So Target started sending coupons for baby items to customers according to their pregnancy scores. Duhigg shares an anecdote — so good that it sounds made up — that conveys how eerily accurate the targeting is. An angry man went into a Target outside of Minneapolis, demanding to talk to a manager:

Target knows before it shows.

“My daughter got this in the mail!” he said. “She’s still in high school, and you’re sending her coupons for baby clothes and cribs? Are you trying to encourage her to get pregnant?”

The manager didn’t have any idea what the man was talking about. He looked at the mailer. Sure enough, it was addressed to the man’s daughter and contained advertisements for maternity clothing, nursery furniture and pictures of smiling infants. The manager apologized and then called a few days later to apologize again.

(Nice customer service, Target.)

On the phone, though, the father was somewhat abashed. “I had a talk with my daughter,” he said. “It turns out there’s been some activities in my house I haven’t been completely aware of. She’s due in August. I owe you an apology.”

Target’s Andrew Pole (from LinkedIn)

What Target discovered fairly quickly is that it creeped people out that the company knew about their pregnancies in advance.

“If we send someone a catalog and say, ‘Congratulations on your first child!’ and they’ve never told us they’re pregnant, that’s going to make some people uncomfortable,” Pole told me. “We are very conservative about compliance with all privacy laws. But even if you’re following the law, you can do things where people get queasy.”

Bold is mine. That’s a quote for our times.

So Target got sneakier about sending the coupons. The company can create personalized booklets; instead of sending people with high pregnancy scores books o’ coupons solely for diapers, rattles, strollers, and the “Go the F*** to Bed” book, they more subtly spread them about:

“Then we started mixing in all these ads for things we knew pregnant women would never buy, so the baby ads looked random. We’d put an ad for a lawn mower next to diapers. We’d put a coupon for wineglasses next to infant clothes. That way, it looked like all the products were chosen by chance.

“And we found out that as long as a pregnant woman thinks she hasn’t been spied on, she’ll use the coupons. She just assumes that everyone else on her block got the same mailer for diapers and cribs. As long as we don’t spook her, it works.”

via How Companies Learn Your Secrets – NYTimes.com.

So the Target philosophy towards expecting parents is similar to the first date philosophy? Even if you’ve fully stalked the person on Facebook and Google beforehand, pretend like you know less than you do so as not to creep the person out.

More at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/

Tweets sent by Rio Ferdinand and Katie Price promoting Snickers are to be formally investigated by the Advertising Standards Authority.

Following complaints, the ASA will look into whether the tweets were in breach of advertising rules by failing to adequately inform the public they were part of a marketing campaign.

Ferdinand and Price, along with Ian Botham, Amir Khan and X Factor’s Cher Lloyd have all been paid to promote the chocolate bar.

When Sky News contacted Snickers earlier this week, a spokesperson said a series of “teaser tweets” had been sent out to “comply with social media regulations” to “ensure Twitter users knew they were enjoying promotional tweets”.

But the ASA will investigate whether it was clear the celebrity was getting paid to advertise the product.

Katie Price also tweeted a picture with a Snickers bar

In a statement the regulator said: “The ASA has launched a formal investigation into tweets by Katie Price and Rio Ferdinand to establish whether Mars’ @SnickersUK#hungry#spon campaign is in breach of the Advertising Codes.

“We are investigating two points: (a) whether it should have been stated in the ‘teaser’ tweets that they were marketing communications and (b) whether the hashtag “#spon” in the final ‘reveal’ tweet made it clear enough that that tweet was a marketing communication.”

More at: http://news.sky.com/home/showbiz-news/article/16157569

The ever-present coffee chain is expanding its dominant position on the market by offering a range of beer and wine to its customers, alongside a wider choice of savoury nibbles such as flatbreads and cheese plates.

The move is intended to draw in a larger proportion of evening customers looking to relax after work.

Starbucks is currently testing the initiative at a series of select stores in Spain and the US, where Burger King is already experimenting with the sale of in-store alcohol.

There are no plans as yet to bring alcohol to UK shops, although it may be on the cards if schemes in other countries are successful.

More at: http://www.stylist.co.uk/life/starbucks-to-sell-wine#image-rotator-1

There are a lot of articles circulating about the benefits of mobile advertising. In fact, many companies and brands are embracing mobile advertising and seeing impressive results. However, the mobile advertising market hasn’t been cornered by one particular vendor and some are wondering if Facebook is going to join the mobile scene.

Facebook is recognized as one of the top social media sites. Plus, numerous businesses appreciate the advance targeting features that are available in Facebook such as demographics, interests, connections, etc.

Some would like to use these advanced settings to reach the mobile market. This means businesses would already be prepared to pay Facebook to reach their respective audience.

