The case against personalized advertising

On a plane ride this past weekend I read Bob Hoffman’s Advertising for Skeptics, which is worth your time. Bob’s books are nice and short, which I appreciate because almost all business books could easily be one fifth as long.

He has a lot of interesting things to say about advertising, but I’m going to focus on one point that he makes, which is the idea that personalized, targeted advertising defeats the purpose of advertising.

The case for targeted advertising is that you find the right person at the right time. Why advertise cat food to someone who doesn’t have a cat?

You can see this same general approach in campaigns to get targeted leads. The campaign is trying to find out if you’re the right kind of prospect who has the budget and the authority to buy and you’re ready to buy within the next six months? If not, I have no interest in you.

That is one legitimate side to advertising, and Bob admits that targeted advertising may be appropriate for B2B marketing.

But general advertising relies on common knowledge. If I’m viewing an advertisement, it’s not enough that I see the ad and get the message. For the ad to be effective, I need to know that you see the ad and get the same message.

For example, when I was a kid Gillette had a campaign that the wet head is dead. You don’t have to use oils or creams to control your hair. You can use “the dry look.”

Part of the point of this message is to make you feel out of touch if you are using oils or creams. The wet head is dead. Get with it.

If I was the only person seeing this ad, I might agree or disagree. But if I know that everybody in my high school is seeing this ad, that might affect my behavior.

Not mine, because I’m an ornery cuss and I don’t care too much about those sorts of things. I’ll continue to wear cargo shorts – which are the greatest thing ever – no matter what the fashion moguls say.

But that’s just me. Most people are a little more sensitive to what other people think about a product.

The point of advertising is to link a brand to an image. If you smoke these cigarettes or ride this motorcycle, you’re a tough guy. But if all the sudden smoking those cigarettes associates you with some undesirable image, that’s no good.

It all depends on what everybody else is seeing. And that’s why personalized advertising isn’t always a good idea. Advertising is more effective when I know that everybody else is seeing what I’m seeing.

Sources
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https://www.amazon.com/Advertising-Skeptics-Bob-Hoffman/dp/0999230735