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"People consistently tell us that if they’re going to see ads, they want them to be relevant." I am assuming the "people" he is referencing are the advertisers

"People consistently tell us that if they’re going to see ads, they want them to be relevant." I am assuming the "people" he is referencing are the advertisers, not the users.

adoago 8y ago
This really does feel like a false choice. Do you want to see ads? > No You have to. Now would you prefer those ads are relevant or irrelevant?
- product50 8y ago
  Would you rather pay FB for providing you a service?
ipsum2 8y ago
Would you prefer to see irrelevant ads instead?
- danamkaplan 8y ago
  Sure, if it involves less data collection.
  - danamkaplan 8y ago
    I'd rather try to be sold something I don't care about, so I can walk away from that ad.
- adoago 8y ago
  I think we need to clarify some terms here. Advertising by its very nature is disruptive. It's goal is to interrupt you or grab your attention so that you look at SOMETHING and become aware of it, start to form associations, etc. There really isn't such thing is "relevant" advertising in the sense that ads pertain to my current activity, which, by the way, Zuck insists is "connecting to people." The real question you're asking is: Would you rather trade some of your data so we can show you ads that you are more likely to click because we have ascertained that these value propositions are likely to drive some kind of an action? (And by the way action is all we really ever know, and is a so-so proxy for "relevance" or value to the user, c.f., clickbait.) When you ask this question I'm inclined to say some users wouldn't consider this an awesome trade. That's being modest. Disclosure: I make digital ads for a living.
  - stickfigure 8y ago
    trade some of your data This seems a wrong and misleading way of looking at it. Facebook has the data either way, and advertisers aren't getting the data either way. You aren't "trading" anything; the algorithms can either show you something relevant, or show you something irrelevant. Personally, I'd rather see something I might find amusing. I was about to say "it hasn't happened yet", but I actually have clicked on one FB ad (ever) - the mysterious package company, which actually does look interesting. Not enough to give them my money but still, it's a start.
- wzdd 8y ago
  Yes. Irrelevant ads are less likely to influence me to buy something.
- yyyymmddhhmmss 8y ago
  Absolutely. I have never, to my mind, benefitted from a “relevant” ad. I work in advertising. I have heard it all, and all of it essentializes an unrealistically infantile and helpless audience. If the audience is so helpless, how could we even reason they have the means to purchase the product being advertised? It really makes no sense. The answer is extremely easy for me: Give me the irrelevant ads and stop collecting my data.
  - product50 8y ago
    Then you can simply opt out of FB ads controls. And enjoy the irrelevant ads.
    - danamkaplan 8y ago
      They get my sweet, sweet data though...right?
      - product50 8y ago
        Well they are only using your data now for ranking your organic news feed and other operational purposes (such as catching fraud which, I hope, you will believe is a big problem on social networks). Unless now you are like I don't even want FB to rank the news feed and show me posts from fraudulent accounts..
        danamkaplan 8y ago
        1. I am not on FB. I think i made it clear that I do not support their company or product. 2. I do NOT want FB to rank the newsfeed. It should be deleted or ranked by time. The more parts of a social media product handed over to a ranking or search or algorithmic feed, the more chance they have for anti-user patterns: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/08/social-media-copies-gambling-methods-to-create-psychological-cravings https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/08/social-me... 3. How would a fraudulent account show up on a feed? I'm actually curious. Do they need to be friended first?
- beezischillin 8y ago
