Lets hope, then, that it will always be opt-in.
4 Likes
Our Mazda6 already does this. It scans for roadside speed signs and warns of changes in the speed limit.
Unfortunately, the mapping software also warns of speed signs, but is often pops up warnings from parallel or close by streets. Imagine travelling along the highway at 100kph only to have a 40kph children crossing sign warning pop up on the infotainment/map screen.
3 Likes
Generally I hate ads. I rarely watch commercial TV, and tend to do other things while SBS runs their ads.
On the computer I run ad blockers.and often abandon sites that demand you turn ad blockers off if you wish to proceed. I am willing to contribute to sites I consider usefull, such as Wikipedia, to keep them ad free.
If I want information about products and services, I will go and look for what I want. I do not want to be bombarded by what sites think I may be interested in.
I have noticed that since I spend a lot of time on the forum researching things people write about, the range of unavoidable ads has broadened based on recent searches/views. Must be driving the social media demographic software nuts trying to work out my interests, gender, age, etc.
For me sellers would achieve far more if they made their inventory available on-line with factual information about the product/service and clear pricing. I could then work out what is most suitable for what I want, and hopefully then be buy it either on-line or in person.
6 Likes
I agree and it is the same here. You search something which is unfamiliar or check validity of posts and family members will ask why there are a lot of ads popping up on XYZ.
I hope it breaks the algorithms.
3 Likes
They are too robust and so will resist these small aberrations, in fact they are designed to cope with it.
3 Likes
As to the topic, no I donāt have an issue with Ads for content perse. I use a mix of services, social, streaming, websites, apps, some paid this way some paid to be principally ad free.
Some side notes though more broadly as the discussion seems to be; I must also have that weird personal trait that allows me to be oblivious to most advertising, targeted included. The ones I do notice particularly targeted just amuse me. So they can track & see what weāve been researching but not notice that I did indeed buy the item of my choice & online for that matter; but no worries keep advertising Fridges to me, I might want another in 10 years or soā¦
Additionally, until their targeted advertising tracking & algorithms can predict what we want BEFORE we want it, they are barking up the wrong tree with me. I will avoid unsolicited suggestions just on principal & continue with my own research, thank you very much. For the full page & blocker āinteractiveā style marketing it just gets my goat - yes stick a full page blocker in my face while Iām trying to read the news or academic topic or even work research errm bye bye wonāt be returning to that website if I can possibly help it.
FB yes well - I just plain donāt trust virtually all advertising on the platform. Some āadvertisingā on the platform is just of scam/criminal origin plain & simple.
2 Likes
As some others have mentioned, I also tend to not notice advertising. Apart from some targeted ads for good/services I am interested in. Can be especially useful when looking for birthday presents! Unless I have already purchased the product/service, in which case it is annoying. Recently I have noticed āChoiceā ads appearing in one of the (free) apps I use which I feel is a waste of Choiceās advertising budget given I already subscribe!
I think itās reasonable to be shown ads as part of āfreeā services. I tend to mostly accept the ads as a trade off for freely using sites and apps. There are a couple of sites/apps I pay to use, but that is a result of having used the free version, liking it and then wanting to support the company/developer to stay in business and continue providing good content. I have never paid simply to have the ads removed.
2 Likes
I donāt have a problem with advertising, and can quite easily tune out from the adverts whether on TV, Radio or online. If something is relatable to me my brain will usually trigger in on it, but it has to have a word or an image that will grab my attention. What I donāt like is retargetting, especially if it is not capped. I visited an online store approx 3 weeks ago and have been retargetted daily for the last 3 weeks about 10 times a day. As a consumer I will now never buy from that site, and from a business point of view what a waste of money to keep retargetting the same person over and over.
