Ad firms using tools to help them read your mind

Agencies
December 24, 2017

New York, Dec 24: Why did you splurge on that new pair of shoes? Or that pricey smartphone? More and more advertisers are trying to tap into the unconscious to divine the invisible forces that drive those spending decisions.

Using gadgets to track eye movements, computer maps of faces to capture a momentary grin (approval) or squinting (anger), and sensors to measure perspiration or monitor brain activity, companies are mining consumers' raw emotions for information.

Traditionally, ad firms have measured the success of their campaigns through consumer surveys, but that technique has its limits.

"It's not that people won't tell you, they actually can't tell you why they're making the decision they're making," said Jessica Azoulay, vice president of the market intelligence practice at Isobar, a digital marketing agency.

The new techniques recognize that our purchase decisions are driven by both rational and emotional factors, and reflect research showing the brain takes in information on different levels.

They "enable us to capture many different types of emotions and to be able to profile the emotions that are happening very granularly on a second by second basis," said Elissa Moses, chief executive of the neuro and behavioral science business at Ipsos, a consultancy and market research firm.

"People won't be able to tell you that something irritated them in scene three or thrilled them in scene seven, but we'll know from looking at the facial coding," Moses said.

The technologies can help track if brands are maintaining their edge over competitors, and make ads more effective by determining what to highlight, for example, whether to emphasize the distress of allergy symptoms or the relief of treatment when pitching medications.

And the techniques are being applied to other industries, such as retail, which is experimenting on ways to attract customers in the Amazon era.

"Ultimately there is a dance between the conscious and unconscious," Moses said, noting that "in order to actually buy a product, you have to make a conscious decision."

Some of the techniques were first employed in the 1970s, but now are being more widely adopted as equipment has improved.

An eye tracking test uses technology-enhanced glasses with a camera to record what a person is seeing on a television or in a store and read how long the eye settles on a particular cue.

That can be combined with other methods, such as galvanic skin responses with sensors applied to a person's hand to read perspiration, and electroencephalography (EEG) which reads brain activity through sensors on a person's head.

The data is used to produce a "heat map" with yellow, orange or red "hotspots" that show where the person's eye fixated.

Techniques measuring arousal can signal whether an ad stands out amid today's media avalanche.

Other tests that are becoming more popular seek to shed light on unconscious associations with products or shopping needs.

Johnson & Johnson has tested thousands of consumers about Tylenol pain relief and other over-the-counter products, showing them quick-fire images or words that connote a particular emotion.

Responses are tracked to the tens of milliseconds, said Eric Dolan, associate director for global strategic insights at Johnson & Johnson.

The insights can help determine "whether we want to dig in and reinforce those emotional spaces," or rethink the marketing to convey a different message, he said.

Tivity Health turned to many of these techniques for its "Silver Sneakers" fitness program for seniors, hiring Isobar to help it devise a marketing strategy based on a psychological profile of potential members.

Isobar had more than 1,000 seniors review a series of rapidly presented images and words about exercise. Based on their clicks, the report showed the population most valued exercise because it made them feel empowered or "ready to go."

The finding was important as Tivity weighed potential marketing campaigns, including "Living Life Well," which featured images of age-defying seniors, such as a grandfatherly figure balancing a toddler on his back while doing push-ups.

These ads performed better than an alternative campaign showing groups of smiling seniors together in swim class and in a gym which emphasized the social aspect of Silver Sneakers.

That campaign appeared to fall flat with seniors who view exercise as a means of staying independent, or who may be intimidated at the thought of immediately exercising in a group.

The results countered Tivity's assumption that the social aspect of the program was the "key motivating driver for members," said Elizabeth Rula, who directs research for Tivity Health. "We were a bit surprised."

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Agencies
March 8,2020

New Delhi, Mar 8: In order to spread awareness, a special COVID-19 mobile phone caller tune was launched by all telecom operators with basic infection prevention messages played when a caller dials-out, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on Saturday.

"In order to spread awareness about COVID-19, a special COVID-19 mobile phone caller tune was launched by all telecom operators. Over 117.2 crore subscribers of BSNL, MTNL Reliance Jio, Airtel and Vodafone-Idea are being progressively reached out to through SMSs and Call Backs," Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said in a press statement.

"As many as 52 laboratories are now operational across the country for testing the COVID-19 virus. An additional 57 laboratories have been provided with Viral Transport Media and swabs for sample collection," the statement added.

India has 39 confirmed cases of deadly coronavirus so far. The disease has caused deaths of 3200 people globally. 

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News Network
January 17,2020

New Delhi, Jan 17: E-commerce major Amazon on Friday said it plans to create one million new jobs in India over the next five years through investments in technology, infrastructure and its logistics network.

These jobs are in addition to the seven lakh jobs Amazon's investments have enabled over the last six years in the country.

"Amazon plans to create one million new jobs in India by 2025," the company said in a statement, adding that the jobs - created both directly and indirectly - will be across industries, including information technology, skill development, content creation, retail, logistics, and manufacturing.

Amazon.com Inc chief Jeff Bezos had on Wednesday announced USD 1 billion (over Rs 7,000 crore) investment in India to help bring small and medium businesses online and committed to exporting USD 10 billion worth of India-made goods by 2025.

"We are investing to create a million new jobs here in India over the next five years," Bezos said.

"We’ve seen huge contributions from our employees, extraordinary creativity from the small businesses we've partnered with, and great enthusiasm from the customers who shop with us—and we’re excited about what lies ahead," Bezos added.

