embarked on a number of web based projects. Catch phrases like, “spreading yourself too thin”, “biting off more than you can chew”, and dozens of others come to min – but I’m not here to talk to you about my work habits. What I can tell you is that managing multiple projects simultaneously helps you appreciate quality programmers. I define a quality programmer as…”

Read More Here.

“One of the things I love about DishyMix is that it gives you insight into the PEOPLE who are big in the digital business – not just from the standpoint of the secrets to their success or what business books they read, but from the perspective of what they do in their spare time, where they come from and what they’re like personally.”

Read his post and listen here.

“Today, we’re experiencing a massive surge in interest in audiences. But the people that win in this game, will not only leverage multiple data sources to build the best audience, and also leverage other techniques like contextual targeting to deliver the best result.”

Read the whole article here.

I had the pleasure of participating on a panel at SES entitled “RTB, DSP, ATD, WTF: Finding Quality is a Sea of Solutions.” It was moderated by my old colleague Jay Sears, and had the following participants also on the panel:

- Jeff Green, CEO & Founder, The Trade Desk
- Nathan Woodman, Managing Director, Adnetik
- Chris Sukornyk, CEO, Chango, Inc.

My three key takeaways were:

(1) Exchanges are bringing more creative business models into the ad tech ecosystem,
(2) Search specialists should be thinking more about display now that both can be bought via bidding models, and
(3) Hitting client objectives should be more important than RTB for the sake of it.

Exchanges are bringing more creative business models into the ad tech ecosystem. When I joined OwnerIQ in December of 2009, we had relatively little business running, but we literally had billions of impressions to choose from every day. That dynamic was fascinating for an ad tech veteran like myself, because there was no cap on how large a contract you could sign. Sure, you had limitations like impressions in a particular geo—or in our case, ownership signals—but our business has scaled exponentially more quickly, since we do not need to call on publishers for remnant inventory…we just buy via the exchanges. Since I joined OwnerIQ, I have seen many types of targeting models flourish—from ownership in our case, to social data, search, and tons of new audience models coming soon. Prior to being on this SES panel, I was not familiar with The Trade Desk or Chango, but while I was sitting on the panel, I was amazed that AdNetik, The Trade Desk, Chango and OwnerIQ could all be working with the same client and be integrated with the same RTB exchanges, but we would all likely be bidding on different cookies in different ways and we could all be succeeding.

Search specialists should be thinking more about display now that both can be bought via bidding models. I’m certainly biased, but I found the content on the panel very informative.

However, I was surprised that the panel was so lightly attended at SES.

Maybe it’s because it was the last panel of the day, or maybe because many of the participants on the panel were up-and-coming, but I think search specialists should be thinking more about display, now that both can be bought via bidding models. With the advent of exchanges, the skill set for buying SEM and buying display are very similar. Both are auction-based environments where data and analytics are king and everyone is forecasting more growth in display than search. There are tons of ways search specialists can start buying display, including:

- buying retargeting
- buying search retargeting data
- buying ownership and/or intender data

Hitting client objectives should be more important than RTB for the sake of it. I am a big fan of RTB; It gives you maximum control and transparency. However, companies should not limit themselves to only utilizing RTB inventory. OwnerIQ is integrated into all types of biddable inventory, whether they are RTB or not. We are happy customers of Right Media, to which we connect via an API and AOL’s Ad Desk, which we use a self service portal to buy from. We can set our bids at our discretion on both these inventory platforms, but we cannot access them via RTB. However, for many campaigns, these platforms outperform RTB, and our flexibility in working across all types of biddable inventory gives our clients maximum campaign performance.

Check out the video of my panel on the ContextWeb Blog here.

“In today’s digital age, things move fast….Marketing evolves with consumer preferences, technologies and society. A specific definition of marketing is no more static than marketing itself.”

We think you’ll like it as much as we did.

Read the full article here.

