Consumer Privacy And Advertisement Intrusiveness example essay topic

Intrusive Advertising and Privacy Concerns Instructor: Dr. John Dahlberg Issues in Advertising Shannon McCarthy The concept of consumer privacy encompasses a consumers ability to limit the collection and usage of certain types of data relating to a specific transaction (Sheehan & Gleason, 2001). Today marketers and advertisers have engaged in what I feel to be somewhat questionable behavior in regards to consumers privacy. As technology becomes more sophisticated marketing becomes is a bit more complicated and more intrusive to its customers. In our highly competitive world, it is vital for a successful marketer to conduct a significant amount of research. It used to be however, that advertisers would choose their target audience, research the demographic, and create a campaign that appealed to that target audience. Marketing efforts today are going to great lengths to obtain private information about consumers.

From an advertising standpoint it is important to know your customer and to target them accordingly, but how much should advertisers know? Do consumers have any right to privacy? The following will discuss intrusive tactics marketers are using to advertise and obtain consumer information as well as how advertisements themselves are invading our privacy. Television has traditionally been the most popular medium for advertising however with new satellite television products like Ti Vo; advertising to consumers has been increasingly difficult.

OpenTV Corp., a San Francisco-based technology company is one step ahead with trying to combat the affects of Ti Vo with interactive TV software. The software will be sold to cable companies such as Comcast and satellite companies such as Echo Star. This software will allow cable companies to conduct 'telescoped advertising,' which would allow them to target TV ads to individual households based on viewing and buying habits. Although "telescoped advertising" has created a buzz in advertising centers, privacy advocates has raised concerns. With Interactive TV applications companies could track viewing habits and possibly build elaborate consumer profiles. Companies would use their database systems, third party vendors, and public records to see who were past purchasers or owners of their product.

The company would then contract with cable and satellite companies to send their advertisement only to those households. The ad would include an interactive message on the screen that would ask if you to click for more information. The advertisement would then proceed in a longer more detailed version (Werner & Shanley, 2005). OpenTV Corp is only one company out of many that are obtaining personal information about us and using it to their advantage. Visible World is a New York firm that is also trying to find ways to make television advertising more appealing to consumers.

Not only are they looking to target households demographically and geographically they eventually have plans to target individual households. Despite concerns from privacy advocates, the company is already taking steps in that direction by forming a partnership with Experi on to obtain its rich consumer database. Their software will enable advertisers to customize messages on demand by altering video, audio and graphic components in response to weather changes, shifts in inventory or even days left in a retail sale (Pet recca, 2005). Television advertisers are not the only ones invading the privacy of consumers.

A company called Mobil Trak has technology that picks up more than 200,000 radio signal samples a day from 15 markets. Mobil Trak's technology has the ability to pick up radio signals within a 120- foot range allowing companies to see what stations consumers are listening to. Advertisers can find out what station is number one and advertise to more people (Abbey, 2005). This is going to cause one radio station to have an overload of advertising while leaving the others with no advertising. I don't see this necessarily as a good thing. Navigauge on the other hand is a market and media intelligence service that goes above and beyond what Mobil Trak can do.

Navigauge installs passive listening devices in its consenting panel members cars with global positioning technology. The rest is history. The company can measures a cars speed, volume of the stereo, if the customer is listening to a CD, satellites radio listening and exposure to outdoor advertising with the help of geo-coded Clear Channel and Viacom billboards. The company publishes a monthly consumer behavior index charting everything from what product categories retain listeners through commercials to whether Grammy-nominated songs had better listener retention (Abbey, 2005). Navi guage is clearly infringing on consumer's privacy rights.

Currently they require consumers permission to install passive listening devices, but whose to know they wont strike up a deal with car manufacturers and put these devices in future cars. While privacy has been a concern to consumers in the United States for several decades, the growth of the internet has generated more privacy issues and may be the biggest issue facing the internet. There are numerous opportunities for data to be collected online such as through records of purchases, completing surveys, signing guest books, entering contests or posting messages on message board. Consumers concerned about privacy need to be more aware of reading a websites privacy policy as well as steering clear of filling out any kind of random surveys (Sheehan & Gleason, 2001).

There is however some hope on the horizon. Some companies structure their advertising efforts around privacy. Claria, is a company that is the leader in behavioral marketing. It allows advertisers to target their ads to consumers on the internet. Claria's new Behavior Link advertising network model was designed with the help of privacy, public policy and consumer protection law experts. The Chief Privacy Officer of Claria expresses how important it is to create a product that consumers will embrace.

Their behavioral marketing product is designed not only to be good for advertisers and publishers but will also provide consumers with industry-leading value, privacy protections, and control over their online experience (Claria Assembles... , 2005). Along with lack of privacy, advertising intrusiveness is a common complaint and source of annoyance for consumers. Intrusiveness is the degree to which advertisements in a media vehicle interrupt the flow of an editorial unit.

