February 21, 2019

More Elephant Advertising


There is a cute little research trick that semi-clever operators use to con gullible rubes. I will give you a small, silly example of it which I hope will make it more understandable on a large, global scale. It goes like this.

Let's say you want to open a strip club in a residential neighborhood. Obviously, no one in the community in their right mind wants a strip club in their neighborhood. But as the potential owner of the strip club you have to make a case to the city council to try to get your permit.

You do a survey in your community. What you don't ask is a clear, direct question, "Do you want a strip club in your community?" because you'll get a resounding no and a few solid blows to the golden globes.

Instead, you ask a question that sounds kinda like a suitable question: "Do you think the residents of Smallville would benefit from more recreational and entertainment opportunities?" This question has a lot of benefits.
  • Who is going to say no to the vague notion of "more recreational and entertainment opportunities?"
  • The so-called "recreational and entertainment opportunities" are not defined
  • The social ramifications (cost/benefit relationship) of the so-called "recreational and entertainment opportunities" are not described
Once the survey is completed you go to the city council and show them your pitch slides:
  • 88% of people in our community are in favor of "more recreational and entertainment opportunities." That's what we provide!
  • If approved, revenue from our company will contribute over $1 million annually to the tax base in the community.
  • We understand that not everyone will be in favor of our business, but enjoying our shows is entirely voluntary and no one is forced to patronize our establishment.
Even a city council isn't dumb enough to swallow this bullshit. Even a city council isn't dumb enough to not understand when they're being conned. That's how they're different from us.

I would submit to you that this is exactly the type of specious rationale that underpins the entire online ad industry. The con goes like this: the reason that tracking and spyware are necessary is that consumers want "more relevant advertising." This claim is put forth virtually every time the spy masters are asked to justify their practices.

To quote a semi-clever operator named Zuckerberg, “People consistently tell us that if they’re going to see ads, they want them to be relevant.

Yeah, right. People are out in the streets marching for more relevant advertising.

A recent New York Times piece by a communications professor and a law professor exposed this bullshit for what it is. They reported on two large studies they did. Here are some of the results...
"Sixty-one percent of respondents said no, they did not want tailored ads for products and services, 56 percent said no to tailored news, 86 percent said no to tailored political ads, and 46 percent said no to tailored discounts. But when we added in the results of the second set of questions about tracking people (emphasis mine - BH) on that firm’s website, other websites and offline, the percentage that in the end decided they didn’t want tailoring ranged from 89 percent to 93 percent with political ads, 68 percent to 84 percent for commercial ads, 53 percent to 77 percent for discounts, and 64 percent to 83 percent for news."
By posing questions in manipulative ways that don't actually describe the issues in question, it is possible to use research to distort the truth. If you ask someone "do you prefer ads that are relevant?" of course they're going to say yes. Just like if you ask if they want more entertainment opportunities.

But if you're asking the appropriate question -- "Are you willing to trade private, personal information about yourself and your family, and have your movements tracked and catalogued both online and offline, and have your emails and texts read and archived, and have files about you sold to anyone who wants to buy them, in order to get more relevant advertising?"-- I don't think you need to be a Harvard-billionaire-semi-clever-operator to know that you better be wearing a cup.

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