“We don’t typically think of Shakespeare as a successful brand story, but we should because the way Shakespeare created, bonded with and nurtured his customer base has actionable lessons for marketers today. Don’t get distracted by the tights, skulls, swords and iambic pentameter: what really distinguished Shakespeare was his longitudinal and economic relationship with his customers.”

Read the full article here.

Harvard University’s Neiman Foundation blog recently published an article entitled “The Geico Gecko Meets The AOL Way: Are Display Advertisers Too Obsessed With Click Through Rates?” that outlined the notion that in the future, display advertising may be much more focused on branding and not as focused on intangible metrics.

“The Geico Gecko is not successful because he inspires people to jump up from their couches and purchase car insurance; he’s successful because when a person decides months later to shop around for car insurance, his image springs to mind.”

Get the full story here.

Our VP of Agency Relations and Business Development, Steven Ustaris, wrote a similar article about CTR called “The Greatest NBA Player in History: Artis “The A-Train” Gilmore”, you can read that article here.

“It seems like every day we’re getting more exciting news about how advertisers are spending more money on digital; advertisers are giddily spending on social media and video thanks to the success of Facebook and YouTube, and search is still seen as the most essential piece of any online effort. But there’s one strategic element that many advertisers still aren’t considering as an always-on piece of their arsenal: retargeting.”

Read the whole article here.

You can’t pick a newspaper lately without coming across an article pertaining to internet privacy and the debate between advertisers looking to target consumers based on their online behaviors and the Government looking to protect users’ online privacy. The online ad industry continues to move forward at a blazing speed, keeping media planners, creative agencies and publishers on their toes. The process of a banner advertisement going from idea to actual implementation can be long, and with the market demanding immediate results, the need to speed it up has reached its breaking point. As an account executive at OwnerIQ, one of the leading online targeting companies, I see hundreds of ads come across my desk in a given week. Some are standard flash and some are rich media, but it’s my job to find the right home for these ads and the right consumer. With ad exchanges turning online marketing into a fast-paced world of algorithms and complex equations that would have the smartest Wall Street analysts shaking their heads, it’s imperative that ads have the correct specs in order to be approved by the board of ad exchanges.

There are multiple requirements an ad must have in order to meet the qualifications of an ad exchange. Requirements range from max file size to length of animation, and the number of requirements continues to grow as ads become more complex. One requirement that is often overlooked is the black border that must accompany every ad. Over the past few months OwnerIQ identified a high number of ads being sent over from agencies without the correct border. IAB rule 33, paragraph 4 states every ad, no matter the shape or size, must have a black border that fully encompasses the ad. Unfortunately, all too often, creative agencies are in a rush to meet the demands of their media planners and fail to identify that the ads created are missing this requirement.

It is for this reason that as of February 24th of 2011, OwnerIQ established the Ads Without Borders Foundation. This foundation provides a place for any ad to receive a border regardless of file size or rich media vendor. With a sizable donation from OwnerIQ CEO Jay Habegger, OwnerIQ has already been able to provide a border to over 100,000 ads in 2011 and has a goal over 1 million for the year. With your help, together we can help end this problem and find a border for every ad.

To give to the Ads Without Borders Charity please send a check or money order and all contributions will go to the “Save the Charlie Sheen Fund“.

Sincerely,
Sam Rubenstein and the OwnerIQ Team

I had the honor of participating in a panel at the OMMA 2011 Global Conference last week in San Francisco. The panel, organized and moderated by Cory Treffiletti of CatalystSF, was entitled The Re-Targeting Re-volution: How Has Retargeting Changed Over The Last Year?

Besides me, the panel included representatives from Criteo, ChoiceStream, Media6Degrees, and Turn. Cory asked us as part of our preparation call to think about a few key take-away points that we could leave with the audience. As a group I hope we were able to do that.

From my perspective, here are two key thoughts about how retargeting has changed and its role in the media-mix.

