Cablevision Inc. is testing a targeted advertising delivery system in New Jersey that will serve up TV ads based on the demographics of specific households. A house at 74 Oak Street, for instance, with higher income than at 72 Oak Street may see a different set of ads. Homes with children may get more sugar-coated cereal ads than homes without. It’s the holy grail of ad targeting. Should better targeted households outperform the norm in terms of trackable sales, and there’s no reason to believe they won’t, this practice will continue.
Consumer data collection has increased in ways that we can’t even imagine. The programs we watch on TV, the products we buy on credit cards, the websites we visit, and the music we download are all gathered. All this data creates a picture of us that makes predicting our purchasing proclivities easier and easier. This is some seriously big business.
This may be good for some consumers but not for me. You see, I am a student of all consumers. It’s my job. I like to see selling strategy and selling messages targeting all consumer segments. How will I be able to opt-out of this targeting? Guess I could start by not moving to Jersey. Peace!
