If you are any kind of marketer with any kind of budget you’ve recently been told not to worry about targeting. Your digital agency mate or a salesperson from one of the mega platforms explained that you don’t need to worry about all the old-fashioned target market stuff anymore. Just handover your ad, drop it down the digital mineshaft and through the power of Big Data, amazing AI and the magical healing power of algorithms your ad will find its perfect consumers while you sleep or watch 80s movies or gaze out of the window and wonder why you have a niggling feeling of despair.
The first time you heard this recommendation you probably thought to yourself, “That sounds like shitfuckery”. And there is a good reason to think this. It is shitfuckery. And of the highest possible order. And if you are well trained or simply relatively intelligent you should have become suddenly aware that the red warning lights of marketing bullshit were (once again) flashing around you.
Your cynicism should be prompted by the fact that these are the very same companies and people who – only a few years ago – extolled the exact opposite approach. Remember when it was all about personalisation? Micro-targeting? When it was super-granular? Your digital ad was not just targeted, oh no, it was ‘hyper-targeted’.
Not anymore.
The digital mob now wants you to…