Exchange Inventory & RTB Make Retargeting Much More Scalable

The growth in the volume of display inventory being transacted on exchanges and through Real-Time-Bidding (RTB) has enabled retargeting to be much more scalable. Since, by my definition, retargeting is about using data gathered about the visitors to your own web property and messaging them again at advertising supported websites, there are fundamentally two choke points to making retargeting work. First, you are limited by the volume of traffic coming to your web site. Secondly, you are limited by how many of the people that do come to your website that you can message again.

There isn’t much you can do about the first limitation; it is pretty fundamental. You simply can’t retarget more people than you see (all forms of look-alike modeling not withstanding). However, the second limitation, how many of the people you tagged could you message again, used to be limited by the reach of the ad network you happened to be working with. As more display inventory finds its way to the exchanges, that second limitation is going away. Most meaningful players can see a wide swath of the same inventory and thus have access to more retargeting opportunities. The result is that more retargeting messages can be displayed and occupy a larger portion of the media mix.

Re-Targeting is For All Advertisers – NOT Just ETailers!

Retargeting has been looked on as primarily something that etailers do to convert the people who abandon online shopping carts, or pitch an offer on a product that was just viewed. Most of my fellow panelists really focused on this application of re-targeting. To be sure, retargeting is absolutely useful for this important marketing objective.

But, to confine retargeting to this role is like saying that that a broad-based technique like search marketing is useful only for retailers. It just isn’t so.

Retargeting is about taking a web browser that has already exhibited a degree of interest in your offering and messaging them again in order to nurture them along the marketing process. For a manufacturer that sells through the channel, this next step could be directing them to a channel partner, or even just staying in the consideration set. For a B2B client, retargeting could be about getting an interested person to take that next step and download a white paper. In both cases, retargeting is an important tool in the online marketer’s tool-kit for furthering engagement.

In fact, I’ve taken this idea a bit further in my post on online marketing Go-WEST, where I make the case that retargeting is one of the four essential pillars of any modern online marketing program.

Again, thanks to my fellow panelists and especially to Cory for a great experience!

We found it interesting and we thought you might too.

Read the whole article here.

I attended the IAB Leadership Conference in La Quinta, California (Palm Springs for those of you that don’t instantly recognize La Quinta) last week along with OwnerIQ executives Robert Daniel and Eric Mabley.

This was my second time at the IAB Leadership Conference and I continue to be impressed by the caliber of the turnout. According to the IAB this was their largest Leadership Conference yet with 700 people in attendance. And, from what I could see it included a wide swath of the executives in online advertising industry.

Some of the headlines coming out of the conference:

Google Thinks that Display is a $200 Billion Opportunity

In his keynote address to the conference on Sunday evening, Eric Schmidt, Chairman of Google, said that Google believed that online display advertising is going to be a $200 Billion global business.  Here is the video.

The next day in The Wall Street Journal, another Google executive was quoted as saying that he believed display was going to be a $100 Billion opportunity.

“Google Executive Sees Online Display Ad Market Reaching $100 Bln Over Next Few Years”

Ok, Google. Which is it?

Regardless, I agree that it’s big and getting bigger fast. We can see this in the increasing acceptance of advertisers and the amount of inventory that is flowing through exchanges and RTB platforms. In particular, Forrester released a report commissioned by Ad Meld that forecast $832 million in RTB inventory would be traded in 2011 with an additional $592 million forecast to flow through non-RTB exchange platforms such as Yahoo’s RightMedia. This is more than 100% growth from 2010.

We have been tracking this meteoric growth through the volume we see flowing through our ad platform, MostIQ

Another interesting phenomenon discussed among the participants at the IAB conference is the growth in “private exchanges” or publishers setting up a private real-time auction for their inventory. The publishers control access to who gets in to bid on the inventory and thus hope to secure higher rates for their inventory.