India has prioritised job creation and skilling initiatives – including the training of more than 400 million people by 2022 – in rural and urban areas.

"Amazon’s job creation commitment and investment in traders and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) complement this social inclusion and social mobility efforts by creating more opportunities for people in India to find employment, build skills, and expand entrepreneurship opportunities," the statement said.

The new investments will help to hire talent to fill roles across Amazon in India, including software development engineering, cloud computing, content creation, and customer support.

Since 2014, Amazon has grown its employee base more than four times, and last year inaugurated its new campus building in Hyderabad – Amazon’s first fully-owned campus outside the United States and the largest building globally in terms of employees (15,000) and space (9.5 acres).

The investments will also help in expanding growth opportunities for the more than 5,50,000 traders and micro, small, and medium-sized businesses – including local shops – through programs like Saheli, Karigar, and “I Have Space”.

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Agencies
February 27,2020

Feb 27: With the window to submit comments on India's proposed personal data protection law closing on Tuesday, a period of anxious wait for final version of the Bill started for social media firms.

This comes even as global Internet companies have called on the government for improved transparency related to intermediary Guidelines (Amendment) Rules and allay fears about the prospect of increased surveillance and prompting a fragmentation of the Internet in India that would harm users.

As per the proposed amendments, an intermediary having over 50 lakh users in the country will have to be incorporated in India with a permanent registered office and address.

When required by lawful order, the intermediary shall, within 72 hours of communication, provide such information or assistance as asked for by any government agency or assistance concerning security of the state or cybersecurity.

This means that the government could pull down information provided by platforms such as Wikipedia, potentially hampering its functioning in India.

In the open letter to IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, leading browser and software development platform like Mozilla, Microsoft-owned GitHub and Cloudflare earlier called for improved transparency by allowing the public an opportunity to see a final version of these amendments prior to their enactment.

According to a Business Insider report, Indian users may lose access to Wikipedia if the new intermediary rules for internet and social media companies are approved.

Since the rules would require the website to take down content deemed illegal by the government, it would require Wikipedia to show different content for different countries.

Anusha Alikhan, senior communications director for Wikimedia told Business Insider that the platform is built though languages and not geographies. Therefore, removing content from one country, while it is still visible to other country users may not work for the company’s model.

India is one of Wikipedia’s largest markets. Over 771 million Indian users accessed the site in just November 2019.

Also read: Explained: What is the Personal Data Protection Bill and why you should care

The Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019, which was introduced in Lok Sabha in the winter session last year, was referred to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) of both the Houses.

The government last month decided to seek views and suggestions on the Bill from individuals and associations and bodies concerned and the last date for submitting the comments was on Tuesday.

Prasad, while introducing the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019, in the Lok Sabha on December 11, announced that the draft Bill empowers the government to ask companies including Facebook, Google and others for anonymised personal data and non-personal data.

There was a buzz when the Bill's latest version was introduced in the Lok Sabha, especially the provision seeking to allow the use of personal and non-personal data of users in some cases, especially when national security is involved.

Several legal experts red-flagged the issue and said the provision will give the government unaccounted access to personal data of users in the country.

In their submission to the JPC, several organisations also flagged that the power to collect non-personal and anonymised data by the government without notice and consent should not form part of the Bill because of issues regarding effective anonymisation and potential abuse.

"Clauses 35 and 36 of the Bill provide unbridled access to personal data to the Central Government by giving it powers to exempt its agencies from the application of the Bill on the basis of various broad worded grounds," SFLC.in, a New Delhi-based not-for-profit legal services organisation, commented.

The Software Alliance, also known as BSA, a trade group which includes tech giants such as Microsoft, IBM and Adobe, among others said that the current version of the privacy bill pose substantial challenges, including the sweeping new powers for the government to acquire non-personal data, restrictions on data transfers, and local storage requirements.

"We urge the Joint Parliamentary Committee, as it considers revisions to the Bill, to eliminate provisions concerning non-personal data from the Personal Data Protection Bill and to remove the data localisation requirements and restrictions on international data flows," said Venkatesh Krishnamoorthy, Country Manager-India, BSA.

The Personal Data Protection (PDP) Bill, 2019 draws its origins from the Justice B.N. Srikrishna Committee on data privacy, which produced a draft of legislation that was made public in 2018 ("the Srikrishna Bill").

The mandatory requirement for storing a mirror copy of all personal data in India as per Section 40 of the Srikrishna Bill has been done away with in the PDP Bill, 2019, meaning that companies like Facebook and Twitter would be able to store data of Indian users abroad if they so wish.

But the bill prohibits processing of sensitive personal data and critical personal data outside India.

What is more, what constitutes critical data has not been clearly defined.

As per the proposals, social media companies will have to modify their application as they are required to have a system in place by which a user can verify themselves.

So legal experts believe that some system to upload identification documents should be there and something like the Twitter blue tick mark should be there to identify verified accounts.

"The 2019 Bill introduces a new category of data fiduciaries called social media intermediaries ('SMIs'). SMIs are a subcategory of significant data fiduciaries ('SDFs') and will be notified by the Central government after due consultation with the DPA, or the Data Protection Authority. Clause 26(4) of the Bill defines SMIs as intermediaries who primarily or solely enable online interaction between two or more users," SFLC.in said.

"On a plain reading of the definition, online platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, ShareChat and WhatsApp are likely to be notified as SMIs under the Bill," it added.

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