Woolley Marketing: Why we must remember our target audience are humans too

The world is now awash with billions of data sets on everything we do on the internet. From what we watch on our smart television to the music we listen to, every action and conversation on our smart telephone, and more, our every move and action can be tracked and stored. Yet, as an industry, we appear to be totally incapable of delivering timely, relevant, and engaging messaging (i.e. advertising) that sells.

While some will point to the increasing number of privacy laws that limit the intrusion into our lives, and others will point to the rise of technology that provides us with options as to what we share, collect, and have served up to us, I believe the failure of the promise of personalisation of advertising is because we have overlooked a fundamental fact: the people we are ‘targeting’ are just that—people.

Three human behaviours make it extremely difficult to know what someone wants when they want it and how they want it on an individualised basis. They are vanity, complexity, and our decision-making process. Before you say AI will fix that, let’s look at how these three are already negatively impacting personalised marketing.

My wife has a friend from her school days in China whom she is friends with on WeChat but has not seen for many years. A few months back, her friend posted a photograph of her husband with a woman my wife did not recognise. The woman’s flawless pale skin, small cherry-red mouth, large almond eyes, and small nose made her think her friend’s husband had met a celebrity somewhere. She commented, asking who the woman was in the photograph with her husband. Her friend was indignant, as it was her friend, after an over-application of the Beauty Cam filter.

Our vanity wants to display a curated version of our reality to the world. But the adage “if something is too good to be true” has never been truer than it is today. But it is not just in our presentation of our existence, it is also in the things we desire, the places we go, the items we search for, the people we follow and more. The Instagram moment is not just for influencers, it influences every person on the platform as they curate the best version of their life. Basing your targeting on how they want you to think about them will lead to disappointment.

Next is the complexity of our lives. Now, if you look at my search history, you will get a very conflicted view of my life. With children, a business, family and friends, I will find myself searching to see if Aston Martin makes an EV (not yet), which streaming service offers the best selection of anime (there is), and where I can source a plush toy of a character from Poppy Playtime (you can) and more. These are not my interests but arise in my complicated life, as they do for most of us.

It is no wonder the former UM privacy chief, now director of Intelligence at Check My Ads, Arielle Garcia, says the global digital ad industry is founded on trading “useless, garbage data” after she accessed her own data profile from various ad tech vendors. Complexity without context and some level of nuanced understanding is junk.

Illustration: Dennis Flad 

And finally, for those out there shouting, “What about remarketing?”, AKA retargeting, as if this is a panacea to the problem. It isn’t. Yes, I saw your ad on a social media platform. Yes, I clicked on the ad. The offer was too good to be true (see illustration above), so I searched the product name and reviews. You got less than two stars, so I rejected you. But do you think following me around the internet and serving me ads often at a lower price offer will make me buy you? Junk is junk at any price. (Again, see above)

In a recent conversation, a colleague shared how they bought a pair of shoes online. They saw an ad for the shoes and clicked on it. Then, I searched for the shoes and found three places with lower prices for the same shoes and no delivery fees. So, they purchased them elsewhere. Only to have the original seller remarket to them for the next 24 hours. We joked that if this were in real life, it would be like a shoe salesperson chasing you down the street and trying to sell you the shoes you bought at the store next door and are wearing.

So, no matter how compelling the number crunchers and the data geeks present their data, it is essential to remember that each one of those data points was generated by someone very much like you and me.

Woolley Marketing is a monthly column for Campaign Asia-Pacific, penned by Darren Woolley, the founder and global CEO of Trinity P3. The illustration accompanying this piece is by Dennis Flad, a Zurich-based marketing and advertising veteran.