Today in Digital Marketing - All Your Brains Are Belong to Us

Starting point is 00:00:00 It is Thursday, April 18th. Today, companies are selling their users brainwave data to target them with ads, and lawmakers are now just catching wind of it. Also, what to expect from ads on threads, why AdTech AI is watching episodes of The Office and a long-time Google ad extension is going away. I'm Todd Mathen. That's ahead today in digital marketing. Yesterday, the American state of Colorado amended its privacy laws to make it harder for advertisers to use brain activity data for consumer targeting. It's believed to be the first

Starting point is 00:00:41 such legislation in the country to protect neural data. And if you think, well, I mean, that's not really a thing yet, you'd be wrong. The New York Times reported that brain data is indeed being collected and sold. Quoting Ars Technica, quote, For instance, in 2023, Meta demoed a wristband with a neural interface used to control its smart glasses and unveiled an AI system that could be used to decode the mind. In January, Elon Musk announced that Neuralink implanted its first brain chip in a human that can be used to control a device with their thoughts. And just last month, Apple Insider reported that, quote, Apple is working on technology that could turn the Apple

Starting point is 00:01:23 Vision Pro into a brainwave reader to improve mental health, assist with training and workouts, and help with mindfulness, unquote. Colorado's law doesn't ban the collection of this data, of course. It only requires companies to get the consent of users to sell or use their neural data for ad targeting. That consent, of course, will probably be buried in a long terms and conditions list that nobody will read. It also says the process to remove already collected neural data must be made easy. An ethics nonprofit named NeuroRights looked at the privacy policies and user agreements of 30 consumer neurotech companies.

Starting point is 00:02:02 Two-thirds were already sharing the neural data of their users with third parties. Only four companies said they do not sell the brain data. Ads are soon making their way to Meta's threads. Industry insiders quoted by Digiday today say ad placements on threads could begin as early as the second half of this year. The focus of the discussions has apparently been more about the timing of the rollout rather than specifics of how these ads will be integrated into the platform. But all things being equal, we can expect two main pushes. First, a sponsored influencer disclosure system. And second, traditional ad placements bookable through the ads manager.

Starting point is 00:02:45 And of those placements, of course, the in-feed slots will be there, but also expect placements in the trend sections and carousels, which look similar to the ones on Instagram. Quoting Digiday, If the rollout of ads on threads occurs as planned, it would mean that Meta is confident in achieving its ambitious goal of attracting 1 billion regular users to the app, a milestone it previously set as a prerequisite for introducing advertisements. As it stands, the platform is still quite a ways off from that number. When Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg provided an update on monthly users during the company's earnings call in February, he reported a figure of 130 million. To meet the 1 billion user target in a condensed time frame, Threads would need to expand at a rate eight times faster than its growth over the previous months.

Starting point is 00:03:35 Nevertheless, reaching this milestone was more about having a clear audience before introducing ads. That's because in order to achieve more revenue, Meta has needed to find ways to increase ad impression volume and open up surface area, the latter in this case being threads. Unquote. AI is all over our industry, making images, rewriting copy, even making hiring decisions. But one area we haven't seen a lot of AI in has been in the connected TV space. And that's about to change. Earlier this week, at an industry conference in Miami, executives from several companies talked about their work in using metadata from television shows to target consumers better. For instance, the tech could determine from the closed captioning that the show ended on a sad cliffhanger and would find ads in the auction that matched that emotional tone.

Starting point is 00:04:32 Quoting Adweek, For example, an episode of The Office could be a comedy or a romance, depending on the scene. Similarly, while Pillsbury might be happy to serve an ad during Shrek, it would probably want to avoid the scene where Lord Farquaad threatens the gingerbread man. By inferring the mood of a scene and serving a similarly toned ad, the technology ensures a higher level of relevance, a cornerstone of effective advertising. Unquote. This tech is being dropped into ad platforms as we speak. NBCUniversal's ad system already uses similar technology to measure genre, tone, and emotion. Google this week reminded advertisers it would soon remove ad customizers for text ads, expanded text ads, and Dynamic Search Ads at the end of next month. Add Customizers have been around for a decade. They could insert more context into your copy,

Starting point is 00:05:32 like how many hours left before a sale ends. To be clear, if you're still using Customizers, your ad itself won't stop running. Only the Customizers will. So if you're using those, your ads will fall back to their default text. Industry reaction on LinkedIn was mixed. One person said it was no biggie to them since they never really liked the results anyway. In the same thread, another advertiser said, quote, cool. So this is going to kill my top performing ad in one account that has been our best performer for years, despite testing other options, unquote. Again, the end date for these will be May 31st.

Starting point is 00:06:13 Just a day after TikTok launched its image-only app, TikTok Notes, in a couple of test countries, the company is emailing advertisers about a new single-image ad format soon to be available on their platform. This would complement the existing carousel image ad format it has. In the email, TikTok notes that some brands find it challenging to create videos for every ad, so this might be a good substitute. If you don't see single-image ads as an available format in your ads manager yet, you should expect to see it in the next week or so. Don't forget about our email newsletter. It is free. It comes out every day. It contains

Starting point is 00:06:50 everything you hear here in the podcast and a bunch more. Links to learn more about the stories we cover, videos, charts, illustrations. You can sign up for free by tapping the link at the top of the show notes or going to todayindigital.com slash newsletter. I'm Todd Maffin. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow. It's the season for new styles and you love to shop for jackets and boots. So when you do, always make sure you get cash back from Rakuten. And it's not just clothing and shoes. You can get cash back from over 750 stores on electronics, holiday travel, home decor, and more. It's super easy. And before you buy anything, always go to Rakuten first. Join free at rakuten.ca. Start shopping and get your

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Today in Digital Marketing - All Your Brains Are Belong to Us

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