2 Likes
While I agree that these companies make money from advertising. I understand that itās not the viewer being ripped off itās the advertisers who are paying for information in order to sell their product. I used to work in Newspaper advertising and a lot of training came attached to that job. It was good training and effective but only if the advertisers were sold the right kind of advertising. Digital access to information has now allowed advertisers to advertise in the right demographic via social media. But what I think the old style media have failed to grasp is that clicks alone do not generate income, but sales do. Unfortunately the click bait advertisers who pay per click are being ripped off because they do not understand that click bait is aimed at taking money from them. As a consumer I am happy to click for more information on products Iām interested in. In fact we play a game in our house if something breaks we laugh and speak loudly so that google or Siri if they are listening can hear, to see how soon an ad for that product appears in our feeds, sometimes it does and sometimes it doesnāt. Scarier though is the walk through of stores where wifi is present and often free, because monitoring of customers lingering in any section is possible thanks to gps, and the consumer is then targeted via their apps (where GPS is switched on. Think Google maps) closely followed by ads pertaining to products one has lingered by! It is possible that facial recognition could have the cashier greeting you by name in the future and chatting about the huge fish you caught yesterday that you posted on a social site. This is more likely than not to happen in the near future. A firm I was working for in the retail sector was exploring a customer relations data base and how it could be developed for their specific needs. It was in the early stages of development and the realisation dawned on the start up software guys that what business owners want is not just data but a way of standing out to customers to make their experience more personal and special.
So accumulating data from and about customers and using it for commercial purposes (often without their knowledge) is OK because customers want that personal and special feeling?
Yep a real personalised service. It could also work the other way, getting to know customers from their purchases and tailoring their experience to that.
āOh Mr Jones how nice to see you, and how are your haemorrhoids going today? At least you are better off than Mr Smith, his genital warts have been giving him curry lately.ā
1 Like
We stayed at a Fijian island resort whereby every guest had their photo and a brief bio posted for the staff. There was a max of ~14 couples at the time, minimum stay 5 nights which made it more workable than many guests coming and going every day, and workers addressed every guest by name and knew a bit about them. It was a mixture of wow (good) and wow (artificial).
I can imagine the local would deliver a wow (good) but the big box chain store more likely to be wow (artificial) and a turn-off to many.
Thatās the discussion isnāt it?
Itās already started, if you can dream it you can do it and todayās technology allows for just that. We can either go with the benefits and suffer the drawbacks or we can rebel. Cannot see the conservatives rebelling in Oz. People nearly lost it when Google and Facebook didnāt want to play with the newspaper and TV Guys and threatened to pull back the news articles. How long did that last?
Advertising is a complex issue. When your fridge breaks down what do you do first?
Choice? Product Review? electrical retailers website? Harvey Norman Fridge catalogue in the bin or on the countertop? Humans are sponges for information, and the more they have the better they feel about buying stuff because knowledge is power. After all not many Choice readers are going to buy the Smeg fridge are they? We will sit back and be smug when we see those decor blogs and articles with the groovy retro fridge and nod quietly and say Ah but I know itās all show and no substance. So advertising and exposure may get the sale but it might be difficult to retain the customer if the quality is not there.
Choice is pretty good at qualifying the buyer and is why I subscribe.
1 Like
I donāt know. You have jumped from the personal service angle to other matters and bypassed saying what you think of it.
Ah you want to know if I think itās ok.
I donāt know. Sometimes it is and sometimes it isnāt.
Itās like the allow all cookies prompt when you visit a web page. If you donāt the web page may not work, if you do then you are giving the website personal information.
Now comes the question of trust. Do I trust the website to not sell my info? Do I want the information the website offers? Translate that to. Do I want to go shopping in the mall where I know their system will lock onto my mobile phone and gather information on which stores I visit and for how long? The algorithms can predict what will happen and pinpoint I have failed to visit Dorothyās Donuts this week after visiting for the last three weeks. Then it can send me a notification the donut shop has a special two for one offer if I pass by the store. I can ignore it or take up the offer. Those are the intended actions with good intention. But what happens when bad intentions creep in. This is an impossible choice to predict much like the AI for driverless cars. Do I hit the drunk 3 pedestrians that stepped out onto the road or do I deviate and maybe kill the pregnant woman. 3 lives v 1 and a potential 2 lives. Which is the most deserving to live? Itās an impossible answer and I canāt tell you itās ok or itās not ok.
