Hello and welcome to another episode of Olive Tree. I’m your host Ali. Let me tell you a bit about myself. In 2012, I went to Heidelberg, Germany to do a master degree in American Studies. You might ask what in the world in American Studies??! Well, that’s a topic for another day. For today, I want to describe a political junkie. Namely, myself. When I wake up in the morning, I spend about three to four hours on YouTube catching up with the news of the day before. A political junkie, is a person who draws pleasure from politics. I was originally a student of English literature. Somewhere along the way, I discovered a weekly podcast hosted by the New Yorker’s executive editor Dorothy Wickenden. I’ve been listening to that podcast for over ten years. And I think the seeds of my interest in politics were sown there or maybe it was that I discovered my interest in politics through this podcasts. So I’m passionate about international relations and politics and many other topics related to politics. I could talk politics for hours, you know with burning passion.
So on this episode, I’m gonna be talking about media, social media and micro-targeting. It’s election season in the US and millions of dollars are being spent on ads. And a lot of campaign dollars nowadays go to online advertisements. And that’s where social media and micro-targeting come in. Adverting is a very important aspect of the political life and even our everyday life.
Micro-targeting takes us to the realm of media and privacy. If you are not paying for something, you are the product. That’s what communication experts say about social-media. If you are not paying for something, you are the product. You may have never heard of micro-targeting, but believe me, if you have an email account, if you use facebook or instagram, you have been exposed to micro-targeting.
So let’s dig a little bit deeper. To understand micro-targeting, you should first know a little bit about targeted advertising. The name is pretty self-explanatory. But let me give you an example to help you better understand what targeted advertising is.
Picture yourself as the head of marketing for a company that produces and sells beauty products, you know, soap, shampoo, and so on. Your job is to introduce and sell the company products. And let’s say that you decide to advertise on TV. So you call the TV station’s ad department and right off the bat, they ask you a couple of question; perhaps the first one will be on your targeted audience. To whom do you want to sell your products? If they are smart, they might even make some suggestions. For example, they might have a romantic comedy show and explain to you that the majority of the show's audience are women. And since beauty products are bought and used mostly by women, it is a wise choice to advertise during that show. That’s targeted advertising in a nutshell. This way, you will get the best bang for you buck. In other words, you will get the best value on your investment.
Naturally, advertising on TV is way more complicated than what I described. TV stations carefully track and record the number of their audiences and run surveys to find out how the audience react to each program. The ad rates are determined by many different factors. One of the most important factors is the number of audience, also called rating. The ads that run during prime-time programs are usually the most expensive. Prime-time is when the most number of people are watching TV. It’s usually between 8-11 at night when people get home from work and park themselves in front of their TV to relax.
It might be interesting for you to know that the most expensive ads in the US are run during the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl is watched by at least 100 million people. That’s about a third of the US population. A 30-second ad during the Super Bowl might cost some 50 million dollars.
In 2020, the golden age of television is long over. Traditional media now have very serious competitors. For example, many people now watch their shows and movies on streaming services like Netflix or Amazon Prime. Younger people, especially, are watching less and less of TV. I’m a millennial and I don’t even have a TV in my apartment. I watch all of the shows I like on my laptop.
Hence, advertisers have been looking for alternative ways to get the best bang for their buck. And the answer is obviously the Internet. The Internet provides the opportunity to target the audience in ways that is unthinkable when we talk about TV or radio. And that’s essentially the definition of micro-targeting. It’s targeting of individuals based on their personality and interests. Targeted advertisements aims at certain groups. Most people are comfortable with targeted advertisement. When it comes to micro-targeting, many people are uncomfortable and find the concept disturbing as it targets individuals.
The first time I learned about micro-targeting was when I was doing research for my master thesis. I was studying the impact of Social media on the 2008 Presidential election.
Micro-targeting actually predates the age of Internet. Political campaigns learned to use it way before people even had a computer in their homes. In the 1960s, credit cards became popular and some banks would sell the data they collected from customers to people who were running for election.
One of the tricks of marketing is familiarity. Salespeople often use this trick. They try to learn your name and repeat it several time to make you feel familiar and comfortable. Now, imagine if the salesman not only knows the name and address of his potential customer, but also has a record of their previous purchases.
Now, picture Yourself as an undecided voter. your bank has given your credit card history to a guy running for Senate or mayor. The credit card records would tell that campaign what newspaper or magazine you read and how much money you spend on eating out. This way, they could have a good idea of what issues would be important to you. And thus, the campaign could have somebody call you with a specific issue. Or they could send you a letter. It’s not a Long-ass letter about all the issues the guy is running on. No. It’s about the issue that is most important to you and likely to impact your life. And since they have studied some of your behaviour with what data your bank collected, the letter or the phone call you receive is gonna be more effective.
That’s a primitive way of using data to target an individual. A person’s credit card history contains a lot of information about his behaviour.
Of course, the real irony is when you realise that today these advertisers don’t really have to go and buy the information like political campaigns did back in the day. We are giving them our information. I have a Gmail account and I’ve been using it for over 10 years. Every time I search something on my laptop or phone, I’m telling Google something about the way I behave. In a sense, I’m paying, and have been paying Google for over 10 years with my personal data.
Google, Facebook and other similar platforms, collect my data and your data and that of many other million individuals and turn it into profit. There is a relatively new field of study called “data science.” And There are people with the job title of “data scientist.” Their job is write algorithms and programs that collect and analyse the data these tech giants feed on.
And believe it or not, they are very effective at their job. Let me give you an example. There’s a rumour, that Facebook has developed an AI algorithm that can predict when people are falling out of love. To put it more simply, facebook might know, even before you do, that your partner is drifting away from you!
If that picture is scary to you, hold your breath. It gets even darker. In 2013 Edward Snowden leaked a ton of secret documents that shocked the world. Snowden was a contractor for the United State's National Security Agency, NSA. The documents he released showed that the US government and its partners were collecting an enormous amount of data on their Citizens often with the help of phone companies. In a future episode, I shall talk more about Edward Snowden and the ramifications of his actions.
If you’re curious to know more about micro-targeting and how it impacts the world of politics, I have a movie recommendation for you: Brexit: The Uncivil War. As the title suggests, it’s about Brexit and how the leave campaign utilized some of the techniques I described to galvanise the referendum participants to vote for its side. I hope you enjoy the movie.
The topic of data collection and privacy is very important to us all. And there are many unanswered questions: Can we really avoid using these platform? What’s gonna happen to our data when we die? How can we protect ourselves from being manipulated by misinformation ? What do you think? Are you ok with micro-targeting?
If you wanna tell me what you think about micro-targeting and the movie I introduced, go to olivepodcast.substack.com and leave a comment. Don’t forget to enter your email, so you can get future episodes right in your inbox.
Don’t forget to show me some love: subscribe, leave a review and invite a friend. You can also become a member to get bonus episodes. You can follow the show on Facebook and instagram with the handle: @olivepodcast. This podcast is new and I welcome your help to keep it going. Thank you for listening. I’m your host Ali. Till the next one.
This episode’s theme music is by Sky-jelly: Sixes are Silent
Living in the Age of Micro-targeting