3 WELCOME
CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA, WE HARDLY KNEW YE
Welcome to our special on audience analytics and targeted advertising. Our goal this month is to give a good cross section of the technology and techniques available to digital content producers to learn about their audiences and serve them advertising.
We had planned to feature Cambridge Analytica too. At the beginning of the year, we were told about Cambridge Analytica’s SelecTV service, launched at the Advertising Week show last September by the company’s brand-focused division, CA Commercial. According to a press release, the SelecTV service offered “100% target audience density through the one-to-one precision of addressable TV advertising. Using a well-established industry benchmark, CA estimates the value of complete target audience density to be an average 63% lift in incremental sales over and above age and gender targeting”. This was just before deluge of scandals that has caused Cambridge Analytica to shut down, but we long knew the company had been involved in data analysis and audience targeting in political campaigns around the world – and we, frankly, had some judgement about that. And the fact that Cambridge Analytica was co-founded by former Trump strategist and celebrity white supremacist Steve Bannon also gave us the shudders. So we held off making the call. But then, SelecTV seemed like such a good product. The technology would be something of interest to our readers. And this was to be the targeted advertising issue, after all. Technology is morally neutral, right? Guns don’t kill people, people kill people. When we finally did make the call, the Cambridge Analytica scandal had exploded, and the company was decidely not taking calls. There’s a tendency to want to think of Cambridge Analytica as an outlier. And Facebook’s recent troubles, too, are sometimes chalked up to a momentary lapse in judgement. But is there something in our powerful technologies that requires deeper consideration, and a better way of thinking, of acting, and engaging with the public? Is there something in the current system of data mining and targeted messaging that is inherently problematic? This issue hopes to raise some of the big questions, but it’s together as an industry that we’ll come up with the answers.
EDITORIAL EDITOR Neal Romanek +44 (0) 1223 492246 nealromanek@bright-publishing.com CONTRIBUTORS Ann-Marie Corvin Phil Rhodes Adrian Pennington
SENIOR SUB EDITOR Lisa Clatworthy SUB EDITORS Jo Ruddock Siobhan Godwood Felicity Evans
ADVERTISING SALES DIRECTOR Matt Snow +44 (0) 1223 499453 mattsnow@bright-publishing.com SALES MANAGER Krishan Parmar +44 (0) 1223 499462 krishanparmar@bright-publishing.com Andy Jennings DESIGN MANAGER Alan Gray DESIGNERS Flo Thomas, Man-Wai Wong, Mark George PUBLISHING MANAGING DIRECTORS Andy Brogden & Matt Pluck DESIGN DESIGN DIRECTOR
NEAL ROMANEK, EDITOR
nealromanek@bright-publishing.com @rabbitandcrow @nromanek
Need to update or cancel your FEED subscription? Email us at feedsubs@bright-publishing.com BRIGHT PUBLISHING LTD, BRIGHT HOUSE, 82 HIGH STREET, SAWSTON, CAMBRIDGESHIRE CB22 3HJ UK
TO SUBSCRIBE TO FEED GO TO PAGE 62
Powered by FlippingBook