Smart Marketing: Effects of Databases

Smart Marketing: Effects of Databases and Algorithmic Advertising

, computer, and store advertisements are just a few ways the public is exposed to marketing on a regular basis. Buying in this way seems to be a full-time job: always the advertiser is turning the average person into an important consumer. The morality of the advertiser's intelligence in making the public think that they are "buying" into a happier life when a product is marketed in a positive way is often in question by researchers; but statistics show that the public is continually making purchases on the internet, where smart marketing strageties is high (Turow 2006). This information says that while advertisers may only be motivated by personal gain, marketers use information most people think is private to be successful. A database is the consumer history of a person or group, which allows algorithmic advertising to target others' buying preferences. With such personal information for their use, advertising agencies create "arousing" advertising strategies more effective at getting people to think, remember, and purchase their product or idea (Bradley 2007). In this way, smart marketing, with the addition of databases and the development of algorithmic advertising, has significantly altered the position of advertisers and advertising agencies.

ADVERTISING MANIPULATION:

The morality of advertising is often debated since the advertising agency's ability to provide the values that its consumers are looking for are important for its success. '"Commercebank went so far as to define its personality as "successful, reliable, dedicated, organized, classic, prudent and private, understanding, accessible and friendly'" (Kresbach 2007, no page number). B Johnson (2007) says that advertisers are just as effective as selling ideas, even when products do not sell: consumers buy into the idea of what they aspire to become. In fact, "[a]ttraction demands emotion, but emotion with purpose"

(Shanahan 2007, no page number; Roberts 2007, no page number). Since people buy into ideas and items that will help them meet their personal goals, it is important that advertisers show viewers their product, and company, in a very positive way. This is why there are so many advertisements of models, famous people, beautiful places, and large wealth. Advertisers know that to succeed they have to present an image of success; and what consumers find to be successful is the job of marketing research databases.

Trust also comes in algorithmic advertising. Many forms of media, for example the movie and television rental Netflix, already use "intelligent navigators that suggest program lineups" for clients

(Turow 2006, p. 21). It is likely that if a media viewer has a pleasant experience renting one video suggested by Netflix, they are more likely to continue trusting the recommendations and watching their programs.

It is a nice commodity to have databases and algorithmic advertising recommend products, like movies, that people might like from their buying history; but the positive aspect of it does have negative effects. "Coming out of a tough recession, people's need to justify a purchase [increased]"

(Rooney 2010, no page number); so too the range of items that can be marketed to a person they might enjoy can trap them into choosing the product based on fear. Research shows that "[a] customer may not feel comfortable giving up personal information [. . .] but many people do it [. . .] to make sure they get deals at least as good as those others [consumers] get" (Turow 2006, p. 32). One could say that advertisers use their databases and widespread algorithmic advertising to make consumers afraid that their current happiness will fade without buying into more aspirational product.

"When emotions gets tapped, the ensuing relationship between a company and that customer acts as a barrier to conquest by competitors because loyalty is a feeling" (Hill 2007, no page number).

In the moral argument, trapping the public into thinking they need to buy a product to be happy may be negative, but the addition of databases and algorithmic advertising also encourages individual interest.

Many philosophical questions are both negative and positive, and advertising too has both sides.

Advertisers can give the public information they would not have normally known; from a new Netflix movie, to a shopping deal at a nice store. It does seem clear that the development of algorithmic advertising and databases have given advertisers a huge advantage in marketing public interest.

Turow (2006) outlines that the "cultivation of relationships" is the matching of individual preferences, from "marketing and media firms"; yet often part of the consumer's history is because of "mass customization," which seeks "to draw individuals toward their products [. . .] [through] targeted tracking and interactivity" (p. 24). Like the Netflix example, the better the match an advertising agency can make between the individual consumer and other possible product desires, the more hold the advertisers have over that consumer in the future.

The question becomes who is creating the individual or niche aspirations? When trust builds from the advertisers' smart marketing strategies and the public, an individual will more likely fall into a large scale marketing niche (Turow 2006, p. 3). Once algorithmic advertising makes decisions based on databases, consumers can quickly become fearful of their assigned niche and start buying items with the express purpose of being seen differently by advertisers (Turow 2006, p. 2-3).

In this way, the addition of databases and algorithmic advertising controls not only what products are being sold, but also what consumers want to buy. What advertising once did for individual interest, becomes a mindless rush to buy items which makes the consumer appear more in line with his or her aspirations.

POLITICS in SMART ADVERTISING:

The problem with buying products based on what it will make you look like to others, rather than its personal value, is that "the choice of what one eats (or wears or drives) takes the place of significant political choice" (Russell 2000, no page number). Smart advertising agencies become political players with their shared agenda in the decisions of human beings. Advertising and politics have gone hand in hand for years, but with the development of databases and algorithmic advertising, the politics of advertising has become just as much of an issue as promoting political parties through advertisement.

