How many times have you shopped online for something, or even just bought it, and become deluged with ads for that very item from that company and its competitors? At a recent I-COM meeting, Central Control CEO Rick Bruner pointed out, "We read the predictive indicators of likeliness to buy pretty well (let's say). But, most of those consumers probably would have bought the product anyway, regardless of the advertising. The job of the advertising should be to persuade people to buy your product, not to predict which ones are about to. Presumably, it's the creative that does the work of the persuasion, but the targeting should be directed at a class of the audience [that is] the most persuadable, not already most likely to convert. It's the incremental contribution of ads to the exposed audience that we should measure, not the predictive power of who is already about to buy."
Extending Reach to the Unseen Next New Buyer
