In the old days, there was broad demographic targeting such as "daytime TV viewers are likely of demographic X, hence, marketing to them is offered at this fee and for these time slots".
This is different. This is about showing your household different personalized ads than my household, based on data that they don't tell us how they've collected somehow.
Essentially, TV has been watching you (albeit probably via third-party collaborating companies), and you're now being personally identified and marketed to.
Have fun explaining to your spouse why your household's TV is showing more dating site ads than that of their friends.
> Have fun explaining to your spouse why your household's TV is showing more dating site ads than that of their friends.
The targeting is sometimes only _so_ good. While it works in aggregate well, sometimes there are laughable targetings, and it also depends on what audiences the advertiser wants to hit.
I get some pretty strange targeted ads through Facebook that don't seem at all relevant, and the "Why Am I Seeing This Ad" dropdown has very nebulous explanations ("Targeting Men between 25-35 in San Francisco"). I would imagine this problem to be similar with targeted ads on Live TV unless they keep the ads pretty generic or have vastly better targeting than FB or Google.
For some reason recently I've been seeing a lot of datings ads on YouTube. Not that I've been searching for anything like that. First it was Christian dating services (I'm not Christian), but clearly that didn't spark my interest so now they've starting showing me ads for Muslim dating services (I'm also not Muslim). I'm excited to see what's next :-)
I'm not completely tied anymore in but I've done work in this in a past life, circa 2009 there was ad targeting capabilities in modern US cable systems. One interesting thing to note is that the FCC does regulate data collection policies - unlike the web. In particular sharing PII (
Personally identifiable information) is verboten which limits the ability start tying your facebook searches into targeted TV ads.
For the most part you can get a pretty good ad profile based on geographic data (median household income) and viewing habits (kids, sports, soaps). Its very broad based targeting however.
This is different. This is about showing your household different personalized ads than my household, based on data that they don't tell us how they've collected somehow.
Essentially, TV has been watching you (albeit probably via third-party collaborating companies), and you're now being personally identified and marketed to.
Have fun explaining to your spouse why your household's TV is showing more dating site ads than that of their friends.