  The only things to ever sell me anything were news articles about cool new innovative products and YouTube videos showing products like that off, from people I subscribe to or other creators in their community. I've learned to mentally block out any ad-space-based advertising a long time ago, in the Warez-site era of the late 90s, early 2000s. I mostly just get annoyed by the disruption of useful space but I don't even really process ads, I couldn't tell you what the last ad I've seen was, even tho I'm watching a YouTube video with mid-roll ads right now. I don't trust ads. Especially since I've grown up in Eastern Europe, ad-spaces were always littered with dodgy things here. It's still not a common thing to see ads for products from big brands, etc. Last year I've seen Jesus-cult (not kidding, it was some weird religious sect advertising), Russian singles banner ads on YouTube itself. Oh, and I forgot about the one for "winning the luxury cruise of your dreams". The only exception to pointless, dodgy and creepy ads I see daily are the e-commerce site product carousel ads. Those more than often advertise products or alternatives to products I just bought. Very useful! I would very much like to be left out of "personalised" advertising. If this is what my data gets me and gets you as an advertiser then we're both better off with me keeping it to myself anyway. If I want to hear from your products, I'll subscribe to your newsletter or visit your site.
- justwalt 8y ago
  Personally, yes. It's easier for me to feel less psychologically manipulated if I'm seeing ads for tampons, in addition to not feeling like someone knows more about me than I'm comfortable with.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 8y ago
  Yes, I prefer that people who try to manipulate me in their own interest do so as ineffectively as possible. Do you have a different preference?
- crispinb 8y ago
  There's zero room for ads in my life, so I see almost none. Where some slip through, I consider them an imposition that I avert my gaze from, so I'm indifferent to their content.
- ACow_Adonis 8y ago
  Obviously the objection is that its a sentence like: "People consistently tell us that if we're going to hit them, they want it to not be in the face".
bitxbit 8y ago
I am shocked that some people are still influenced by online ads. I mentally blocked them and I almost always make informed buying decisions based off of evidence/data.
- choochootrain 8y ago
  well then you must be inhuman because subconscious bias plays a part in online advertising. sure you can mentally block them but eventually you will fatigue from the cognitive overhead. sorry to paint such a bleak picture but this stuff is ubiquitous, both online and offline, and it will eventually and consistently break your mental defenses in a way that you might not even notice.
- product50 8y ago
  Well - you need to realize you are absolutely an outlier. The entire online advertising thrives because ads - as a function of ROI - works. A $ which an advertiser puts in generally [1] nets out to more than a $ that they get back. [1] I use generally and not specifically since on average the ROI is positive but for some advertisers the ROI is negative too.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- underwater 8y ago
  This seems to be a common comment. But advertising loves to take advantage of quirks in human psychology. It seems a bit of a stretch to claim to be immune to advertising. Even if you do carefully research your purchases, you're influenced by which products you're exposed to, which are reviewed, social media chatter, etc. This is all heavily influenced by marketing efforts which are a lot more subtle than banner ads.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
bertil 8y ago
No, this is the result of studies on users. People shown their News Feed with relevant ads regularly mention that this was interesting content and do not point it out as ads. This is not an exception, but common for brands with certain characteristics. One example of that is music of film trailers. They however regularly describe as Ads and resent the presence of content that was not sponsored (at least not to Facebook). MLMs and “influencer”-type of content is a caricature; other objections are more idiosyncratic. There are some ads that are seen as such, but those are generally from brands who don’t use Facebook self-optimisation tools or insist on a reach that doesn’t make sense (typically, solution vendors). Overall, sponsoring isn’t correlated with interest.