Intrusiveness may be perceived when consumers see a pop-up ad when reading an email, see a commercial while watching TV, or view an ad alongside editorial content in a magazine (Hairong, Edwards, Lee, 2002). When an advertisement interferes with cognitive processing the perception of the ad may be intrusive. Consumers tend to form negative opinions about advertising tactics that demand attention. These negative attitudes can affect brand perceptions and attitudes and sometimes lead to ad avoidance (Hairong, Edwards, Lee, 2002). In 1996 scholars believed that advertisements in the new media would be less intrusive and more interactive. Unfortunately that is not the case.

With the increase of technology, exposures to ads is becoming more prevalent and are now forced on viewers at unexpected intervals or in non-traditional settings, especially on the internet. Internet advertisements are found to be very intrusive because of their ability to interrupt passive consumers who have a specific goal in mind. Consumers hold negative attitudes towards these ads or avoid them altogether. The timing of ads may be programmed and targeted to certain consumers. When consumers are not expecting to see an ad it may affect their perception of intrusiveness affecting the advertisements effectiveness.

(Hairong, Edwards, Lee, 2002). Besides the internet ads are becoming more intrusive at the movies. I remember not too long ago that you could to the movies, enjoy a few previews and watch the main feature. Today when you go the movies consumers are bombarded with in-lobby promotions, advertisements on your popcorn bucket, soda cup, ticket stub and a lengthy preview of advertisements before the normal movie previews. Cinema advertising's has grown bringing in 200 to 300 advertising dollars per year. The captive audience advertisers think they are getting, do not want to pay ten dollars to be advertised to.

Some movie theatres are giving consumers no choice by deceptively playing the ads at the advertised movie time, an effort to convert the movie going experience into an advertising bombardment experience (De Marco). Cell phones are soon to be another way for advertisers to intrude on our privacy. Cell phones have become increasingly popular over land line phones because of their convenient portability and privacy. Up until January 2005, telemarketing to cell phone users was rarely heard of. Now the privacy that cell phones once provide may cease to exist. Six national wireless companies including, All Tel, AT&T Wireless, Cingular, Nextel, Sprint PCS, and T-Mobile have banded together and hired Q sent, Inc. to produce a Wireless 411 service.

Collectively they will pool together their listings to create a comprehensive directory of cell phone numbers. Cell phone users are unhappy about the wireless 411 because they feel with having a cell phone you have the luxury of knowing that their cell phone number is available only to those to whom you provide them. Consumers feel it is an invasion of privacy and don't want other people being able to obtain their cell phone numbers without their consent or knowledge (Mikkel son, 2005). When the wireless 411 is created telemarketers will be able to call cell phone members and invade some more on their privacy.

The question is, where are marketers going to draw the line? Every little bit of privacy we have is slowly being taken away from us. Besides cell phones and traditional forms of media advertisers are turning to other unconventional intrusive ways of getting their message across. A new form of advertising called ambient advertising is an example of how more and more areas around us will be cluttered with advertising.

Ambient advertising is a fairly new concept to American advertisers that also seems to be intrusive to our everyday life as consumers. The advertising concept falls behind the idea that as consumers become immune to the bombardment of advertising images in traditional media; advertisers are on the lookout for new, more innovative avenues to get the message across. First developed in Europe, ambient advertising is directed at a media-savvy 16 to 24 market. One example of ambient advertising is to use scents to draw customers in to buy a product (Ambient advertising). The problem I have with this is, how are consumers supposed to know when we are being marketed to.

Consumers are already beginning to feel weary about whether or not they are being marketed to. This may backfire for advertisers, as consumers feel they are being deceived. Another example of ambient advertising is when a hotel pool had the product name Evian across the bottom liner. Although Evian has thought of clever way to advertise their purified water, consumers were forced to see advertising while they were enjoying a relaxing vacation (Ambient advertising). Can we really blame advertisers for our lack of privacy? They " re just doing their job aren't they?

I think it really boils down to ethics and what some companies are willing to do while others are not. Advertisers are doing a phenomenal job getting their messages displayed but at the same time they " re neglecting the feelings of the average consumer. Consumer privacy and advertisement intrusiveness are two themes consumers are concerned about. Consumers are beginning to dislike advertising and marketing efforts because they feel it's everywhere they go and tracking everything they do. As they say, too much of a good thing could kill. Advertisers need to be aware of the consumer's feelings because in the end it's the consumers they need to respect and impress.

Bibliography

Ambient Advertising. (2002).
WGS N. com. "Claria Assembles Team of Privacy Experts to help Develop New Behavior link Advertising Network Model" (2005, February 23).
LexisNexis De Marco Donna. (2003, January 21).
Commercials Steal Show at Movie Theaters. The Washington Times. Hairong, Li, Edwards, Steven, Lee Joo-Hyun. (2002) Measuring the intrusiveness of advertisements: Scale development and validation.