Monday 22 December 2014

Ads Ruining Christmas Surprise

There are three parts to present buying at Christmas. The first is to find the thing you want to buy, the second is to then go and buy it with the final part being finding somewhere to stash it so the recipient doesn't find out what you have got them.
The first two parts are straight forward but the third is hard enough and that's without the new addition of the computer blabbing it to them by showing what you have been buying for Christmas showing up in ads.
When you visit a retailers website, your viewing is shared with other websites and shows the particular product you looked at or purchased.
Along comes hubby and sees an advert for the trainers or coat that you have been mulling over to put under the tree for Christmas Day and he knows that the smelly Adidas with the holes in the sole can be thrown binwards.
Apparently you can opt out, the adverts have a little triangle in the top corner of the ad but that only works for that product, look at another store and you get their adverts instead and you have to scroll through pages of text explaining why they use targeted ads.
For advertisers, perhaps this is a lesson that they are being a bit too cute with their algorithms especially when it’s common for people to share computers.
Of course they don't really want you opting out, the whole point of advertising is to persuade you to buy something and you can't do if you don't see the adverts, but they must be able to do something so the surprise isn't ruined.

2 comments:

Liber - Latin for "The Free One" said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Lucy said...

I imagine you met the parents of most of the kids in the class that night.