"People consistently tell us that if they’re going to see ads, they want them to be relevant." I am assuming the "people" he is referencing are the advertisers, not the users.

adoago 8y ago

This really does feel like a false choice. Do you want to see ads? > No You have to. Now would you prefer those ads are relevant or irrelevant?

product50 8y ago
Would you rather pay FB for providing you a service?

ipsum2 8y ago

Would you prefer to see irrelevant ads instead?

danamkaplan 8y ago
Sure, if it involves less data collection.
- danamkaplan 8y ago
  I'd rather try to be sold something I don't care about, so I can walk away from that ad.
adoago 8y ago
I think we need to clarify some terms here. Advertising by its very nature is disruptive. It's goal is to interrupt you or grab your attention so that you look at SOMETHING and become aware of it, start to form associations, etc. There really isn't such thing is "relevant" advertising in the sense that ads pertain to my current activity, which, by the way, Zuck insists is "connecting to people." The real question you're asking is: Would you rather trade some of your data so we can show you ads that you are more likely to click because we have ascertained that these value propositions are likely to drive some kind of an action? (And by the way action is all we really ever know, and is a so-so proxy for "relevance" or value to the user, c.f., clickbait.) When you ask this question I'm inclined to say some users wouldn't consider this an awesome trade. That's being modest. Disclosure: I make digital ads for a living.
- stickfigure 8y ago
  trade some of your data This seems a wrong and misleading way of looking at it. Facebook has the data either way, and advertisers aren't getting the data either way. You aren't "trading" anything; the algorithms can either show you something relevant, or show you something irrelevant. Personally, I'd rather see something I might find amusing. I was about to say "it hasn't happened yet", but I actually have clicked on one FB ad (ever) - the mysterious package company, which actually does look interesting. Not enough to give them my money but still, it's a start.
wzdd 8y ago
Yes. Irrelevant ads are less likely to influence me to buy something.
yyyymmddhhmmss 8y ago
Absolutely. I have never, to my mind, benefitted from a “relevant” ad. I work in advertising. I have heard it all, and all of it essentializes an unrealistically infantile and helpless audience. If the audience is so helpless, how could we even reason they have the means to purchase the product being advertised? It really makes no sense. The answer is extremely easy for me: Give me the irrelevant ads and stop collecting my data.
- product50 8y ago
  Then you can simply opt out of FB ads controls. And enjoy the irrelevant ads.
  - danamkaplan 8y ago
    They get my sweet, sweet data though...right?
    - product50 8y ago
      Well they are only using your data now for ranking your organic news feed and other operational purposes (such as catching fraud which, I hope, you will believe is a big problem on social networks). Unless now you are like I don't even want FB to rank the news feed and show me posts from fraudulent accounts..
      - danamkaplan 8y ago
        1. I am not on FB. I think i made it clear that I do not support their company or product. 2. I do NOT want FB to rank the newsfeed. It should be deleted or ranked by time. The more parts of a social media product handed over to a ranking or search or algorithmic feed, the more chance they have for anti-user patterns: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/08/social-media-copies-gambling-methods-to-create-psychological-cravings https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/08/social-me... 3. How would a fraudulent account show up on a feed? I'm actually curious. Do they need to be friended first?
beezischillin 8y ago
The only things to ever sell me anything were news articles about cool new innovative products and YouTube videos showing products like that off, from people I subscribe to or other creators in their community. I've learned to mentally block out any ad-space-based advertising a long time ago, in the Warez-site era of the late 90s, early 2000s. I mostly just get annoyed by the disruption of useful space but I don't even really process ads, I couldn't tell you what the last ad I've seen was, even tho I'm watching a YouTube video with mid-roll ads right now. I don't trust ads. Especially since I've grown up in Eastern Europe, ad-spaces were always littered with dodgy things here. It's still not a common thing to see ads for products from big brands, etc. Last year I've seen Jesus-cult (not kidding, it was some weird religious sect advertising), Russian singles banner ads on YouTube itself. Oh, and I forgot about the one for "winning the luxury cruise of your dreams". The only exception to pointless, dodgy and creepy ads I see daily are the e-commerce site product carousel ads. Those more than often advertise products or alternatives to products I just bought. Very useful! I would very much like to be left out of "personalised" advertising. If this is what my data gets me and gets you as an advertiser then we're both better off with me keeping it to myself anyway. If I want to hear from your products, I'll subscribe to your newsletter or visit your site.
justwalt 8y ago
Personally, yes. It's easier for me to feel less psychologically manipulated if I'm seeing ads for tampons, in addition to not feeling like someone knows more about me than I'm comfortable with.
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 8y ago
Yes, I prefer that people who try to manipulate me in their own interest do so as ineffectively as possible. Do you have a different preference?
crispinb 8y ago
There's zero room for ads in my life, so I see almost none. Where some slip through, I consider them an imposition that I avert my gaze from, so I'm indifferent to their content.
ACow_Adonis 8y ago
Obviously the objection is that its a sentence like: "People consistently tell us that if we're going to hit them, they want it to not be in the face".

bitxbit 8y ago

I am shocked that some people are still influenced by online ads. I mentally blocked them and I almost always make informed buying decisions based off of evidence/data.

choochootrain 8y ago
well then you must be inhuman because subconscious bias plays a part in online advertising. sure you can mentally block them but eventually you will fatigue from the cognitive overhead. sorry to paint such a bleak picture but this stuff is ubiquitous, both online and offline, and it will eventually and consistently break your mental defenses in a way that you might not even notice.
product50 8y ago
Well - you need to realize you are absolutely an outlier. The entire online advertising thrives because ads - as a function of ROI - works. A $ which an advertiser puts in generally [1] nets out to more than a $ that they get back. [1] I use generally and not specifically since on average the ROI is positive but for some advertisers the ROI is negative too.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
underwater 8y ago
This seems to be a common comment. But advertising loves to take advantage of quirks in human psychology. It seems a bit of a stretch to claim to be immune to advertising. Even if you do carefully research your purchases, you're influenced by which products you're exposed to, which are reviewed, social media chatter, etc. This is all heavily influenced by marketing efforts which are a lot more subtle than banner ads.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

bertil 8y ago

No, this is the result of studies on users. People shown their News Feed with relevant ads regularly mention that this was interesting content and do not point it out as ads. This is not an exception, but common for brands with certain characteristics. One example of that is music of film trailers. They however regularly describe as Ads and resent the presence of content that was not sponsored (at least not to Facebook). MLMs and “influencer”-type of content is a caricature; other objections are more idiosyncratic. There are some ads that are seen as such, but those are generally from brands who don’t use Facebook self-optimisation tools or insist on a reach that doesn’t make sense (typically, solution vendors). Overall, sponsoring isn’t correlated with interest.