Although it does raise the bar for us in terms of more RTB integrations and access points, we’re in favor of this trend, as we believe that in time it will make more premium inventory available via exchanges and RTB and this will allow us to apply the full range of algorithmic decision-making to this inventory as well.

The Online Advertising Industry Takes Privacy Seriously

Also much discussed at the conference was the importance of privacy and, more accurately, taking an aggressive stance on protecting consumer privacy as a bulwark against potentially over-reaching and innovation-killing government regulation. The IAB Network and Exchange quality assurance guidelines were rolled out. You can see the video here.

Despite the difficulties of getting to La Quinta (a six hour flight stretched to 8 hours due to weather delays and headwinds and was then followed by a 3 hour drive from LAX to La Quinta), the conference again proved to be a good investment of time.

P.S. The drive on I-10 through the wind farm north of Palm Springs was rather impressive too.

The Wall Street Journal published another installment in their What They Know series on Monday, 7 March 2011. This article is about how companies are targeting video advertising using data compiled about consumer viewing habits from set-top boxes and linking that with off-line data based on the fact that the cable company has a billing relationship.

“TV’s Next Wave: Tuning In To You”

The part about this story that I find the most interesting is that it makes the concern about online behavioral targeting using cookie data look like a tempest in a teapot compared to the management of personal data in other realms, specifically by off-line marketers and, in this article, by the new technology of targeted video advertising. I’ve written before on how online cookie targeted behavioral targeting is one of the advertising regimes that most highly respects consumer privacy.

My argument is based on the fact that most cookie-based advertising is anonymous, there is notice on each website about what is happening and that that consumers can easily identify and delete cookies at any time. Consumers are in full control of the data on their web usage; if they don’t want advertisers to use this information, they have the absolute last word on the matter: just delete cookies. On top of that, as an industry, we provide easy opt-outs that make it easy tell us that you don’t want cookies placed.

Taking notice even further, the industry now has Advertising Choice that actually allows a user to tell when a particular ad is being behaviorally targeted, and the industry trade association, the IAB, has rolled out Network and Exchange quality assurance guidelines.

Ok, now compare and contrast that with the treatment of the information being used to target video advertising as described by the Wall Street Journal.

First up, by and large, advertising targeted with cookies cannot be readily connected with off-line data about you. It’s usually anonymous. In the case of cookie targeting, the advertiser knows that a computer with a particular identification number browsed a particular website. But, we usually don’t know the address of that person or their name. Cable television companies using your viewing data always know your name and address. Every program a consumer watches can be connected with the precise household doing the watching, and this fact can be linked into any online database through the last name and address.

Next, data on my viewing habits is being collected without my knowledge and without any reasonable way for me to directly control what data is being collected or used. There is no privacy policy linked to each show I watch. Most importantly, unlike cookies that I can delete at any time I choose with a few mouse clicks, there is no way for me to exercise direct control and delete data collected by the set-top box. Unlike online ad-targeting using cookies, there is no way I can control whether or not I participate in video targeting.

So, I have to rely on the opt-out provided by the cable company. Since I can’t control it directly, how do I opt out of my viewing data being collected? Unlike online advertisers using cookie data, which typically provide a link to an opt-out site that can be simply clicked to opt-out, opting out of video targeting of ads to your television requires actually calling a particular customer service number of your cable provider! I don’t know what your experience has been with cable call centers, but I suspect it isn’t radically different from mine. So, to opt-out you have to call in to a cable company customer service phone queue and wait. According to the Wall Street Journal article, Charter Communications doesn’t even provide that level of customer service; you can’t opt out.

What’s the bottom line? Despite all the rhetoric surrounding online behavioral targeting and privacy, the consumer privacy controls are not only good, but better than consumers have in most other realms. If you want to see a true privacy problem, look no further than the handling of consumer off-line data or, now, data collected by cable companies for one-to-one video targeting. Not anonymous. No notice. No control. Unreasonable opt out. Now that’s what I call a privacy problem.