3 ms·

You said "not groups" but then you wrote a bunch of words that describe "groups" so the distinction you're trying to draw doesn't make any sense.

teachingassist 5y ago
I understand that the parent's point is "people who are into fishing and baby wipes" is not a coherent or meaningful group (in the sense of 'stratum' or 'cohort') of the population. Neither fishing nor baby wipe marketeers would typically care about this so-called group. If you are really applying attribute tags to individuals, you are not "grouping" them in the usually-understood meaning of stratifying. In truth, you are still building an individual profile for each person, but describing it in a disingenuous way.
jerf 5y ago
My point is that advertisers aren't interested in groups of people as they are whole people, but just fragments of individuals that happen to match very specific characteristics they are advertising at. Under most circumstances this would be a distinction without a difference, but in this specific case it turns out to be important. If advertisers are interested in "groups" than they may still think of themselves as needing identity, and demographic breakdowns, and wanting addresses for those groups, etc... but if you conceive of all they care about as being "in the market for baby wipes" there is no reason to give advertisers anything more than "here is an advertising opportunity for baby wipes", and no other information. Not an aggregation of "individuals", with all the extraneous baggage that comes with, but aggregations of fine slices of attributes that they have no need to correlate to anything else. (Only residual desire because they're probably still used to thinking about "individuals".)
- bryan_w 5y ago
  I'm having trouble understanding your point. >there is no reason to give advertisers anything more than "here is an advertising opportunity for baby wipes", and no other information. That's exactly what advertisers are offered. Do you believe otherwise?

teachingassist 5y ago

I understand that the parent's point is "people who are into fishing and baby wipes" is not a coherent or meaningful group (in the sense of 'stratum' or 'cohort') of the population. Neither fishing nor baby wipe marketeers would typically care about this so-called group. If you are really applying attribute tags to individuals, you are not "grouping" them in the usually-understood meaning of stratifying. In truth, you are still building an individual profile for each person, but describing it in a disingenuous way.

jerf 5y ago

My point is that advertisers aren't interested in groups of people as they are whole people, but just fragments of individuals that happen to match very specific characteristics they are advertising at. Under most circumstances this would be a distinction without a difference, but in this specific case it turns out to be important. If advertisers are interested in "groups" than they may still think of themselves as needing identity, and demographic breakdowns, and wanting addresses for those groups, etc... but if you conceive of all they care about as being "in the market for baby wipes" there is no reason to give advertisers anything more than "here is an advertising opportunity for baby wipes", and no other information. Not an aggregation of "individuals", with all the extraneous baggage that comes with, but aggregations of fine slices of attributes that they have no need to correlate to anything else. (Only residual desire because they're probably still used to thinking about "individuals".)

bryan_w 5y ago
I'm having trouble understanding your point. >there is no reason to give advertisers anything more than "here is an advertising opportunity for baby wipes", and no other information. That's exactly what advertisers are offered. Do you believe otherwise?