Middle School Marketing Recap: Interest-Based Advertising

Another month, another successful MSM meeting...Josh kicked off yesterday's meeting with a comment about Google's recent announcement about launching interest-based advertising on partner sites and YouTube. This means that ads being served will be based on a user's browsing history. Josh asked the group: Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

After much discussion, the group came to the conclusion that while behavioral targeting is a good thing for marketers, it may not always be the case for consumers. First, interest-based, or behavioral targeted advertising, could be viewed as invasive and a potential violation of privacy. Second, it’s critical that behaviorally targeted ads be used provide value to consumers.  Lastly, social media provides a great setting for discussion and feedback, but more often than not companies fail to monitor and engage in conversations with customers.  Interest-based advertising provides marketers an opportunity to serve up ads that are relevant and provide value, but it’s critical they don’t violate the trust consumers have placed in their hands.     

For an in-depth look at our discussion, check out Daniel Li’s Live Blog from yesterday morning’s meeting. 

Thanks everyone for coming out and we’re looking forward to next month’s MSM!