John Battelle wrote a book a while back called The Search which is basically about Google. In this book he discusses, among many other topics, the mountain of information being gathered by search engine companies and gives a few scenarios of how this might affect adverising and marketing. One particular scenario is something I think is not too far away from being a reality.
He uses a couple gathering information about the expected birth of their first child, how the husband is badgered into taking a part and learning about child-birth, parenting and such, so he begins searching — searching for articles, searching Amazon for books, etc. Battelle’s point is the merging of intent-based and content-based advertising. The husband then gets with his wife to use the TV search capabilities to find the programs related to child-care and parenting.
He goes on with the scenario describing the behind-the scenes computer gyrations that trigger connected sites to form the “intent” and begin the auctioning for advertising — all this taking seconds, from TiVo to Amazon to BabyWorld.com to whatever other connection he’s made.
When they start the child-care programing, in the corner of the screen is a message that three advertisers have information packages. The agreement with the cable program services is that he will access the ads every so often in order to get an incredibly low cost for the program services. He really doesn’t mind this because he’s found the ads very useful and pertinent to his needs.
The auctioning process behind the scenes was preset by advertisers with a maximum bid they will go, or they set to always bid the highest for top placement. The bids are in and three advertisers have won the top spots.
When the husband clicks on the ads, he not only gets a textual ad saying “We’re the greatest”, he gets links to information sites, discount offers, a whole package of useful content.
Now, plug in a home searcher and real estate and we get a glimpse of what the future might hold. I won’t even go into the predictions of barcoding technology, but imagine scanning your smartphone over a barcode on a for sale sign and uploading every piece of information you’d need about the house and surrounding area.
Geno Petro says:
Mike,
This is facinating. And once what you outline becomes reality then, totally interactive, i.e., 2-way, life as we know it now will definitely be just an old, outdated dimension our grand kids will be asking us about.
March 16, 2008 — 4:15 pm
Mike Farmer says:
They will be amazed at Wal-mart shopping and that people actually rode around from neighborhood to neighborhood looking for homes. “You actually went out and looked to see what was on the market?”
March 16, 2008 — 5:42 pm
Milan Cole says:
The incredible allure of technology is so insidiously seductive, that it works it’s way into every facet of our lives. The Internet is still in the process of merging with competing media, and I’m sure they will interact more and more.
March 16, 2008 — 10:00 pm
Mike Farmer says:
Yes, Milan, the big question is will it be useful or dangerously intrusive. When you think about the trust we all have in one single company – Google – to not misuse all the information they’ve indexed, it can be a little scary. The only thing we have going in our favor is that if they ever violate that trust in a big way, they’re finished.
March 17, 2008 — 4:55 am