A long way from a good Netflix recommendation, smart advertising changes traditional advertising from trying to get people to buy into an idea or product to choosing what people will want to buy. As stated by Russell (2000), "[w]e believe we live in a free country with [. . .] [many] choices to make us happy"; however "ads are tied to our conception of freedom: consumer choice and the producer's opportunity to benefit from entrepreneurial skill" (no page number). With this information, the positive effects of suggesting ideas/products to consumers based on databases and algorithmic advertising can be seen as a fake positive.

If trust is key to the success of advertisers and the happiness of consumers, maybe it is important to view advertising as a modern resource where "commerce meets art." (Guenette 2009, no page number). People who know they are being tracked in databases, which market their history back to them, might develop spending habits of a place of self-awareness, not of fear: advertisers and consumers could have a more open relationship if the work of the databases and algorithmic advertising is no longer kept secret.

CONSUMER-CENTERED ADVERTISING:

For a relationship to be beneficial, both parties need to admit their mutual dependence. There is research showing that advertising agencies are becoming more focused on the individual for positive reasons in order to provide products which are appealing (Williams 2009). In addition, it seems that advertising companies are now focusing on consumer desires, whereas earlier advertising strategies centered merely on product sales (Post 1997).

For trust to continue increasing as more information is open to the public about their information being sold to advertising companies, marketers would do well to keep making the public happy with relevant algorithmic advertising. Database history might dictate what kind of products a person thinks they should want, but algorithmic advertising is of absolute importance to that database even being a resource to advertising companies: without a buying public, databases and algorithmic advertising loose relevance.

Due to the smart marketing strategies to keep the public buying, advertisers continually develop strategies to make sure their niches stay marketable (Riche 1989, p.8). One of the ways advertisers do this is "[b]y measuring consumer response simultaneously with the marketing efforts designed to affect that response" (Riche 1989, p. 8). Again, with accurate future consumer purchases, advertising companies '"offer" a finely detailed, rapidly moving, highly responsive view of the marketplace"

(Riche 1989, p.8). When the databases and algorithmic advertising are used because advertisers value their customers, the process of marketing becomes quite tame: the public is viewed in a respectful, individual, way, rather than as a set of numbers.

To make certain that these advertising companies can continue to make correct algorithmic advertisements, "successful marketers must keep an eye on the future" (Johnson G. 1992, no page number). Depending on the way a person looks at calculating advertisers is often how the advertising affects the consumer. Yet there are many tools which help the marketer create better algorithmic advertisements for the consumer; through using the tool of '"under development [. . .] [n]egative screen data bases" will help the niche marketer better understand marketing effectiveness through capturing an entire universe of prospects with marketing history attached, not only the responders to promotion"

(Johnson G. 1992, no page number).

PHILOSOPHY and ADVERTISING

If the advertiser and the consumer begin to have a mutually positive relationship, could the marketing still have negative consequences? "At the heart of any communication is the creative philosophy or approach and thus, philosophies play an important role in the agency-client relationship"

(West no page number). Databases and algorithmic marketing now has ties not only in politics, but also in philosophy: the question of the meaning of life, a common topic in philosophy, has always been known to be an intelligent pursuit that could never be answered. Advertising agencies run similar to this philosophy in that successful advertisers keep the public interested, yet always wanting more

(product). Does advertising have an answer for centuries of philosophy questions?

The question remains whether or not new developments in marketing can actually affect a person's mood: whether or not the struggle to be happy makes a person feel as if they have accomplished work on an aspiration. Often there is a quick happiness people experience when they

buy something they enjoy, versus the slow patience that can sometimes be depressive when a person invests a lot of time into self-awareness and happiness. "People buy into authenticity, in the idea that it's getting them closer to" reaching their personal goals (Turow 2006, p. 13). Yet maybe this idea is just smart advertising in order to keep the consumer buying into marketing strategies; although questioning where human needs and desires come from, the valid case of those aspirations, seems to be directly philosophical. Since philosophy usually concerns itself with abstract topics, it would seem that modern advertising is changing the field as it was before. In any case, if databases and algorithmic advertising are becoming the new philosophy, then those new developments certainly do have a huge impact on the advertising world and beyond.

Politics and philosophy, human-centered fields, just like marketing and advertising, rely on the interest of humans to remain active. This is why it can be confusing and scary for many parents/guardians of young girls, when one turns the television on and sees the marketing of unhealthy female body images as an ideal girls should meet. Thankfully algorithmic advertisements listen to the needs of the people. "Dove's campaign for '"real women, with abundant cellulose and cutaneous imperfections" sky-rocketed company sales (Cashmore 2006, p. 2). The fact that the algorithmic advertisements will soon become part of the historic databases, in turn to become algorithmic advertisements again, means that this smart advertising does have a moral consciousness in the way of providing for customer satisfaction.