Another plus is that people use their cell phones to check on their Facebook accounts already, so it’s not like Facebook would have to entice anyone to go on their site via a mobile device. They also, have loads of mobile user data at their fingertips.

According to an article on CNET, “Facebook already has access to data of a large mobile user base”… Facebook says nearly half of its nearly 800 million users already log in via mobile devices, giving the network momentum in a market estimated to be worth $630 million.”

More at: http://socialmediatoday.com/dleitchmorevisibilitycom/432670/rumors-about-facebook-mobile

A Berkshire baker claims she has lost her entire year’s profits after posting a deal on money-saving website Groupon.

Rachel Brown, owner of bakery Need a Cake, advertised a 75% discount to the website’s subscribers but underestimated the demands she would receive. Marketing 12 cupcakes at a cost of £6.50 instead of the usual £26, Brown had to cut off the orders at 8,500 requests and ended up losing almost £3 for every batch she sold. 

The entrepreneur told The Telegraph: “As soon as we were making, packaging and sending the cakes out, we were on to the next order. It was non-stop.”

Normally producing around only 100 cupcakes per week, Brown was forced to take on additional staff to fill the orders, resulting in an extra £19,500 in shipping and labour costs.

Reflecting on the discount nightmare, the business owner added it was “without doubt, the worst ever business decision I have made”.

More at: http://www.businesszone.co.uk/topic/business-trends/groupon-deal-wipes-out-cupcake-bakers-profits/38254

More at: http://www.boredpanda.com/20-more-creative-guerrilla-advertisiments/

Glamour’s September issue generated 50,814 Facebook “likes” for its advertisers by including 2-D barcodes incorporating the social network, according to the magazine and SpyderLynk, which created the new Social SnapTags that Glamour used.

Readers are encountering 2-D barcodes in magazines and elsewhere more and more often, but Glamour wanted to see whether codes invoking Facebook would spur more readers to action — and round up Facebook fans in the process.

Glamour ran the program to answer advertisers who were asking how to get more ‘likes,’ said Jenny Bowman, executive creative services director at Glamour, which is published by Conde Nast. “This seemed like a logical solution,” she said. “We loved what SpyderLynk had to offer with a Facebook logo in the circle that was different from other 2-D barcodes.”

The codes were activated by over 100,000 readers, or 4.2% of the issue’s paid circulation as filed with the Audit Bureau of Circulation’s Rapid Report service and 0.8% of the magazine’s average total audience according to GfK MRI’s most recent round of research.

Readers interacted with the issue via its Social SnapTags 512,339 times, whether that meant scanning the codes with an app, taking a photo and sending it in, or taking subsequent actions such as agreeing to “like” an advertiser or article, signing up for the deal or sweepstakes being offered, or sharing the offer with friends.

“It was strong out of the gate and proved that readers wanted that print-mobile experience,” Ms. Bowman said. “And the numbers stayed strong over the month, not just in the first two weeks. The momentum continued. I think that had a lot to do with the sharing capabilities of the app.”

More at: http://adage.com/article/mediaworks/glamour-s-social-2-d-barcodes-performed-advertisers/230795/

Celebrity endorsements are set to be introduced to Google’s search results as part of a new advertising trial.

Christian Oestlien, Google’s head of social advertising, announced the trial at the SMX Conference in New York City and stated that celebrity endorsements will appear under paid search results during the testing process.

The new feature will work in conjunction with Adwords and will see products linked to famous faces. Currently the Kardashians and a few others have signed up.

A spokesman for the search engine said: “We’re always testing new ways to make advertising more compelling to our users and advertisers
“Some advertisers use celebrity endorsement in their ads. This test extends the option of celebrity endorsement to online campaigns.”

These endorsements will be shown in the sponsored ads at the top of Google+ pages in the US first. They will be rolled-out in the UK shortly afterwards.

More at: http://www.iabuk.net/en/1/googletointroducecelebendorsements210911.mxs

According to a study of the future of poster advertising in the UK by media agency Kinetic Worldwide, digital out of home (DooH) media will increase its market share as a result of digital technology in the next 10 years. Consumers will also become accustomed to interacting with large numbers of smart posters.

It also predicts DooH’s total share of media will rise from £880m (2010) to £1.15bn by 2020. Digital revenues will reach almost £260m accounting for approximately 23 per cent of total out of home spend.

Kinetic has analysed industry data, consulted media and advertising experts and carried out new research to draw a series of conclusions including:

More than 100,000 digital posters will be visible in 30 major cities across the country, large numbers of ‘smart’ posters will be able to recognise whether you are male or female, your age, and even whether you are happy or sad will appear over the next five years.